It is my pleasure to thank the Executive Board of the American Auditory Society for honoring me with the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s scientific journal, Ear and Hearing.    I am grateful to Dr. Mario Svirsky for working tirelessly with me to transition the role of Editor-in-Chief from his office to mine.  Our goal has been to make this transition as seamless and unobtrusive as possible to the readership of the journal.  Dr. Svirsky has been a remarkably astute, tireless and generous colleague.  His leadership of the journal for the past 6 years has not only maintained the excellent quality of the journal but has moved us into the 21st century with the initiation of a completely paperless, on-line manuscript submission and review process through our publisher, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.   Through his leadership the Editorial Office now receives and processes all manuscripts in an electronic, web-based system.  Another important improvement has been the development of Ear and Hearing’s electronic archive, which includes every issue going back to 1980 as well as every issue of our predecessor, the Journal of the American Audiology Society.  During Dr. Svirsky’s tenure the journal has become more international.  In 2003, for the first time, the majority of Ear and Hearing submissions were from outside the United States.  The number of submissions to our journal, both domestic and international, has increased steadily.  This resulted in a significant increase in the number of pages while at the same time increasing the journal’s selectivity.  The benefits of these changes to the readership, and to those who give graciously of their time through peer-review, have been substantial. 

The prospect of filling Dr. Svirsky’s shoes is daunting, but made less so by the opportunity to work with the distinguished group of colleagues who make up the Editorial Board for Ear and Hearing.  Each Section Editor has agreed to remain on the Editorial Board for the 2006-2007 editorial year.  I am constantly inspired by their hard work, scholarship, and dedication to the journal.  Working with them and with Dr. Svirsky has made the transition to Editor-in-Chief a consistent pleasure.  It is a credit to their dedication and hard work that Ear and Hearing consistently ranks at the top of the ORL-related journals by the Science Citation Index for both impact factor and immediacy index.

As the scientific journal of the American Auditory Society, Ear and Hearing is dedicated to a multi-disciplinary approach to hearing and balance.  It is critical that we continue to publish articles that address the diverse scientific and clinical underpinnings of all professions interested in understanding and managing disorders of hearing and balance.  This goal can be challenging as we face rapid advances in auditory neuroscience, audiological diagnosis and management, amplification and implant technology.  Nevertheless, we are dedicated to recruiting the very best from each of these fields and to providing our readership with an integrated view across the disciplines.  Along these lines I am particularly interested in developing more publications aimed at translating basic science to clinical practice.  I hope, over the next several years, to be able to recruit articles that bring some of the very best in translational research to the readership of Ear and Hearing.

All authors now submit manuscripts electronically through Editorial Manager located at http://www.editorialmanager.com/eandh/.  Submissions are assigned to an appropriate Section Editor and are reviewed by a minimum of two experts in the subject (a list of reviewers for articles during the previous year appears at the beginning of every November/December issue).  The Section Editor reviews the submission and the comments of the expert reviewers and makes recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief regarding suitability for publication in Ear and Hearing.  All of these recommendations are carefully considered prior to notifying the authors of the journals decision.  Ear and Hearing is a truly multi-disciplinary, international scientific journal.  All submissions are treated with respect regardless of whether the author is a prominent scientist, physician, engineer or graduate student.  Recently concern has been raised throughout the scientific community regarding full disclosure of relationships between authors and funding organizations or product manufacturers.  Ear and Hearing has a policy of full disclosure which states that authors must disclose in the Acknowledgments any association that poses a potential conflict of interest with regard to the submitted manuscript.  Further, if the study received any external support of any type, the author must declare that he/she had editorial control. Any agreement that allows the external sponsor to censor the article or preclude publication will render the manuscript ineligible for publication in Ear and Hearing.  All of the articles published in Ear and Hearing meet the highest standards of peer review. 

Ear and Hearing is fortunate to receive submissions from experts across many disciplines and from many parts of the world.  Our challenge is to provide a review process that is not only rigorous and fair but also timely.  Our goal is to make a first editorial decision within 90 days of receipt of the manuscript.  Electronic submission and review is helping us meet this goal and we hope that the coming year will see time to publication decrease even further.

Finally, a successful scientific journal is a collaborative endeavor.  I thank the past Editor-in-Chiefs, Dr. Mario Svirsky and Dr. Susan Jerger for building these collaborations.  I am in debt to them, to the Editorial Board and to the Executive Board of the American Auditory Society for allowing me to opportunity to serve the field as Editor-in-Chief of this outstanding journal.