INFORMS Open Forum

Management Science: Feedback on Fast Track from Junior Faculty

  • 1.  Management Science: Feedback on Fast Track from Junior Faculty

    Posted 03-20-2018 07:17

    Dear Colleagues, 

    I was struck by the excitement about and interest in the new Fast Track submission process that many of you articulated in response to my previous blog "Fast Track Submission in Management Science." Indeed, most of the replies I received shared a common thread. The management science community expects the new submission process will receive a good traction, hopefully leading to faster dissemination of some of our field's most important work.

     

    One question that I received from a few junior faculty can be paraphrased in the following way:

     

    "From a tenure/letter-writing perspective, do you think an article in Fast Track would carry as much weight as a normal full article?  We're trying to decide where exactly to submit our work (Fast Track vs Normal), and some of us have concerns that a Fast Track article may be dismissed and not be as respected."

     

    I appreciate this concern and indeed this was the topic of discussion in the last Management Science editorial board meeting. To address this concern, the Management Science editorial board is making sure that Fast Track papers will be viewed as highly as (if not more so than) regular submissions. For that reason, Fast Track papers are not labeled and hence they have the same look and feel as regular papers. The intent is to disseminate high quality work quickly, with no sacrifice to the Management Science's publication standards. Therefore, Fast Track is focused on papers whose merit is 'obvious' and papers that will seed new research or have immediate impact in some way.

     

    David Simchi-Levi

    Editor-in-Chief

    Management Science

    E-mail: mseic@mit.edu

     



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    David Simchi-Levi
    Professor of Engineering Systems
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Cambridge MA
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