Editor’s Note

On December 1, 2006, I had a meeting with the Associate Editors of JEE to discuss the state of the Journal. It was a great meeting. One of our primary topics of discussion was manuscript turnaround time, i.e., the time that elapses between when a manuscript is submitted to the Journal and when that manuscript is finally published. It takes entirely too long. Some of it is beyond our control. For example, I am writing this Editor’s Note in April, but you won’t see it in print until sometime in July 2007. That’s $3\text{months}$ later. There is some room for improvement there, and ASCE is working on it particularly through implementation of a fully online system for manuscript processing. The Associate Editors and I have dedicated ourselves to making turnaround time a priority. Because of the inertia and time lag associated with the system, it will be a number of months before you notice significant improvement. But, over the course of this year, you will see a difference. We guarantee it. If you have had any hesitation about submitting a manuscript to the Journal because of turnaround time, don’t. If you are still hesitant, I invite you to send your manuscript to me personally.