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' 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' 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' 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
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