CONSTITUTION OF DIALOGUE & DISCOURSE
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PREAMBLE

Dialogue & Discourse is committed to:
- publishing the best research in the area of discourse and dialogue
 (as specified by the Scope and Aims document),
- in a timely manner (mean time between submission and decision of 3
 months), and
- open to interested readers everywhere (open access).

To achieve this, D&D gives itself the following constitution.


EDITOR (AND EDITOR-ELECT)

The job of the editor rotates among the managing editors.
The tenure is 6 months. At any time, at least the editor and
the editor-elect (the board member that will be editor after the
current one) has been designated.

The editor of the journal has the following responsibilities:
- is the first port of call for all incoming communications
 (submissions, queries etc.) and is responsible for their timely
 processing;
- assigns papers to executive board members / action editors;
- moderates discussions on the executive board and, if otherwise no
 decision can be reached, makes final decisions.

The editor is supported in this by the editor-elect; e.g., the editor
can ask the editor-elect to take on some of the responsibilities
listed above.


MANAGING EDITORS

The managing editors jointly manage organisational questions. The
editors also have responsiblities for specific areas, through
also being area chairs.

The normal term of service for a managing editor is 4
years. (When the journal starts, however, exactly half of the managing
editors will have a term of 5 years, so that at the beginning of year
5 only half of the board changes.) Under normal circumstances, a
managing editor whose term has completed will remain on the board
until a successor has been found.

In exceptional cases, the board of managing editors can vote to
terminate a board member's term early. For this a two-thirds majority
is required. 


Candidates for successors of leaving editors have to be proposed by
a member of the board and accepted by a two-thirds majority. Delegates
from endorsing organisations also have to be accepted by a two-thirds
majority of the current members of the board.



The areas are served by at least two managing editors, the action
editors for that area.
Their responsibilities are:
- assigning reviewers (with guidance from the editorial board, see below) to
  submissions;
- communicating the state of the reviewing process to authors;
- resolving possible conflicts in the reviews;
- make a suggestion on acceptance to editor.


The areas are:
- dialogue systems
- discourse
- linguistics of dialogue
- psychology of dialogue



EDITORIAL BOARD

The editorial board consists of international experts in the fields
covered by the journal.

Researchers are invited into the board by the executive board. The
term of service on the board is 3 years. (Again, for the first terms
there will be a split between board members with terms of 2 years
and those with terms of 3 years, to effect a staggered transition.)

In exceptional cases, the board can vote to terminate a board member's
term early. For this a two-thirds majority is required.



PROCEDURES

Reviewing is single-blind (the identities of reviewers are not known
to authors, but that of the authors is known to the reviewers). At
least three reviewers will review each submission that is not a desk
reject. No conflicts of interest are allowed for reviewers
(e.g. members of same department, academic supervisors, etc.)
Managing Editors and members of the Editorial Board may submit
articles to the journal, they will however be excluded from all stages
of the decision process. 

 
There is a special category of ``invited papers'', which will be
marked as such when published, and which do not undergo the normal
review process (but may undergo an editorial process where suggestions
for improvements are sought). Invitations for such papers are made by
the current editor in chief, if a proposal for an invitation has found
a majority on the board of managing editors.

There can be thematic special issues of the journal, which are edited
by guest editors. Such special issues can be proposed to the editor in
chief by all researchers from the community, and proposals are
accepted by majority vote of the board of managing editors. Special
issues should have an open call for submissions. At least half of the
reviewers for the special issue will be selected by the board of
managing editors.