CriticalMath.com was my baby for ten years. I began working on this project in graduate school when I was an Editorial Assistant for the International Studies Quarterly. My brilliant and loving mentor, Steve Poe, who passed away several years ago, assigned me the task of developing a system to manage our peer review process. Beginning as a fairly flat PHP/MySQL system that simply tracked manuscripts and who they were assigned to, the system later grew into a fully integrated public-facing web system that accepted manuscripts online, sent out review requests to professors in the field, received their feedback online, and then sent final decision email notifications to authors.

The results of the project were somewhat astounding. The ISQ seemed to go from a fledgling journal with a several-year backlog to having one of the quickest turnaround times for submissions in the International Studies field. Of course, the system was only part of this success. The Drs. Poe and Mason’s leadership and the ISQ team–Geoff Dancy and Chelsea Brown–worked tirelessly for the journal, and they gave me feedback and ideas for how the CriticalMath system should work.

After graduating, I filed an LLC and made CriticalMath a publicly available system. It was free for any academic publication to use. Some of my first clients included the American Institute of CPAs, the Journal of IT and Politics, Trends in Biomaterials and Artificial Organs, and tons more. Ultimately the project collapsed under the weight of its own success, and it was discontinued. Projects like the Open Journal System later took CriticalMath’s place, but as one of the first systems of its kind, I like to think it paved the way for better predecessors.

Nothing, however, was lost during the project, and there are no failed experiments. I learned a great deal about business and project management, how to make money, and how to maintain positive relationships with clients and users. This project is also what motivated me to really dig into the web as a developer rather than just a consumer of digital content.

Thanks to everyone who made this project the success it was and for supporting it, both financially and personally.