JANUARY 2009 VOLUME 22, NUMBER 1 Copyright 2009 by the American Chemical Society
Editorial Chemical Research in ToxicologysFrom Strength to Strength Chemical Research in Toxicology just completed its 21st year of publication. The year began with a 20th anniversary celebration in the January issue featuring a series of perspectives on areas of continuing interest in the Journal. The January issue also introduced a number of important new features. These included a series of global perspectives examining the status of chemical toxicology in different countries and new monthly features called “In This Issue” and “Spotlights”, written by our new Managing Editor, Carol Rouzer. These highlight articles in each month’s issue as well as articles published in other journals across the landscape of scientific publishing. The February issue initiated a series of editorial perspectives in which board members discuss important areas of their own research interests. The statistics for Chemical Research in Toxicology are very positive. Submissions through 2007-2008 show substantial increases as compared to previous years, and international submissions now comprise more than 50% of the total. As one might anticipate from the increased number of submissions, the number of pages published is up, in fact, way up. Chemical Research in Toxicology published 2595 pages in 2008 compared to 2152 pages in 2007 and 1843 in 2006. The 2007 Impact Factor of 3.508 was up significantly as compared to 2006 (3.162). Turnaround times for the Journal remain excellents21 days from submission to first decision and 45 days from receipt to acceptance. These turnaround times are remarkable, because we routinely solicit 2-4 reviews for every manuscript. Authors who submit to Chemical Research in Toxicology frequently comment that we provide valuable commentary and helpful suggestions on their article. The hard work of our editorial staff ensures that high-quality reviews are gathered in a timely fashion. The cost of publication in Chemical Research in Toxicology remains extremely attractive in that there are no page charges and no color charges. Submission via the new ACS Paragon Plus website is streamlined, and we continue to work to make the process as straightforward and painless as possible. ACS
Paragon Plus is now a fully integrated system that covers not only submission but also review and complete manuscript tracking through publication. The American Chemical Society has responded to the NIH requirement for the posting on PubMed Central of manuscripts supported with NIH funding by implementing three options, described in detail at http://pubs.acs.org/page/policy/nih/index.html. One of these options is to pay a fee to designate the final article open access and freely downloadable (ACS AuthorChoice). I think most of you know that I am a strong supporter of ACS AuthorChoice (http://pubs.acs.org/page/policy/ authorchoice/index.html). Because I am an ACS member and my University library subscribes to ACS Journals, the charge to me is $1,000 to designate an article as Author Choice. So far, I have published over a dozen ACS AuthorChoice manuscripts, and the download statistics have been very impressive. The single charge of $1,000 to publish an article with fully open access through ACS AuthorChoice is very reasonable and compares favorably with the charges of many other society publishers. Some major Societies require page charges, color charges, and an open access fee of up to $2,000-$3,000, making the total cost to publish an open access article in those journals as high as $5,000, depending on the content. Thus, ACS provides a very economical option for open access publication. The ACS AuthorChoice option also enables authors to comply with the Wellcome Trust open access policy. Wellcome Trust will reimburse the ACS AuthorChoice fee. We embark on our 22nd year with a continued commitment to bring you articles of interest to the constantly changing field of toxicology. This month’s issue begins a series of reviews on immunotoxicology, and the February issue will include a number ofpapersonaveryhottopicinthepharmaceuticalindustrysmetabolites in safety testing or MIST. Watch for special series and aggregations of topical articles that will be more frequent features of the Journal going forward. Authors who access the Journal electronically (which is now the majority of our readers) are benefiting from a dynamic new
10.1021/tx800470m CCC: $40.75 2009 American Chemical Society Published on Web 01/19/2009
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web delivery platform (http://pubs.acs.org/journal/crtoec). ACS’s transition to this new system has provided an incredible upgrade in the Journal’s functionality that dramatically improves the reader’s experience. I hope you have had an opportunity to flip through some of the new pages, especially in the HTML version, which is packed with features and text-driven links. For example, the Figure Viewer option enables one to scan all of the figures and schemes without having to scroll through the article. Another feature is reference viewing. As one encounters a reference citation in the article, positioning the mouse over the numerical citation will visualize the complete reference without having to go to the reference list. There are many other features too numerous to describe here, but you can find a demo on the ACS website (http://pubs.acs.org/sda/63224/index.html). Beyond the new functionalities, the layout of the web pages is clean, crisp, and very easy to navigate. You’ll recognize this look in
all ACS Journals, because beginning in January 2008, Chemical Research in Toxicology became a prototype for all of the other Society’s Journals’ websites. We begin our 22nd year of publication of Chemical Research in Toxicology from a position of strength and growing impact. Toxicology, like most scientific disciplines, faces significant challenges, particularly in an era of reduced funding and economic hardship. However, toxicology is fundamentally a vibrant discipline with a renewed sense of relevance to the maintenance of human health and the prevention and treatment of disease. Lawrence J. Marnett Editor-in-Chief TX800470M
