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Editorial Submission to Publication in AJR: Do We Need a New Approach?
W
e discussed changing trends in the financial models for biomedical publications, including author pay and hybrid author pay concepts, in August 2013 [1]. In the former setting, authors may pay up to $4000 to cover the entire cost of manuscript copyediting, additional publication processes, and distribution. Hybrid versions for author pay include additional fees for color, additional tables and figures beyond author guidelines, and “fast-tracking” of manuscripts. The latter could result in publication as early as 2 months from submission but also can often result in fees for authors. The American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) currently follows a subscription model, similar to other society-related journals. Our monthly issues of the journal are available in print and online digital applications. The time from manuscript submission to final decision and publication involves multiple processes and is dependent on the journal staff, editors, reviewers, and authors to optimize efficiency. The first step in the process involves moving manuscripts from submission to first decision. The technical check occurs early in the process to make certain authors have selected the appropriate manuscript category and followed the content limits for a given article type (e,g., Original Research, Review, etc.). The journal staff then forwards the manuscript to the appropriate section editor. Section editors invite two reviewers to begin the peer review process. Reviewers are given 14 working days to complete their review. The time to first decision is typically about 33 days. Thanks to the efforts of our journal staff, editors, and reviewers, our year-to-date 2015 time to first decision has been reduced by 14 days. The initial decision is based on the evaluations by the reviewers and editors. In most cases, the first decision requires additional effort from the authors, which may include either minor or major revisions. The authors usually revise the manuscript in a matter of weeks. If the comments of the reviewers are adequately addressed, the manuscript is accepted and readied for publication along with other manuscripts already accepted and in our pipeline. Because of the backlog of
accepted manuscripts, the time from first submission to publication may be 6 months. This is too long. As stated by Andrew B. Rosenkrantz and Mukesh G. Harisinghani [2] “achieving as rapid a publication turn-around-time as possible would benefit not only the journal’s authors and readers but also the radiology community in general.” Our goal for this year is to reduce the time to publication and provide more exposure for the authors and the journal. What have we accomplished thus far? In September 2014, we appointed a task force chaired by Dr. Mukesh G. Harisinghani to evaluate our current processes, provide new initiatives to decrease the time to publication, and reduce the backlog. An obvious modification would be to reduce the acceptance rate to 20% or lower for submissions to the AJR. This task force is a work in progress. Are there other options that allow more rapid publication and article exposure for our authors, readers, and the journal? Atypon, our online vendor, enables us to select certain articles to publish ahead of print. We began using this approach in 2014, but we need to improve our processes. At this time, our editorial staff is able to support approximately four aheadof-print articles per issue. The ability to publish ahead of print provides authors with more rapid publication and longer exposure for their material. Readers also obtain important data earlier. The journal also benefits because articles have more and longer exposure, which can increase the value to readers and improve our impact factor. The selection process for ahead-of-print articles is based on editorial decisions. As you know, our focused issues from January to November each year highlight our subspecialty sections. These articles are often solicited. Therefore, in this setting, invited authors with key topics could be preselected for publication ahead of print. This approach also provides more incentive for authors to participate. A priority list could be maintained providing copyeditors with the list of articles in the ahead-of-print category. This would help facilitate the work on the four articles for each issue. Remember, ahead-of-print articles are only available to ARRS members
with journal subscriptions and residents in training. Also, because ahead-of-print articles are eventually published, this approach does not assist with decreasing the backlog. Another consideration is selection of highquality articles that include evidence-based medicine data or new “hot topic” articles for open access. For example, our Best Practices special articles orchestrated by Drs. Pari V. Pandharipani and Christopher I. Lee would be an obvious choice for open access. Open access would enable us to make key articles available to all national and international readers, authors, and scientists. Carefully selected open access articles with early publication could be a highly positive new approach for the AJR. Keep in mind, at this point we have not initiated any steps to develop a hybrid author-pay model for ahead-of-print or open access articles. Should we consider fees in the future? At this point, we need to measure the success of what we can accomplish with a mix of aheadof-print and open access articles. Four articles per issue over 1 year would give us comparative data for 48 ahead-of-print and open access articles. Citation indexes for these categories could be compared with the articles that were not ahead of print or open access to determine whether the desired benefit was achieved. We can collect this data over the year and then determine the next steps. On the surface, this seems an obvious positive approach to assist our authors, readers, the journal, and the public at large. We are in the process of structuring this potential and the metrics. We need to move forward with improving our time from submission to publication and offering these new initiatives in the very near future. Thomas H. Berquist Editor in Chief [email protected] DOI:10.2214/AJR.15.14763
References 1. Berquist TH. Medical publishing: new approaches and financial challenges. AJR 2013; 201:235–236 2. Rosenkrantz AB, Harisinghani MG. Metrics for original research articles in AJR: from first submission to final publication. AJR 2015; 204:1–5
AJR:204, June 2015 1139
Editorial Submission to Publication in AJR: Do We Need a New Approach?
