Editors' Introduction

As I write this, new and rapidly developed vaccines are being delivered and administered in the first round of preventive medicine for the novel corona-virus. Dedicated people, working with particular knowledge, skills, and vision think they can conquer a pandemic. I do not know what it takes to be able to identify and develop promising preventions for a viral infection, but I am reminded of the fitness of the word audacity for such ventures. A recent U.S. president famously cited it in his first memoir, pairing it with hope.

Now at the end of my brief period as interim editor for Landscape Journal, I imagine the August 1980 discussions about beginning a scholarly journal for landscape planning and design, anchored around the University of Wisconsin—Darryl Morrison, Arnold Alanen, Peter Olin, and their peers. That was audacious—Alanen and Morrison said so in their first editorial: "a great deal of excitement—and a few pangs of anxiety," later saying that "the excitement far outweighs the anxiety" (Alanen and Morrison 1982, 1). Nascent scholarship on the design, planning, and management of the land turned a corner to develop its own core, its own knowledge, its own methods. It "embark[ed] on this trip into new territory" (Alanen and Morrison 1982, 1). The launch of Landscape Journal was daring.

Landscape Journal is the flagship journal of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and one of a few that commonly includes articles by scholars who are also registered professionals. The content of the journal has been scrutinized in review articles that have appeared in its pages—editors have never been shy about introspective examination of the scholarship in the journal. Knowledge published in the journal is drawn from supporting fields but originates within landscape disciplines. Design, planning, and management of the land needs and benefits from both sources, thriving on its scholarly body of knowledge and needing its own venue for publication—the reality that emerged with the first issue of Landscape Journal in 1982.

That former U.S. president's call for audacious hope concluded with a reference to change. Landscape Journal has struck a new editorial hierarchy with an editor-in-chief, associate editors, and a diverse editorial board. After 39 volumes, this is a bold next step. The first editorial commentary's goals remain: "our first and foremost hope is that this publication will contribute to sharing of new information and thought in the many subject areas which support landscape design, planning, and management" (Alanen and Morrison 1982, 1).

The journal will be increasingly aggressive in its pursuit of additional articles, issues, and a growing impact. Enhancing the scope, reach, and impact of Landscape Journal means getting it in front of more authors and readers and informing more scholars. It means rapidly delivering the journal to readers and easily finding its salient content. Being audaciously hopeful means ensuring that Landscape Journal remains the home for high-quality scholarship about design, planning, and management of the land.

Being audacious about change is riskier. Increasing the openness of the journal and making the content more universally accessible to readers and authors comes with particular risks for CELA, the publisher, the authors, and others. Freely distributing knowledge is laudable but a real challenge for researchers who have modest (or less) research grant funding to pay for publication costs associated with openness. Yet many research-granting bodies now require funded research projects to report their outcomes openly, and many university libraries have joined this call. Society-owned journals like Landscape Journal have unique opportunities with respect to openness because societies can extend fee waivers to member-authors.

Making the journal more inclusive of landscape knowledge around the world means having an openness to different paradigms of thinking and reporting and reflecting that across the editorial structure and review process. Diversity, equity, and inclusion can be achieved without an open publication model, but openness makes these aspirations more achievable.

Landscape Journal will deliver its 500th research article in the next volume, a volume that will transition the journal to a new structure and permanent editor. As the journal emerges onto this new plateau to...