New measures taken for a better IJAV

Selcuk Tunali^*

Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Ankara, Turkey

*Corresponding Author:

Selcuk Tunali, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Sihhiye, Ankara, 06100 Turkey
Tel: +90 312 305 21 07
E-mail: editor@ijav.org

Date of Received: April 16^th, 2010

Date of Accepted: April 16^th, 2010

Published Online: April 16^th, 2010

© IJAV. 2010; 3: 51–52.

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to have the third volume of International Journal of Anatomical Variations (IJAV) being published. During the 22 months period since the announcement of IJAV, we have published 99 case reports, 3 letters to the editor and 1 editorial. Those manuscripts have been submitted by colleagues from 17 different countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, and USA. Currently, total page number of the three volumes is 240, and 56 manuscripts are under review. Web traffic of IJAV shows an increasing trend since the beginning, and now we already reached most of the world (Figure 1). In this connection, I’d like to express my heartiest gratitude to our colleagues for their interest in IJAV, and to the editorial and scientific advisory board members for their hard work during the meticulous reviewing process and maintenance of the journal.

Figure 1. Map overlay of web traffic of IJAV via Google Analytics. Darker green color indicates higher traffic.

On the other hand, the increasingly high number of submissions brought some difficulties along. To properly handle the manuscripts on time, and manage IJAV in our way to be a leading journal, we have to adopt some measures. Due to increased costs of article management, publishing, and storage, we are forced to implement author fees. Because editor-in-chief and all editors work for free, we are able to keep the fees much below those charged by many other journals. Effective from April 17^th, 2010, we will charge a publication fee for all accepted articles (US$ 150, payable before publishing). No submission fee will be charged upon submission. The publication fee will apply for the manuscripts submitted after April 17^th, 2010. The authors will not be charged for the manuscripts that are not accepted for publication. A waiver will be granted for lower income countries, students, and authors experiencing financial hardship, upon contacting the editor-in-chief. This waiver procedure will be completely confidential between the author and the editor-in-chief. Two thirds of the publication fee will be paid to the reviewers of the manuscript, whereas one third will be used to finance the maintenance of the website, typesetting of the article, and management of the editorial office. To encourage our reviewers to provide a prompt review, we will pay them. Typically, a reviewer will receive US$ 50 for reviewing a manuscript. PayPal system will be used for the transfers between the author, editor and reviewers. The publication fee of IJAV is much below those charged by our competitors, which charge US$ 225 to US$ 1,500 per manuscript. Additionally, some journals charge a non-refundable submission fee (typically US$ 25 to US$ 200) or a fast-track fee (US$ 450; non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without peer-review) to get the initial decision within 15 working days, publication within one month after acceptance. We substantially publish the articles within one month after acceptance, free of additional charge.

Open access publishing is a relatively new model that allows all the readers to view, download, print, and redistribute any article without a subscription. It enables far greater distribution of an author’s study than the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Many authors in a variety of fields have begun to realize the benefits that open access publishing can provide in terms of increasing the impact of their work. In the open access model, the author pays the publication costs of an article. This charge replaces subscription charges and allows all interested readers to freely access the full-text of every published article [1–5].

As a second change that will be effective from April 17^th, 2010, the number of the authors will be limited to four. This measure is adopted to prevent any possible scientific misconduct, since it is not likely to have more than 4 authors actually contributing to a case report.

The details for charging the publication fee will be provided to the authors along with the letter of acceptance.

Hoping to have an increasingly wide collaboration in the future too.

Sincerely,

Selcuk Tunali, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, IJAV

References

1. http://jmedicalcasereports.com/info/apcfaq/?txt_faq=howmuch (accessed April 16th, 2010).
2. http://www.caaa.ca/CAR/SubmGuide (accessed April 16th, 2010).
3. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ari/apc.html (accessed April 16th, 2010).
4. http://www.ispub.com/instructions.html (accessed April 16th, 2010).
5. http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/Instructions_for_Authors:Instructions_for_Authors_of_JMIR (accessed April 16th, 2010).

