There are several considerations and moving parts to the EDIS publication process. There are four workflow stages: submission, review, copyediting, and production. This blog post aims to provide information that can assist authors in each stage.

Before Submitting a Manuscript: Best Practices

Submissions for EDIS are processed through OJS (Open Journal Systems). Be sure to review the considerations and requirements on the Submission Preparation Checklist before submitting your manuscript.

Make sure your manuscript is in the EDIS Word template, which is available through the EDIS Admin site. The EDIS/Ask IFAS Support page has additional templates and instructions. Use the Styles pane in the template to mark different manuscript elements for accessibility (e.g., titles, author lists, headings, subheadings, figures, captions, credits, tables, etc.). Note: Submitted manuscripts must be in Word, even if the original material was a PDF.

Include proper in-text citations and a list of references in the manuscript. Do not use numbered endnotes or footnotes for your citations.

For more information, watch the UF/IFAS webinars on accessible Word best practices and working with the EDIS template.

Images

For images, include descriptive caption lines, credits, and alt text in the manuscript.

Confirm that all images and figures are appropriate for use. Whenever possible, it is best to use images taken by UF/IFAS employees, and images from within UF/IFAS (i.e., images from the UF/IFAS photo database or photos taken by the authors for the publication). Adobe Stock images are another option. If using Adobe Stock imagery, log in with your GatorLink credentials and list the image credits as “© [photographer] / Adobe Stock.” Images from iNaturalist can also be used (see “Finding Research Grade Images on iNaturalist”).

If you must use imagery from a different external source, acquire written permission from the copyright holder to use the image and document the permission granted using the EDIS Attributions Form prior to submission. Include the PDF documenting permission granted with your submission files.

Submission

Submit your manuscript in OJS to the department or center of the supporting faculty author. If the submission is time-sensitive, include a note in the submission stage to the department editor. Ask the department editor to communicate the deadline to the ICS editor once the manuscript is ready for the copyediting stage. You can also include in the note to the editor a short list of potential reviewers.

Review

When the submission is in the review stage, you may receive notifications through OJS that changes to your manuscript are needed. Address reviewer comments and upload updated versions to the Review tab in OJS. During this stage, requests for status updates should go to your department editor.

Once the submission has been accepted and administratively approved, the department editor must send it to the copyediting stage.

Copyediting

In the copyediting stage, the ICS editor for your department reviews the accepted manuscript and uses Track Changes in Word to suggest edits and add comments on your work. The editor will send the edited manuscript to you for review and ask you to address issues in the comments, approve the changes, and/or make additional edits.

Send your edits to the ICS editor. The ICS editor will review your revisions and send the final draft of the manuscript to the production stage.

Production

In the production stage, the layout editor generates the HTML version and the PDF version of your manuscript.

After generating the formatted documents, the layout editor sends the PDF to the proofreader.

The proofreader does a comparison proof between the manuscript that was sent to production and the PDF, then sends changes to the ICS editor.

The ICS editor will send you a notification as well as the PDF for a final round of author proofreading. The ICS editor will ask you to review the PDF, make note of any additional changes needed, and approve it for publication. If you see anything in the document that needs to be modified prior to publication, let the ICS editor know during this step.

Once the above step is complete, congratulations! Your publication will be available online in the EDIS journal. There may be a delay before the publication’s DOI is registered with Crossref.

Are you interested in seeing how final EDIS documents look online? Simply Ask IFAS to explore currently available HTML and PDF versions of EDIS documents across a variety of disciplines.

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