Editorial Specialist

Sage Publishing | REMOTE

About Job

This position provides coordinating, administrative, and analytical support to editorial staff in the US Humanities & Social Science (HSS) and the Science, Tech, and Medical (STM) journals team. We are looking for a candidate who is eager to learn about and grow within the academic publishing industry, and is able to quickly pick up new information, think critically and creatively, and engage meaningfully with the daily work.

This position is based remotely, but may entail some degree of travel annually.

 

**Please note that this position does not focus on writing or editing of our content as it primarily supports the business, technical, and administrative aspects of journal publishing.

Essential Job Functions & Responsibilities

The Editorial Specialist requires LEAN thinking, accountability enforcement, and strategic organization. Specialists are expected to utilize these skills in their support work and in orchestrating, facilitating, analyzing, coordination, interpreting, implementing, and maintaining tasks and projects.

The responsibilities for this role include:

• Managing a dedicated list of ~15 journals, including society account management, performance support, financial maintenance, and legal oversight.
• Interpreting patterns in trends in change management projects which require feedback or analysis across Publishing Editor/journal experiences
• Coordinating focus groups or coordinating, notetaking, and managing actions for Socratic discussions and brainstorms
• Managing meetings and taking notes, recording, and digesting strategic information, including aiding Publishers, Directors, and VPs in strategic meetings and relaying relevant information in division meetings for HSS and STM
• Facilitating dialogue within Journals Editorial, locally and globally, and between departments supporting the Research Pillar
• Monitoring the Journal Planning Calendar and department projects facilitated via email, ensuring those are recorded in the JPC as needed, and that US participation is active
• Liaising between those managing journals and the Research Integrity Group and Research Integrity & Inclusion Manager to manage support tasks for individual ethics cases and projects
• Liaising with OA to help relay OA market, industry, and policy news to those managing journals, including through Teams, in division meetings, hosting ad hoc meetings, etc.

• Promote department strategy goals by:
  • Maintaining and promoting knowledge and education of RP Editorial Strategy Tree
  • Understanding the various drivers and their active projects
  • Maintaining active projects within Journals Planning Calendar
  • Informing others within the US Editorial Journals trad teams on progress and structure of the drivers and strategies
  • Acting as a lead LEAN champion, including
  • Attending PG meetings as needed
  • Helping map process groups as needed
  • Helping maintain IPOs as needed
  • Leading IPO work as needed
  • Familiarizing with LEAN principles, techniques, and philosophy to promote and educate others
  • Aiding in coordinating market research, competitor analyses, development and discipline research, working with the marketing and corporate communication teams as needed.
  • Conducting internal audits on time spent devoted to certain tasks to ensure workload expectations are realistic (e.g. gathering data on time spent reading internal newsletters, watching internal information videos, etc.). This includes responding to results by maintaining morale and “respect for people” value.
  • Supporting management of morale generally and maintaining good relationships between teams, offices, divisions, and people, responding as needed
  • Championing and maintaining anti-oppressive corporate, departmental, and interpersonal DEI work, including internal education, product improvement, advocacy, conduct, and working with partners to ensure we are fulfilling our goals, mission, and values in creating a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just society.
  • Helping support transitions and launches as needed, including coordinating transmittals and document management.
  • Supporting department projects through accountability – i.e. checking with individuals ahead of deadlines and helping support those managing journals through reminders and pinch hitting support. This may include:
  • Gathering data, creating agendas for, and maintaining and distributing call/meeting minutes as requested.
  • Responding to miscellaneous inquires related to journals, as directed
  • Handling special projects as assigned
  • Assisting when Journals Editorial is hosting special retreats, external client visits, summits, etc. by coordinating, performing clerical work, taking notes, etc.
  • Responding to miscellaneous inquires and research miscellaneous questions.
  • Helping collect, identify, and design needs for automation, improvements as they hear them through the feedback sessions, brainstorms, etc.
  • Helping service editorial development and performance goals by assessing holistic performance of department and division level journal portfolio, including by establishing and helping maintain systems, PowerBI reports, and spreadsheets capturing this data, as needed.
  • Conducting research, reporting, tracking, and analysis of holistic journal performance bibliometrics, disciplines, and industry within scholarly communications writ large.
  • Addressing ad hoc requests in a timely manner and tracking task process through structured workflows.
  • Completing ad hoc special projects as needed and assist other SAGE staff who work on the journals.
  • Engaging with new, emerging, or otherwise untapped technologies to develop efficiencies and streamline existing work processes. Leverage technology solutions in the Microsoft Suite and otherwise inventively and proficiently.
  • Updating internal and external databases, websites, and resources as required.
  • Liaising with colleagues in other SAGE departments as needed.
  • Effectively problem-solving and creatively brainstorming in collaborative spaces with other team members.
  • Performing ancillary work on department-wide projects and journal acquisitions.
  • Keep up to date and engaged with scholarly communication industry developments.
   

Qualifications & Education

Required

• Strong project management skills.
• Demonstrated excellent English verbal and written communication skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, Teams, and PowerPoint.
• Exceptional organizational, problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical skills.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to follow directions, learn, and understand departmental procedures required.
• Ability to effectively manage time to meet deadlines and work professionally under pressure.
• Ability to learn new software.
• Ability to work effectively in a team or independently, with minimal supervision.
• Ability to complete and follow through on priorities.
• Ability to plan and manage multiple projects and effectively multi-task.

Preferred

• Intermediate-to-advanced Excel skills, including VBA and Macros
• Bachelor’s degree 
• Proficiency with Microsoft Power suite
• Familiarity with R or Python programming languages
• A minimum of one year of publishing experience.
• Understanding of how social science research is conducted.