2005 Publications Committee Report
APS Journals the Best in Their Field
Impact Factors. The Journal Impact
Factors made a strong showing again in 2004. PRV now ranks third
among all journals. APS Director of Publications Margaret Reich worked with
Thomson Scientific to promote and develop other measures of impact besides
the two-year Impact Factor. An article by Marie McVeigh of Thomson
Scientific was published in the August 2004 issue of The Physiologist,
along with a table showing the hand-calculated five-year Impact Factors for
all our journals.
Manuscripts Received. Submissions are up
8% across all journals in 2004 and are up 5% in 2005 so far. Submissions of
Reports were up 58% and submissions of Translational Physiology papers were
up 69%.
News in Physiological Sciences (NIPS) changes to
Physiology. Under the leadership of the new Editor, Walter
Boron, NIPS was transformed into Physiology with the August
2004 issue. The transformation included a new four-color design with
professionally redrawn figures in every article, and new front-section
features. It has generated positive comments that have been sent to the
Editor and APS staff.
Physiological Genomics
The Council asked the Publications Committee in July
2004 to review various business/open access (OA) models at their spring 2005
meeting, for recommendation to the Council. The Committee reviewed seven
business models prepared by staff and chose one that assumes that all
authors will pay traditional author fees, but those authors who want to make
their article OA will pay an additional fee of $750. Subscription and other
(reprints, royalties) revenue are included in this model. This change will
be effective January 1, 2006.
Publication Efficiency
Time to first decision. Use of APSCentral
has allowed editors to decrease their time to first decision, which averaged
30 days in 2004 across all the monthly original research journals.
Implementation of APSCentral has also helped the editors of PRV and
Advances manage the review process of these journals more
efficiently.
Interior redesign. Subtle changes made
to the text and headings style of all original research journals starting
with the January 2004 issues led to a 5% savings in the number of pages,
while at the same time giving the title pages of each article a fresher
look.
SGML up-front workflow. An SGML up-front
workflow was implemented with the 2004 issues of all the journals. This
should afford some efficiencies in production and the ability to use
publishable article files before the print issue is created.
Production module. The Rapid Production
Module (RPM), which will allow electronic tracking and trafficking of files
to streamline journal production, was developed with Cadmus, our printer,
and implemented at APS with JAP in May and the other journals in June
2005.
Financial Stability and Increased Accessibility
Subscription Sales. Journal prices for
2005 were once again set using a cost-based model. The downturn of
subscription sales in recent years slowed in 2004, due in large part to the
increased efforts in Europe by our sales agent there. Units were down only
2% (compared to 6% last year), but revenue increased 8%, allowing us to keep
our 2005 price increases to a low 5%. The 2006 price increase is 3% for all
journals, except PG and Physiology, which will be increased
10%.
Consortia. APS continues to respond to
requests from consortia of libraries or institutions, giving them a 5-15%
graduated discount for 6-31+ online subscriptions, if we are not losing
subscription dollars by doing so. Sales were made to 38 consortia in 2004.
Asian Sales Agent. APS contracted late in
2004 with an Asian sales agent, iGroup, to sell institutional subscriptions
in Asia, which is a less established and more complicated market.
Legacy Content. The last phase of Legacy
Content, going back to 1898, was put online in 2004. The Legacy Content is
sold as a product with a one-time price of $2000. Unit sales were 132 in
2004, with overall unit sales at 332 at the end of April 2005.
Open Access and the NIH Policy. As
a response to the NIH policy requesting that authors submit their accepted
manuscripts to the NIH database for archiving and public dissemination, the
Committee agreed to add language to the Manuscript Submission Form, along
with an explanatory memo to authors, granting authors permission to
voluntarily submit their accepted manuscript to the NIH’s PubMedCentral,
with public release 12 months after final publication in the journal. The
rationale behind this decision is to help authors meet the perceived
requirement of the NIH while preserving APS’s copyright of their accepted
articles.
Reducing Member Costs
APS members started receiving free online access to all
journals in 2002. APS members continue to take increased advantage of the
free color policy (except student members, who do not receive this benefit),
but an analysis of the costs revealed that although the uptake continues to
increase, the cost per figure is decreasing with the increase in color
throughout the journal. Because of this and the perceived popularity of this
benefit, the policy was not changed in 2004.
Electronic Handbook of Physiology
Proposals from Elsevier and Blackwell
to publish APS’s books were reviewed by the Committee. The Committee asked
staff to pursue a contract with Elsevier, and staff is doing so. Elsevier’s
proposal includes plans to develop an online edition of the Handbooks.
Innovative Use of Electronic Publications
Supplemental
Material. A total of 103 data supplements were published in 2004, of
which 30 were video clips. Approximately 70% of the supplemental large data
sets were published in Physiological Genomics. A change was made in
2004 to make all supplemental data free—in other words, a reader can view
supplemental data without a subscription to the journal, even if they cannot
view the entire article.
HighWire Interface.
Improvements to the HW site continued, including the implementation
of “extended pdfs,” which automatically add a cover sheet to downloaded pdfs.
The cover sheet contains useful information about the article, including
some citation history and corrigenda, if applicable. This function also adds
a branding mark to each page of the pdf, so that readers will know where it
comes from and who printed it out for their use. The decision to purchase a
function that allows readers to download figures as power point slides was
made at the October 2004 meeting, to be implemented in 2005.
Classic Articles
Collection. As an outgrowth of the Legacy Content project, the
Classic Articles Collection was rolled out on the APS web site in August
2004. A Task Force chaired by Hershel Raff commissioned 23 essays for
publication online and in print within the appropriate journals if the
editor agreed. Each essay is linked to its classic article, which was made
free online in the Legacy Content. These essays have been well-received by
the membership, particularly those involved in the training of graduate
students.
Translational Research
Call for Papers. A Call for Papers on
Translational Physiology has run since the June 2001 issues of all the APS
research journals. The papers are being published as they are accepted under
a special heading in the journal of submission. Across all the journals,
130 papers were submitted and 54 papers were published under the
Translational Research heading in 2004.
Physiology in
Medicine. An agreement was made in 2001 to publish the “Physiology
in Medicine” (PIM) series in Annals of Internal Medicine, with D.
Ausiello as the editor of the series, and Dale Benos serving as deputy
editor. Benos became Editor-in-Chief of this series on January 1, 2005. Five
“PIM” articles were published in Annals in 2004 and one so far in
2005.
Other Items of Significance
Ethical Issues: The Ethical Policy was
reorganized with subheadings so that it is easier to find the specific
guidelines about various ethical issues.
Clinical Trials Registry: Registering
clinical trials was made a requirement for peer review and publication.
There must be a statement in the Methods section that states where the
Clinical Trial was registered.
Publications Committee Chair
Dale Benos’ two terms as Publications Committee Chair
ended December 31, 2004. Kim Barrett was selected to succeed him in 2005.
Some of the accomplishments during Benos’s terms included the transition to
electronic publishing, including web-based peer review, immediate online
publication, the Legacy Project and the Classic Articles collection; the
creation of the journal Physiological Genomics; the reinvigoration of
the PIM series; the revamping of NIPS to Physiology; and the
development of an ethical policy that is a model for other societies and
journals.
Kim Barrett, Chair
Council Actions
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