Scientific Impact/Attractiveness to Authors
Impact factor: The 2007 Journal Impact Factors, published by ISI in 2008, made a strong showing once again with most of the journals showing increases.
Manuscripts received: Manuscript submissions were up 7% across the AJP journals, and 4% across all the journals, in 2007.
Time to first decision: Time to first decision averaged 25 days in 2007 across all the monthly original research journals.
New peer review system: New software for online peer review (eJournalPress) was chosen in 2007. This change also allowed the Publications Committee, with the input of the Editors, to streamline the review forms and make article types more consistent across the journals.
Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium: The JN is participating in the one-year trial of this consortium, which started in January 2008. This will allow reviews to be transmitted from a journal that rejects an article to another neuroscience journal upon the author's request. The goal is to reduce the load on reviewers and editors and speed the publication of research results.
Time to Publication: The average time to publication for all the May 2008 issues of the research journals was 2.1 months.
Supplemental Material: A total of 396 data supplements were published in 2007; 50 of them were video clips. Approximately 27% of the non-video data supplements were published in Physiological Genomics. Access to supplemental data is free-a reader can view supplemental data without a subscription to the journal, even if they cannot view the entire article.
Member benefits: APS members started receiving free online access to all journals, including the Legacy Content, in 2002. Members also receive a print subscription to Physiology, The Physiologist, and Advances in Physiology Education. Color charges are waived for all members who are first or last authors of a paper containing color figures.
Classic Articles: 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. Advances continued to publish a series of articles that describe ways in which the Classic Articles can be used for teaching.
Preprints policy (Nature "Precedings"): Nature Precedings is a new publication that posts citable preprints of non-peer reviewed articles, but claims these do not preclude publication in a peer-reviewed journal. However, APS does consider this kind of posting pre-publication.
Signed reviews policy: APS has never had a policy regarding signed reviews. While it is not encouraged, if reviewers sign their reviews, they will allow the signatures to go to the author at the Editor's discretion.
Dissertations in free online sites: Students can allow their dissertations to be sold and distributed by Proquest, but they do not have permission to allow Proquest to make them free online. The following will be added to the response to such permission requests: "Proquest may produce and sell copies of your dissertation on demand, but may not make your dissertation available for free internet download."
2009 Subscription Prices: Based on the cost plus 10% model we have used since setting 2002 prices, staff recommended to the Committee that prices be increased 2% in 2009, with the intention of announcing this smaller than usual price increase, which was made possible partly by the collection of Open Access fees through APS�s AuthorChoice program. Members of the Committee and the Finance Committee questioned the need to decrease the increase in prices that much (the increase was 4.6% in 2008), so a compromise of 2.5% was recommended by the Publications Committee and accepted by the Finance Committee and the Council.
AuthorChoice: The APS AuthorChoice program was developed to allow authors the ability to provide immediate free access to their work. For a growing number of our authors, providing open access is a condition of funding. The APS AuthorChoice program was opened to all APS research journals in July 2007. For a fee of $2,000 on top of other author fees, ($3,000 for review articles in research journals, which have no other author fees), an article will be made free immediately and can be uploaded to PMC to meet funding requirements. Twenty-one authors request this option in 2007, which is 1% of all accepted articles during that period, and 10 articles during January-May 2008.
Consortia: APS continues to respond to requests from consortia of libraries or multi-site 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 41 consortia and multi-sites in 2007, up from 34 in 2006. APS also signed an agreement with SPCNet, which will "package" the journals from FASEB and other publishers and present them to consortia and library networks.
Increase in color charge fee: The color charge to nonmembers was increased to $350 as of July 1, 2006, and to $400 as of July 1, 2007.
Open Access
Patient Access: Since November 2005, the public can request articles through the Patient Access link on the journal home pages. About five requests per week are received.
NIH policy: At the end of 2007, the Congress passed an Appropriations Bill that included language making the NIH Public Access Policy mandatory. This means that all NIH-funded articles must be uploaded to PMC and released to the public within 12-months of publication. The Committee approved the concept of the APS uploading articles for authors, 50% of which are NIH-funded. NIH has also recently distributed a new policy to its intramural researchers, forcing them to sign an NIH Publishing Agreement, and telling them not to sign any publisher's agreement. APS has sent a query to the NIH, indicating that the APS Mandatory Submission Form does more than transfer copyright, and does not transfer copyright from government employees.
Wellcome Trust policy: Wellcome and other UK funding agencies now require their funded researchers deposit their articles in PMC with a mandatory OA date six months after publication. Because that is earlier than APS' free access policy, APS allows authors to use its AuthorChoice program to meet this obligation.
Harvard policy: The Committee reviewed the recent decision by Harvard's college of arts and sciences encouraging authors to add language to the copyright transfer agreements that allows them to post articles in an institutional repository open to the world. The Committee reiterated its decision not to allow author-provided addendums to our copyright policy, the Wellcome Trust addendum being one exception.
Book Committee
The Book Advisory Committee, chaired by Ron Terjung, is making progress on having parts of the Handbook series updated, namely the Respiratory and Exercise Handbooks.