Abstract
Stephen Higgs
In the last few years, the scientific publishing world has seen and experienced a number of changes: an explosion of online journals, some of which have deservedly established themselves among the leaders in various fields. A perceived advantage of online publication is the rapid turnover from acceptance to release; however, in my experience, “rapid” is not always as fast as one expects. In response to author enquiries, VBZD implemented an online ahead-of-print “Fast-track” release policy in 2008. The publication date for citation is regarded as the date of online release even though volume number and page numbers are unassigned until physical release.
Another trend has been “Open Access.” From a for-profit publishing company's and, indeed, from some authors' perspective, this has perhaps mixed blessings. For many years, companies have strived and invested to distribute scientific articles quickly and widely. Often this venture has been supplemented by more profitable publishing activities—I do not believe that many scientific journals have made their publisher's fortunes! Distribution has often been subscription-based and linked to scientific societies. With what seems to be an increasing global expectation that more things should be freely available to all without risk and responsibility, traditional group activities in the real world seem to have been replaced by virtual, instantaneous, distance-independent interactions. Yes, I know that I am sounding old! Everyone is on “MySpace” or an equivalent social networking site, but membership of societies that have been the mainstay of scientific communities is apparently on the decline. To me—and I should emphasize that these are my views and not those of our publisher—this is an unfortunate trend. There are many advantages of being a member of a society, but these are not perhaps easily appreciated by newcomers to the field. Take, for example, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, or the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, both of which are well established and have journals associated with them. Membership provides opportunities to meet not only people with similar interests, but also leaders in the field who have unparalleled experiences gained during times when international travel was an adventure in itself and new pathogens were being discovered frequently. An important aspect of scientific society membership is the demonstration of commitment to a subject area. From a career perspective this has hidden value because a potential employer who reads a résumé will be looking for indicators of dedication and long-term interest. A section on a curriculum vitae listing society memberships with meetings attended and posters/talks that one has presented tells the employer a great deal about the applicant. Not only does it indicate personal investment (you have paid to be a member), but also you probably had to get letters of recommendation from mentors—an indication that they have confidence in you.
Open access may be progress of sorts, but with hidden costs. Some of the open access online journals charge a relatively high fee to publish an article—despite lack of traditional hard copy cost. For authors who cannot afford this cost, they will publish for free. This is good, but I think that if an author of a good article contacts an editor, most journals would consider this option. I hear that some grant-funding bodies are now insisting that scientists whom they support must publish in open access journals and also must deposit their articles in PubMed Central (PMC). I suppose that they are paying and thus have the right to do this, but the process is not always as easy as one would hope. Some journals will do this for you—our journal does—but it is yet another burden on them and was not in the original cost structuring. Some journals cannot do this or need to maintain copyright over your article to stay in business. My concern is that these trends may restrict authors with respect to which journals they can publish in, and, as a consequence, some journals may disappear. I like the option of targeting my work to a journal that reaches the audience who will most appreciate the work, rather than sending it to a more general journal where it will be skipped over by most readers! Happily, though, VBZD has an optional open access program that assists our authors who have National Institutes of Health's funding to comply with this new National Institutes of Health's policy. Our publisher will send the final accepted article (after copyediting and proofreading) to PMC on behalf of the authors. Authors need not take any action. The article's public access posting on PMC will occur 12 months after final publication. This service is provided free of charge. However, authors who would like their articles posted free online with immediate unrestricted open access may pay a fee in order not to wait for the 12 months.
These views are my own, but not just mine alone. The community of scientists working in the fields of vector-borne diseases, tropical diseases, and health issues in developing countries—that is, components of global health—is relatively small. I communicate with editors and subeditors of journals that VBZD readers might consider as our competitors. It is not really the case. Of course, we all want to publish the best articles, but many of these people have been my friends for years. We all share a passion for health issues, and this transcends personal gain, publisher profits, and so on. We use the same reviewer pool, and indeed we review articles for each other and on occasions will actually recommend an author to submit elsewhere simply because we believe that we have a responsibility to ensure maximum exposure. It is just that kind of field.
As far as the future of VBZD is concerned, we have received a record number of submissions in 2009. This year we are increasing the number of issues to 10 to accommodate more high-quality articles that are being submitted. Last year we published one special issue, “The United States Department of Agriculture Northeast Tick Control Project,” and this year we have an issue dedicated to plague, and one that will be based on articles presented at the ArboZoonet meeting. If you are organizing a meeting and wish to publish a set of articles in VBZD, please e-mail me or the publisher. The articles still have to be submitted online and still must go through external peer review and must meet our exacting standards. We have made some editorial board changes to reflect and enhance the increasing international appeal of the journal and have implemented a new page charge structure that can include open access if necessary.
With all of these trends, my closing words to new authors are to take the time to check the quality of the writing and to check that e-mail addresses for the potential reviewers are correct. For every article submitted I may get 20 administrative e-mails. One of the major causes of delay is problems with contacting reviewers because the e-mail address is wrong. Also, I send articles to a diverse range of reviewers carefully chosen because of their expertise. If all five of your reviewers are from one small country, then I will search for scientists elsewhere and that takes time. My final words are for the editorial board members and reviewers—a tireless group that performs an essential, behind-the-scene, time-consuming task without recompense just because they believe that it is important. My words to them—THANK YOU!