WikiJournal User Group/Technical editors
WikiJournal User Group
Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review • Wikipedia-integrated
Technical editors help in administrative tasks behind the scenes including processing articles, updating metadata, and formatting accepted manuscripts (summary of tasks). If you are interested in joining as a technical editor, you can apply here. All previous applications can be viewed here.
Technical editors
Previous technical editors
Role details
Main tasks edit
The tasks of technical editors are essentially technical and largely repetitive tasks relating to the preparation, peer review and publishing of articles. This allows authors, peer reviewers, board members and other contributors (who are all non-paid volunteers) to focus on their tasks. Such tasks include:
- Editing submitted articles to WikiJournal:
- Copyediting articles (including image formatting, reference formatting, and checking image attributions)
- Managing journal metadata (including articles, authors, reviewers, and editors)
- Preparing and uploading the pdf version of articles
- Generating DOI codes (Digital Object Identifiers) for accepted articles
- Assisting in arranging peer reviews of articles submitted to WikiJournal, by regularly checking the potential upcoming articles, and offer assistance to peer review coordinators at least in articles with delayed progression. Such assistance may be in organizing lists of names, credentials and emails of potential peer reviewers.
- Keeping a record of tasks performed and how much time was used for each task, to be presented monthly to the administrative board of WikiJournal.
A more detailed description of technical editor tasks is located at:
Additional tasks edit
If having deeper technical experience, the technical editor could help out in tasks such as:
- Creating a bot for adding metadata items to articles at Wikidata (Example page)
- Creating a bot for keeping the Article info template synchronized between main pages and subpages and adding accepted articles to the relevant issue page.
- Be able to help out in developing items for the technical wishlist of WikiJournal
The techincal editor should act in accordance with the policies of WikiJournal, as described in the Bylaws and Ethics statement of WikiJournal. In case the techincal editor suspects scientific misconduct or undisclosed conflicts of interest, the techincal editor should inform the editor-in-chief or an editorial board member of the affected journal.
Admin details
Budget edit
The project received funding for hiring technical editors in the 2022 grant, amounting to $50,000. The rate was set to to $20 per hour as of 2020-10-09.
Hiring process edit
If or when the WikiJournal User Group will have an open position, the hiring process may consist of:
- First looking among current board members and associate editors for appropriate candidates.
- If this doesn't lead to choosing a technical editor, then it may be advertised externally.
- Any candidate will be interviewed, wherein all WikiJournal participants may suggest questions. 2-3 people will volunteer to screen applicants, with summaries sent to all editorial boards. The technical editor will then be hired based on consensus among board members.
That person will begin editing with a limited budget, and the result will be evaluated to make a decision of whether to proceed in the same manner.