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' 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' 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.