The American Dairy Science Assn. (ADSA) announced new sections for its scholarly publication, Journal of Dairy Science, in its December issue.

The changes, which will go into effect beginning with the January 2016 issue of the journal, include moving from four sections to six subsections in dairy foods and six subsections in dairy production to further distinguish content.

The journal had used the previous sections for a quarter century, but editor-in-chief Matt Lucy with the University of Missouri felt that those headings had outlived their usefulness, necessitating change.

"When I came on as editor-in-chief, we struggled to fit our content into the traditional journal sections established over 25 years ago. I felt that the problem was that the dairy industry had changed but the sections in the journal had stayed the same," Lucy said. "So we looked at our content and thought about the future to develop new sections that hopefully will serve us for the next 25 years. The new sections are aligned with what we currently publish and are also designed to capture important topics that we think will be actively researched in the future."

With the change, the journal table of contents will feature subsections for the first time. Dairy Foods, the section that receives the most submissions, will now be subdivided into six, more specific content areas: (1) Processing & Engineering; (2) Chemistry & Materials Science; (3) Microbiology & Safety; (4) Bioactivity & Human Health; (5) Sensory Analysis, and (6) Resources & Environment.

The new dairy production sections in Journal of Dairy Science include (1) Physiology; (2) Management & Economics; (3) Health, Behavior & Well-being; (4) Animal Nutrition; (5) Breeding, Genetics & Genomics, and (6) Resources & Environment. "Our Industry Today" will be renamed "Dairy Industry Today" but will have the same scope.

Despite the changes, the submission process for authors remains familiar. The journal editorial staff has worked hard to create a very specific list of topics expected to be published in each section, which is accessible through the usual submission procedure through ScholarOne.

"All of our existing authors should be accommodated by the change, and others who have not published with us before may submit to Journal of Dairy Science when they see the updated content as defined by our new section headings," Lucy said.