Published in Probe Volume 5(2): April-June 1995
Dr. Patrick Byrne
Department of Agronomy
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO
The Journal of Quantitative Trait Loci (JQTL), sponsored by the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), will provide a peer-reviewed, fully electronic forum in which articles dealing with the theory and practice of QTL analysis will be published.
The publication format will facilitate links to related publications and databases and will permit the inclusion of more complete analyses than are generally feasible in bound media. Improved publication speed, easy and inexpensive access, and flexibility should make JQTL a preferred journal for the publication of papers dealing with the analysis of inheritance of quantitative traits.
Purposes of the Journal
1. JQTL will publish articles relevant to the analysis, manipulation, and use of genes modifying quantitative characters in any species. We are defining quantitative characters as those for which the phenotypic variation among genotypes is continuous and cannot be separated into discrete classes. This definition of QTL makes no assumptions regarding thenumber of genes controlling such characters, nor the magnitude of genetic effects. When appropriate, authors will be encouraged to include data sets on which their analyses depend.
2. JQTL will serve as a medium for announcing, describing, and storing new software developed for QTL analysis.
3. JQTL will publish secondary analyses of primary data sets when such analyses prove novel and illuminating.
4. JQTL will publish worthy editorial commentaries and review articles as space and interest warrant.
General Standards
Papers will be submitted via either electronic transmission or on diskette. They will consist of ASCII text, with .gif files holding images. Papers will be written in general accordance with style standards of Crop Science (Publications Handbook and Style Manual, 1988, American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Madison, WI). Papers will be submitted to the editor, who will then request review by two technical editors.
Information To Be Inculded in Articles Submitted
All articles should contain (a) title; (b) affiliation, phone number, and e-mail addresses of allauthors; (c) abstract briefly summarizing the work; (d) introduction, methods, results and discussion sections in accordance with ASA guidelines; and (e) literature cited.
For all articles containing data sets, authors must supply a data dictionary (description of data fields) and a description of how the data were gathered.
Software submission: All software described in a JQTL article should be, if at all possible, available for JQTL readers. Ideally, an anonymous ftp site would already exist from which software could be downloaded. If this is not the case, and the software was developed by the authors, then the software should be uploaded to hordeum.oscs.montana.edu. All executable software should be accompanied by source code, if available, as well as a user manual.
Acceptable formats are:
Unix: a compressed tar file (compressed with either the compress program or by gzip)
DOS/Windows: a PKZIP (.zip) file
Macintosh: a StuffIt archive (.sit) file
Originality and Novelty
To be considered for publication, neither data nor analyses should have been published previously in any peer-reviewed journal, book, or bulletin. While updates (that is, second year data sets or data sets gathered in new environments using lines already characterized) may be considered for publication, they will generally be accepted as appendices to previousarticles. New analyses of previously published data sets will be accepted if they provide novel insights into the data.
Peer Review and Comments
Each submitted article will be reviewed by two scientists familiar with the area of research. They will be asked to review the manuscript for compliance with the above criteria, to judge suitability of the article for inclusion in JQTL, and to write brief critiques of the manuscript to be returned to the author. The editors will attempt to evaluate the performance of submitted software.
Submission Protocol
Articles may consist of text, tables, and data sets (all in ASCII format) and figures (in .GIF format). Other acceptable formats may be announced in the future. There are no size limitations.
Before submission, authors should e-mail the editor (current address: blake@hordeum.oscs.montana.edu) to request a submission number. Files should then be renamed to include the submission number (for example, text##.asc, fig1##.gif, fig2##.gif, tabl##.asc, data##.asc). This should prevent one submission overwriting another.
Submit files via ftp to hordeum.oscs.montana.edu
Log in as jqtlsubm
Password: your e-mail address.
The editor will scan each submitted article for gross compliance with standards and then will send all appropriate articles to two technical editors. They will review the paper, suggest modifications if necessary, and return the files to the editor, who will in turn send them to the author as files appended to a letter describing the technical editors' recommendations. For manuscripts dealing with re-analysis of previously published data, the editor will invite the author of the original publication to submit a review. This will provide the original authors an avenue for direct feedback before publication of the new analyses.
After receiving the technical editors' recommendations, the author may revise (if necessary) and resubmit the paper with "r" appended to each file name (for example, text##r.asc, fig1##r.gif, tabl##r.asc). Each accepted manuscript will then be sent to CSSA headquarters for HTML formatting and finally to the USDA, ARS, National Agricultural Library for immediate publication. JQTL will be continuously updated with new articles.
Journal Access
On April 1, 1995, JQTL became available for public online access from the National Agricultural Library via World Wide Web at http://probe.nalusda.gov:8000/ under the heading Newsletters, Journals, and Other Publications.
No charge will be levied for publication or for journal access during 1995, although nominal fees may be assessed at a later date. JQTL will be indexed in the AGRICOLA bibliographic database and by other biological indexing services.
Journal Annual
By the end of the first year of publication, we hope to have the capacity to make annual CD's of the journal available for a nominal fee.
JQTL editor: Thomas Blake, Montana State University
JQTL technical editors:
Jim Anderson, North Dakota State University
Doug Bigwood, USDA, ARS, National Agricultural Library
Cynthia Bottema, Waite Institute (Australia)
Pat Byrne, USDA, Agricultural Research Service
Rebecca Doerge, Cornell University
Jon Geadelmann, Holden's Foundation Seeds, Inc.
Dave Matthews, Cornell University
Phil McClean, North Dakota State University
Laura Oberthur, Montana State University
Andrew Paterson, Texas A&M University
Mark Sorrells, Cornell University
CSSA editor-in-chief: P. Stephen Baenziger, University of Nebraska
CSSA board of directors: R.C. Shearman, President
V.B. Cardwell, Past President
R.F. Barnes, Executive Vice President