W
e discussed changing trends in the financial models for biomedical publications, including author pay and hybrid author pay concepts, in August 2013 [1]. In the former setting, authors may pay up to $4000 to cover the entire cost of manuscript copyediting, additional publication processes, and distribution. Hybrid versions for author pay include additional fees for color, additional tables and figures beyond author guidelines, and “fast-tracking” of manuscripts. The latter could result in publication as early as 2 months from submission but also can often result in fees for authors. The American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) currently follows a subscription model, similar to other society-related journals. Our monthly issues of the journal are available in print and online digital applications. The time from manuscript submission to final decision and publication involves multiple processes and is dependent on the journal staff, editors, reviewers, and authors to optimize efficiency. The first step in the process involves moving manuscripts from submission to first decision. The technical check occurs early in the process to make certain authors have selected the appropriate manuscript category and followed the content limits for a given article type (e,g., Original Research, Review, etc.). The journal staff then forwards the manuscript to the appropriate section editor. Section editors invite two reviewers to begin the peer review process. Reviewers are given 14 working days to complete their review. The time to first decision is typically about 33 days. Thanks to the efforts of our journal staff, editors, and reviewers, our year-to-date 2015 time to first decision has been reduced by 14 days. The initial decision is based on the evaluations by the reviewers and editors. In most cases, the first decision requires additional effort from the authors, which may include either minor or major revisions. The authors usually revise the manuscript in a matter of weeks. If the comments of the reviewers are adequately addressed, the manuscript is accepted and readied for publication along with other manuscripts already accepted and in our pipeline. Because of the backlog of
accepted manuscripts, the time from first submission to publication may be 6 months. This is too long. As stated by Andrew B. Rosenkrantz and Mukesh G. Harisinghani [2] “achieving as rapid a publication turn-around-time as possible would benefit not only the journal’s authors and readers but also the radiology community in general.” Our goal for this year is to reduce the time to publication and provide more exposure for the authors and the journal. What have we accomplished thus far? In September 2014, we appointed a task force chaired by Dr. Mukesh G. Harisinghani to evaluate our current processes, provide new initiatives to decrease the time to publication, and reduce the backlog. An obvious modification would be to reduce the acceptance rate to 20% or lower for submissions to the AJR. This task force is a work in progress. Are there other options that allow more rapid publication and article exposure for our authors, readers, and the journal? Atypon, our online vendor, enables us to select certain articles to publish ahead of print. We began using this approach in 2014, but we need to improve our processes. At this time, our editorial staff is able to support approximately four aheadof-print articles per issue. The ability to publish ahead of print provides authors with more rapid publication and longer exposure for their material. Readers also obtain important data earlier. The journal also benefits because articles have more and longer exposure, which can increase the value to readers and improve our impact factor. The selection process for ahead-of-print articles is based on editorial decisions. As you know, our focused issues from January to November each year highlight our subspecialty sections. These articles are often solicited. Therefore, in this setting, invited authors with key topics could be preselected for publication ahead of print. This approach also provides more incentive for authors to participate. A priority list could be maintained providing copyeditors with the list of articles in the ahead-of-print category. This would help facilitate the work on the four articles for each issue. Remember, ahead-of-print articles are only available to ARRS members
with journal subscriptions and residents in training. Also, because ahead-of-print articles are eventually published, this approach does not assist with decreasing the backlog. Another consideration is selection of highquality articles that include evidence-based medicine data or new “hot topic” articles for open access. For example, our Best Practices special articles orchestrated by Drs. Pari V. Pandharipani and Christopher I. Lee would be an obvious choice for open access. Open access would enable us to make key articles available to all national and international readers, authors, and scientists. Carefully selected open access articles with early publication could be a highly positive new approach for the AJR. Keep in mind, at this point we have not initiated any steps to develop a hybrid author-pay model for ahead-of-print or open access articles. Should we consider fees in the future? At this point, we need to measure the success of what we can accomplish with a mix of aheadof-print and open access articles. Four articles per issue over 1 year would give us comparative data for 48 ahead-of-print and open access articles. Citation indexes for these categories could be compared with the articles that were not ahead of print or open access to determine whether the desired benefit was achieved. We can collect this data over the year and then determine the next steps. On the surface, this seems an obvious positive approach to assist our authors, readers, the journal, and the public at large. We are in the process of structuring this potential and the metrics. We need to move forward with improving our time from submission to publication and offering these new initiatives in the very near future. Thomas H. Berquist Editor in Chief [email protected] DOI:10.2214/AJR.15.14763
References 1. Berquist TH. Medical publishing: new approaches and financial challenges. AJR 2013; 201:235–236 2. Rosenkrantz AB, Harisinghani MG. Metrics for original research articles in AJR: from first submission to final publication. AJR 2015; 204:1–5
AJR:204, June 2015 1139
