Summary of activities 2016

As you will see with this Editorial, it has been a year of intense activity at the Journal of Maps (JoM). The most important announcement is the move of JoM back to an Open Access (OA) publishing model which was effective from 1st September 2016. This is a decision that has been taken after careful consideration by the Editorial Board and sees us move back to our roots as an OA journal that began back in 2003. It is interesting to review my 2011 Editorial (Smith, 2011) where I note:

By working with our publishers, Taylor and Francis, we were able to expand the profile of the journal and remove the administrative burden of the publication process. And this is a reminder that journal publication is not a cost free process and at that time JoM opted to operate a subscription model. This position has not changed and, in fact, is quite the opposite. A successful journal is a community endeavour where we all interact as part of our academic journeys. Some are starting out, others coming to an end, but we are all able to bring experiences, expertise and new knowledge to bear on the world around and beyond us. Publishing takes time and considerable effort by all those involved and that deserves to be both supported and resourced, planning for the longevity of that community.
The decision to move to OA has therefore been taken to sustain the long-term future of JoM and should be understood within the context of the wider academic publishing industry and, in particular, the requirement of many national governments to enable free and OA to the published outputs of funded research projects (European Commission, 2014;Government of the Netherlands, 2014;RCUK, 2013). This is no better exemplified than by the Finch Group (2012) report to the UK government noting that 'Our view is that the UK should embrace the transition to OA.' In the Editorial that year (Smith, 2012) I placed this within the context of the industry at that timeand just to be clear, for self-funding journals, there are only two options: author pays or reader pays. How you load the payment burden will change the 'flow' of research money through the system and, inevitably, will lead to a shift in those who benefit or lose from such a change.
The requirement to publish OA for many authors coupled with the ability to widely disseminate published work is a strong benefit to such a change. And since the publication of the Finch Report it has been a case of not if to change, but rather when to change. It is therefore very positive that Taylor and Francis have been proactive in the longer term sustainability of their journals and JoM will be one of the earliest to make this switch. There was also careful scrutiny of the article processing charge (APC) for manuscript publication and I am happy to note that this will be a competitive £400 making it affordable for the widest range of authors as possible.
One of the effects of the transition to OA has been to fairly manage those papers that were not published at the time of the change. To be clear, all papers published that were submitted on or after 1st September 2016 will be OA and pay the APC. However, in order to provide a 'clean slate' start to OA, Taylor and Francis will be publishing the journal backlog as a supplement and all content from 2005 to 2016 will be free to view and reuse as per their original licenses. This will enable a full and fair transition to OA.

A year in numbers: 2016
With 2016 coming to a close, and planning for the JoM through 2017 now well underway, it is pleasing to see that this year has continued the trend of increased submissions, reduced peer review times and our continued focus upon the best manuscripts and maps. In 2015 we published 72 articles across 805 pages, whilst this year we published 206 articles across 1875 pages. This dramatic increase is a direct result of publishing out our backlog and means that authors can expect a timely publication of their articles once they have been accepted. Our Impact Factor (2015) increased from 1.193 to 1.435; this is an excellent performance, reflecting the increased trend in the number of citations. Overall total incoming citations increased from 362 to 470, with 188 recorded over the 2015 census period. Downloads from the Taylor and Francis website for 2015 totalled 32,972, with 2016 recording 35,598 downloads for the first three-quarters of the year (20,816 at the same point last year).
Following up last year's announcement about the 'Interact' initiative for the redesign of article PDFs, these are now active for all articles published from issue four this year and provide a modern and aesthetically pleasing design. In addition, the multi-column layout also makes it easier to read the content! It is also worth noting that the journal website at Taylor and Francis has undergone a complete rebuild and is designed to follow a more modern 'minimalist' design that is clear in its usage and consistent in its application, requiring very little function discovery on the part of the user. It is based upon a 'responsive' design philosophy so that the layout of the screen changes with the size of the browser, meaning that it maintains functionality from mobile through to desktop.
In terms of metrics for individual articles, the top four cited (2014-2016) and downloaded (2016)

Best map award
For 2016 the 'Best Map' was judged by the formal awards panel comprised of myself, Dr Dick Berg, Professor Keith Clarke, Dr Jeremy Porter and Mr Mike Shand (and this section reflects our combined comments). Contributions are assessed upon both their academic content and cartographic quality. It is neither the best academic paper nor the best designed map, but a combination of qualities from both areas that is judged the winner. Given the very large number of publications this year, the awards committee decided to increase the shortlist and so the following 21 maps were reviewed for the award: Bianucci, G., Di Celma, C., Landini, W., Post, K., Tinelli, C., de Muizon, C., Gariboldi, K., Malinverno, E., Cantalamessa, G., Gioncada, A., Collareta, A., Gismondi, R.   Representing coastal land use in the island of Gran Canaria Thomson, L., Copland, L. (2016) White Glacier 2014, Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut; Mapped using structure from motion methods Vasiliauskas, D., Beconyte, G. (2016) Cartography of crime: Portrait of metropolitan Vilnius Viciani, D., Dell'Olmo, L., Ferretti, G., Lazzaro, L., Lastrucci, L., Foggi, B. (2016) Detailed Natura 2000 and CORINE Biotopes habitat maps of the island of Elba (Tuscan Archipelago, Italy) It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce the award of the 2016 'Best Map' to Bernhard Jenny (RMIT University), Johannes Liem (City University London), Bojan Savric (Esri Inc) and William M. Putman (Goddard Space Flight Center) for their animated map visualizing a year of changes to Earth's CO 2 . When the map is first loaded it appears as an animated map of the world showing just how dynamic this part of the Earth system is. But interact with the mapyou find it is pannable and zoomableall other ways of interacting with 4D data seem mundane in comparison.
The awards committee noted the remarkable interactive animation; something that both tells a story and allows you to investigate. A big leap forward for interactive cartography, drawing the viewer in and allowing them to formulate potential global implications. For these reasons it is a deserving winner of this year's award.

With gratitude and thanks
Each year I formally like to thank all those involved with the JoM and, in particular, authors for submitting manuscripts, the academic community of readers who find our content interesting and, I hope, wider society who, directly or indirectly, benefit from the work undertaken by researchers who publish with us. The JoM is more than an academic journalit leverages 'geography' as the glue that seamlessly runs through many of the sciences and social sciences, providing a forum and arena of output for a range of invaluable material. I know the Editorial Board share this wider vision and we look forward to our future with renewed vigour. I am also grateful to the team at JoM which includes the Associate Editors (Table 1) and those at Taylor and Francis (and in particular Lydia Webb, Katie Johnson and Eilise Norris). In addition, I am very grateful to the authors for choosing to publish with the JoM and the referees (Table 2) for whom the process of review is often a hidden and unseen task, yet so important for the publication process.