Over the past 12 months Rheumatology has made very steady progress and has achieved some significant milestones. During 2005 we aim to build on this to both maintain and improve our performance further.
In 2004 the impact factor for Rheumatology rose again to 3.760. For the first time, we have received 1000 submissions and these are of increasing quality; this represents a 50% increase over the past 3 years. Of these, 40% are from outside Europe, reflecting the increasing international appeal of Rheumatology. The increasing number and quality of submissions means that we are asking referees to be ever more critical of manuscripts to enable the journal to continually raise the standards manuscripts need to reach to be accepted.
Our investment in electronic online manuscript processing together with two full-time members of staff is paying large dividends with major improvements in handling times. During 2004, 58% of manuscripts received a first decision within 4 weeks of submission and 84% within 6 weeks. The time from acceptance to online Advance Access publication is 56 weeks and to paper publication is 13 weeks. We strive to keep publication times to a minimum by uploading Advance Access manuscripts every week; from 2005 all case reports and letters to the editor will also be published on Advance Access. Rheumatology's peer-review and publication handling times are the most competitive in the field of rheumatology. Authors can assist in the rapid publication of their manuscripts by providing the editorial office with correctly completed author disclosure statements, patient consent forms and any other ethically required statements or documentation as soon as possible, preferably directly after submission of the manuscript. It is also imperative that authors determine the order of authorship and obtain all co-author approval prior to the submission of any manuscript.
At the recent International Rheumatology Editors meeting, hosted by the Journal of Rheumatology at the American College of Rheumatology meeting in San Antonio, a list of acceptable acronyms for use in rheumatology was agreed. The full list of acronyms will be uploaded as soon as practical on to the journal website in the instructions to authors (www.rheumatology.oupjournals.org). Rheumatology supports databases that aggregate data for the use of the scientific community. In doing so, the journal is introducing a data deposition policy where by all data (e.g. DNA and protein sequences, macromolecular structure data, and microarray data) should be deposited in an approved database prior to publication. Details of this policy will be included in the instructions to authors. There are registries for clinical trials and it has been proposed that only clinical trials that have been registered at inception should be published; this is to try to encourage publication of all trials irrespective of a positive or negative outcome [1]. The journal will keep authors and readers informed of any policies we introduce.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has recently drafted a Code of Conduct for Editors. All editors who are members of COPE are expected to abide by this code. A copy of the code can be found on the COPE website (www.publicationethics.org.uk). This code ensures that there are guidelines in place for journal editors, and that a procedure and body are in place to handle any complaints should they arise. COPE will consider complaints from anybody about editors who are members of COPE and who breach the code. Such complaints should be made in writing with supporting evidence to the chairman of COPE. In keeping with Rheumatology's commitment to promote the highest ethical standards in journal publishing, and as a member of COPE, the Editor of Rheumatology will be signing up to and agreeing to abide by this code.
Rheumatology is increasingly widely available with access in over 3000 institutions, of which almost 900 are in developing countries; this has come about from initiatives developed by Oxford University Press (OUP) either directly or through INASP and WHO whereby not-for-profit institutes in developing or middle-income countries are able to apply for free or heavily discounted rates for online access. We are delighted that the journal is involved in these types of initiatives. Online usage of Rheumatology continues to grow; at the moment 70,000 PDF and 70,000 HTML full-text downloads are made per month.
Rheumatology, known for embracing and leading with new technology, will be introducing several new developments in 2005. These will include a version of Rheumatology downloadable to a personal digital assistant (PDA), an online continuing medical education (CME) component, and an upgrade of the manuscript tracking and submission system. The upgrade of the manuscript submission system should provide authors and reviewers with a more intuitive and user-friendly service. We hope that these new developments will extend the versatility of the journal for the end user, be they author or reader.
The major challenge continuing to face Rheumatology and all similar journals is open access publishing. The most recent development on this issue concerns the policies that are being proposed by different funding bodies. The National Institutes for Health (NIH) have posted a notice on their website announcing that the NIH intends to request that its grantees and supported principal investigators provide the NIH with electronic copies of all final version manuscripts upon acceptance for publication if the research was supported in whole or in part by NIH funding. [2]. These manuscripts will be archived by the NIH in PubMed Central, the NIH's digital repository for biomedical research, and will be made freely available to the public 6 months after publication, or sooner if the publisher agrees. The NIH invited public comment on their intention. In the United Kingdom, the Wellcome Trust have informed universities of a proposal in which the Trust requires Wellcome Trust grantees to deposit an electronic version of their peer-reviewed research articles in PubMed Central (or a European PMC equivalent, once established) no later than 6 months after the date of publication [3]. Both funding bodies are proposing to provide grantees with additional funding to cover the costs that this may incur, e.g. to cover the costs of page processing charges levied by open access publishers. It is still far from clear how this will affect us, but it will undoubtedly have a significant impact. Whether we will move to fully open access or to a hybrid with some parts of the journal open access and other subscription remains to be seen. We are currently on the bank of the Rubicon, by this time next year the die may have been cast. To further and stimulate discussion of this issue, Rheumatology is hosting an open debate at the April 2005 meeting of the British Society for Rheumatology. Professor Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, will be speaking in favour of open access and Mrs Mandy Hill, Oxford University Press, will be speaking on behalf of publishers. We would encourage anyone with an interest in publishing in journals to attend the debate to discover how open access publishing may affect you in the future. We are also very interested to hear what authors and readers think about these new initiatives.
The improvement in the performance of the journal could not have been achieved without the support of a dedicated team of people both in the Editorial office and at our publishers, Oxford University Press. We are also very grateful to our ever expanding pool of reviewers (currently 754) who, on the whole, produce critiques on time and thereby enable us to achieve our rapid publication times.
As usual we welcome your comments, criticism or even praise as we continue to endeavour to provide you with a journal that is held in high regard by authors and readers alike.
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