2006 Publications Committee Report
The APS Strategic Plan for 2006-2010 was developed
during a retreat in October 2005 and approved by Council in early 2006. This
Report to Council will report on Publication’s activities in 2005 and then
will concentrate on the Directions and Strategies from the new Strategic
Plan that have already begun to direct the department’s activities.
2005 Activities
APS Journals the Best in Their Field
Impact Factors. The Journal Impact Factors made a
strong showing again in 2005. A dialogue with Thomson Scientific is
continuing, in an effort to get them to promote and develop other measures
of impact besides the two-year Impact Factor. In fact, in 2005 the online
version of the Journal Citation Report was redesigned to give much more
information about a journal’s citations for those who are willing to work
with the data.
Manuscripts Received. Submissions were up 5% across all
journals in 2005. Submissions of Reports were down 12% and submissions of
Translational Physiology papers were up 165%.
Publication Efficiency
Time to first decision. Use of APSCentral has allowed
Editors to decrease their time to first decision, which averaged 30 days in
2005 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.
Production module. A web-based tracking system (Rapid
Production Module, or RPM) was implemented in May 2005. This system allows
all articles to move through the production process—internally and with
Cadmus, our printer—completely online.
Financial Stability and Increased Accessibility
Subscription Sales. Journal prices for 2006 were once
again set using a cost-based model. As in 2004, subscription sales were at
pre-online percent decreases, an improvement over past years. Units were
down only 2.8% (compared to 6% in 2003), and revenue increased 1%, allowing
us to set 2006 price increases at a low 3%.
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 25 consortia in 2005, instead of 38
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. Activity seemed to
be picking up toward the end of 2005. Martin Frank participated in a
conference organized by the iGroup in November 2005, and Margaret Reich
attended their sales conference for the first time in February 2006.
Legacy Content. The Legacy Content is sold as a product
with a one-time price of $2,000. Unit sales were 49 in 2005, with overall
unit sales at 363.
Open Access. Efforts continued in 2005 by the
Executive, Public Affairs, and Publications staff to respond to the open
access movement. 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 decided 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 (PMC), with public release 12 months after final
publication in the Journal. The rationale behind this decision was to help
authors meet the perceived requirement of the NIH while preserving APS’s
free-access policy (all content of APS journals is free on the journal web
site 12 months after publication). In the fall of 2005, the Committee was
shown a list of articles posted on the PMC site in violation of APS’s
amended copyright or the NIH’s own policy. The Committee was provided
template letters that are sent to authors and to the NIH if 1) the article
was published before the May 2, 2005, which is the beginning of the policy;
2) the article was released before 12 months after publication; 3) the
article is a review article, and, therefore, not under the NIH policy. These
letters are sent to the authors and the NIH when a violation is found. After
insisting that the authors had to request removal from the system, the NIH
agreed in November 2005 to remove the articles upon request of the
publisher, or copyright holder.
Other activities in 2005 regarding open access included
meeting with newspaper Editorial Boards, resulting in a number of Op Ed
pieces; creation of a patient access link on each journal home page, making
it easier for patients to request a copy of an article; and meeting with
congressional representatives and their staff, especially in regard to
copyright issues and the Linking Proposal, which would bring the reader to
the official journal website, rather than to a copy of the article on the
PubMedCentral web site, thereby saving the NIH the trouble of creating their
own public database. This proposal had been presented to the NIH by the DC
Principles and other publishers but was rejected by the NIH.
Reducing Member Costs
APS Council reinstated the free color benefit for
student members, starting in 2006.
Electronic Handbook of Physiology
A Request for Proposal was sent to eight book
publishers in 2004 in an effort to find a publisher interested in publishing
our books—especially the Handbooks—online as well as in print. As a result,
the APS has terminated its contract for publishing books with Oxford
University Press (OUP), and has purchased all the stock and electronic
rights of published books from OUP. APS will continue to sell the books via
advertising on APS’s web site and in its catalogue. APS has also published a
Call for Nominations for Chair of the Book Committee, with a deadline of
September 15, 2006.
Innovative Use of Electronic Publications
Supplemental Material. A total of 202 data supplements
were published in 2005; 36 of them were video clips. Approximately 43% of
the supplemental large data sets were published in Physiological Genomics.
All supplemental data is free—in other words, a reader can view supplemental
data without a subscription to the journal, even if they cannot view the
entire article.
Toll-free links instead of free reprints: The
Publications Committee decided to offer authors of all review articles
(including those in Physiology) and editorials a choice of a toll-free link
or 50 free reprints.
Post other kinds of articles as AiPS: The Committee
decided to give the authors of all articles, including Review and Editorial
papers, the choice to be published as AiPS. This is effective January 2006
for all journals except PRV, Physiology, and Advances.
Post P-CP article responses online: Comments on JAP’s
Point-Counter Point series will be posted online as e-letters to the
journal. E-letters are submitted directly to the HW site, are approved by an
Editor, and then immediately go online. This will save pages and production
time. 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. Each commissioned essay is linked to its classic article,
which is made free online in the Legacy Content. In 2005, more essays were
added to the collection, and we will continue to accept appropriate
suggestions.
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, 143
papers were submitted and 87 papers were published under the Translational
Research heading in 2005. At the Fall 2005 Publications Committee meeting,
the Committee decided to disband the Call, but keep Translational Physiology
as an article type.
Physiology in Medicine. An agreement was made in 2001
to publish the “Physiology in Medicine” (PIM) series in Annals of Internal
Medicine, with Ausiello as the Editor of the series, and Benos serving as
Deputy Editor. In 2005, Benos became Editor of the series. Four PIM articles
were published in Annals in 2005.
2006-2010 Strategic Plan
While the broadness of the Publications program makes
it relevant to the entire Strategic Plan, Directions 1 and 5 and their
Strategies and Outcomes relate most directly to Publications.
Direction 1. APS will be the leader in advancing the
life sciences that investigate biological function.
Strategy 1. Build on the strength of APS journals and
leverage them to have the greatest impact in the scientific community. Make
APS journals the first choice journals by increasing the selectivity of
content. Broaden the scope of APS journals by increasing the proportion of
interdisciplinary articles. Engage the editorial boards to be advocates for
the journals. Promote the idea that APS journals are the best journals for
members, striving to increase the journals’ impact factors and citations for
our authors.
The Publications Committee believes that the impact of
the journals could be enhanced by even a modest increase in selectivity.
With the support of Journal editors, plans are already underway to make
changes to the review forms of all APS journals to influence reviewers to be
more selective when reviewing submissions.
Direction 5. APS will be a mission-directed, adaptable,
and fiscally sound organization.
Strategy 1. Explore ways to diversify APS revenue
sources, including adapting the publications model to respond to changes in
the publishing and research environments.
APS Publications staff has developed a plan to move to
a total author-pays (as opposed to a subscription plus author-fee income)
model if subscription income diminishes due to activities of open access
advocates. We have been experimenting since 2003 with
open-access/author-pays models on a voluntary basis with our journal
Physiological Genomics. APS also has sent a response to the Wellcome Trust,
which is mandating open access six months after publication for their funded
articles. APS will require that Wellcome cover an open access fee for the
authors that they support, which they have stated publicly that they are
willing to fund. APS is also negotiating with the NIH to allow us to post
NIH-funded articles to PubMed Central so that authors will not have to.
|
