The First Year of Implementing a Strategy to Develop the Journal of Sustainable Mining

Abstract

Last year, 2013, was a time of significant change for the Editorial Office in charge of the journal of the Central Mining Institute (GIG), Katowice. We devised and implemented a development strategy aimed at introducing the Journal of Sustainable Mining to the international community of science. The biggest changes concerned the title, layout, form of publishing, language, as well as beginning cooperation with foreign reviewers. We changed the title from Prace Naukowe GIG. Gornictwo i Środowisko (English title: Research Reports of the Central Mining Institute. Mining & Environment) to the Journal of Sustainable Mining, which better reflects the content of the papers published in the journal. It also increases international recognition of the journal, which follows the main aim of the adopted development strategy. In 2013 we launched an English-language online version of the journal aimed at the international scientific community. Papers are published on the website of the journal on a daily basis, once all the editorial work on a given text has been completed. This publishing formula guarantees that the content of the journal is up-to-date, relevant and seen by the scientific community immediately. The accuracy of language is monitored and checked by a Language Editor – a native speaker of English. The online version is described as the original (reference) version of the journal, which will be evaluated by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland 1 and specialist databases. The journal is financed by funds granted to the Central Mining Institute for its statutory activities, thus we provide open access to every issue. We firmly believe that open access to this publication will increase its influence. We have designed and implemented a layout for the new website for the journal, the address for which is jsm.gig.eu. With consideration to our pre-existing users we retained the option of using the previous address: www.kwartalnik.gig.eu.