December 26, 2005:
We want to thank everybody that participated in the dual RFS-WFC submission experiment. At this point we have notified all of the authors regarding whether or not the RFS will seek a formal referee’s report for their paper. If you submitted a paper under the dual submission option and have not heard back please contact Tricia Cushing.
December 6, 2005:
The Utah Winter Finance conference chairs Avner Kalay and Jim Schallheim have forwarded the initial reviews from the program committee to the RFS. We will now go over the reviews to see which papers we will proceed with. Hopefully, notifications regarding each paper’s status will go out within two weeks. Just a reminder, if we do not go forward with your paper at this time (or at any point in the current review process) you paper is not rejected at the RFS and you are free to submit it via the regular channels whenever you like.
October 9, 2005:
The editorial board at the RFS has been working hard to keep the journal’s turnaround time down. Of course, this would not be possible without the help we have received from our referees. We want to thank the many people that have worked diligently to produce timely reports. Additional thanks are owed those that turned down our request to review a paper when they thought they could not return it on time. (Of course, we will be less appreciative if those that have turned us down never say yes!) There is nothing more frustrating to an editor than somebody who agrees to review a paper and then takes forever to do so. So if you only say yes when you can turn in a timely report everybody (the editors, authors, and you) are better off. I also want to thank our authors for what can only be called a vote of confidence in the RFS. Submissions are coming in at a record pace and (alas) our editors are drowning in papers! This is good problem to have so we are, so far, only complaining among ourselves.
September 13, 2005:
The submission deadline for the Utah Winter Finance Conference has been changed to September 23.
July 29, 2005:
Due to scheduled maintenance the web based submission system will be unavailable from 7:00AM to 4:00PM EST on Saturday July 30.
July 21, 2005:
There is a new topic in the forum asking if the RFS should remove some/all/no appendix material from published articles and place it on the web instead. On a related note: At conferences our finance colleagues are nearly always brimming with opinions regarding the publication process and how to improve it. Unfortunately, all is relatively quite in the forum. A journal’s officers spend half their time trying to figure out what the profession wants. Please help us out and let us know what you think! Your opinions, one way or the other, are tremendously valuable to us and we will be grateful to receive them.
June 22, 2005:
Have you ever wanted to influence the submission and review policies of the RFS? This is your chance! I have just started two new topics in the forum. The first concerns submission fees and our payment to referees for timely reports. Should we increase them? (If you want to increase the rewards given to referees you have to increase the submission fee by a corresponding amount.) The second is whether to go from our current double bind review system to a single blind one. For those unfamiliar with journal jargon, a double blind review is one where the author does not know the referee’s identify and the referee does not know the author’s. In a single blind system while the referee’s identity is hidden from author, the author’s identity is revealed to the referee.
In other news: The RFS is pleased to welcome Tricia Cushing to the position of Assistant Editor. We also want to thank Kim Vaughan for graciously agreeing to stay on as Assistant Editor to help with the transition. She will also continue to help process papers submitted prior to July 1, 2005.
June 15, 2005:
Beta testing of the web based submission package has ended. I want to thank the many people that helped to evaluate and ultimately improve the software. Starting July 1 authors are strongly encouraged to submit their papers using the on line system.
June 15, 2005:
Beta testing of the web based submission package has ended. I want to thank the many people that helped to evaluate and ultimately improve the software. Starting July 1 authors are strongly encouraged to submit their papers using the on line system.
April 4, 2005:
All of the RFS‘s current policies will remain in place unchanged until July 1. Any changes indicated here will only take place after that date. Also, none of the changes listed on the web page are yet set in stone. If you have any comments about them or other policy issues the time to let us know is now! If you post your views in the forum I (Matthew Spiegel) guarantee that I will read them.