Selcuk Tunali^*

Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Ankara, Turkey

*Corresponding Author:

Selcuk Tunali, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Sihhiye, Ankara, 06100 Turkey
Tel: +90 312 305 21 07
E-mail: editor@ijav.org

Date of Received: April 16^th, 2010

Date of Accepted: April 16^th, 2010

Published Online: April 16^th, 2010

© IJAV. 2010; 3: 51–52.

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to have the third volume of International Journal of Anatomical Variations (IJAV) being published. During the 22 months period since the announcement of IJAV, we have published 99 case reports, 3 letters to the editor and 1 editorial. Those manuscripts have been submitted by colleagues from 17 different countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, and USA. Currently, total page number of the three volumes is 240, and 56 manuscripts are under review. Web traffic of IJAV shows an increasing trend since the beginning, and now we already reached most of the world (Figure 1). In this connection, I’d like to express my heartiest gratitude to our colleagues for their interest in IJAV, and to the editorial and scientific advisory board members for their hard work during the meticulous reviewing process and maintenance of the journal.

Figure 1. Map overlay of web traffic of IJAV via Google Analytics. Darker green color indicates higher traffic.

On the other hand, the increasingly high number of submissions brought some difficulties along. To properly handle the manuscripts on time, and manage IJAV in our way to be a leading journal, we have to adopt some measures. Due to increased costs of article management, publishing, and storage, we are forced to implement author fees. Because editor-in-chief and all editors work for free, we are able to keep the fees much below those charged by many other journals. Effective from April 17^th, 2010, we will charge a publication fee for all accepted articles (US$ 150, payable before publishing). No submission fee will be charged upon submission. The publication fee will apply for the manuscripts submitted after April 17^th, 2010. The authors will not be charged for the manuscripts that are not accepted for publication. A waiver will be granted for lower income countries, students, and authors experiencing financial hardship, upon contacting the editor-in-chief. This waiver procedure will be completely confidential between the author and the editor-in-chief. Two thirds of the publication fee will be paid to the reviewers of the manuscript, whereas one third will be used to finance the maintenance of the website, typesetting of the article, and management of the editorial office. To encourage our reviewers to provide a prompt review, we will pay them. Typically, a reviewer will receive US$ 50 for reviewing a manuscript. PayPal system will be used for the transfers between the author, editor and reviewers. The publication fee of IJAV is much below those charged by our competitors, which charge US$ 225 to US$ 1,500 per manuscript. Additionally, some journals charge a non-refundable submission fee (typically US$ 25 to US$ 200) or a fast-track fee (US$ 450; non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without peer-review) to get the initial decision within 15 working days, publication within one month after acceptance. We substantially publish the articles within one month after acceptance, free of additional charge.

Open access publishing is a relatively new model that allows all the readers to view, download, print, and redistribute any article without a subscription. It enables far greater distribution of an author’s study than the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Many authors in a variety of fields have begun to realize the benefits that open access publishing can provide in terms of increasing the impact of their work. In the open access model, the author pays the publication costs of an article. This charge replaces subscription charges and allows all interested readers to freely access the full-text of every published article [1–5].

As a second change that will be effective from April 17^th, 2010, the number of the authors will be limited to four. This measure is adopted to prevent any possible scientific misconduct, since it is not likely to have more than 4 authors actually contributing to a case report.

The details for charging the publication fee will be provided to the authors along with the letter of acceptance.

Hoping to have an increasingly wide collaboration in the future too.

Sincerely,

Selcuk Tunali, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, IJAV

References

1. http://jmedicalcasereports.com/info/apcfaq/?txt_faq=howmuch (accessed April 16th, 2010).
2. http://www.caaa.ca/CAR/SubmGuide (accessed April 16th, 2010).
3. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ari/apc.html (accessed April 16th, 2010).
4. http://www.ispub.com/instructions.html (accessed April 16th, 2010).
5. http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/Instructions_for_Authors:Instructions_for_Authors_of_JMIR (accessed April 16th, 2010).