Abstract
For many organisations, their most important means of communication with their customers is now their website. This is particularly so for business enterprises, but is becoming true also in the publishing world. Online-only journals are now common and many institutions take online-only subscriptions, even when the printed version of a journal is available, giving easy access to readers without needing to visit the library shelves. BMUS members and other subscribers have enjoyed full online access to Ultrasound for some time now, in addition to receiving the four issues per year in printed form. BMUS has no plans at present to change this and move to an online-only journal and members are assured of receiving their four printed issues per year for the foreseeable future. However, it is important for us to move with the times and I am pleased to be able to report that our new publisher, SAGE Publications, has now arranged for HighWire Press to build revamped Ultrasound web pages and incorporate them into the SAGE Journals platform. This move brings enhanced functionality and new access to additional facilities through other areas of the SAGE website. To celebrate the addition of Ultrasound to the SAGE website, online access has been offered free, for a trial period via http://ult.sagepub.com.
The new Ultrasound web pages contain the full content of each issue of the journal, including all figures and tables. In addition, the full text is searchable by keyword, and the cited references include hyperlinks to Medline and to the full text of any articles published by journals which are also hosted on the HighWire Platform (1770+ titles). Each full issue will be placed online approximately on the date it is mailed to subscribers, so the online issue will always be published ahead of your receipt of a paper copy. If you would like to know when a new issue of Ultrasound has published online you can sign up for Table of Content email alerts on the Ultrasound website. In addition, the OnlineFirst facility will continue. This gives access to forthcoming articles before they are scheduled to appear in print, which can be many weeks in advance of the issue publication date. Any paper published OnlineFirst is fully citable using the article’s DOI number.
The Ultrasound homepage also provides access to information about the journal, such as Instructions to Authors, the Editorial Board, and subscription information, as well as access to other services. Ultrasound will continue to be indexed via CINAHL and Scopus and Sonoworld will continue to host Open Access links to the Editor’s picks from each issue.
As you will be aware, many research funding bodies stipulate that research results are published in Open Access journals. SAGE offers authors the opportunity to make them freely available through the ‘SAGE Choice' publishing option. Open Access publication incurs a fee per article, which authors, hopefully, can recoup from their funding body or department. For Open Access publication in Ultrasound, the fee per article is $3,000USD/£1600GPB. Under this program, SAGE will post to PubMed Central (PMC) or its international equivalents, such as UKPMC or PMCI on behalf of authors, where their funder requires it.
The SAGE Choice option will be made available to authors upon acceptance of their paper for publication. This is in order to prevent any potential conflicts of interest, and to ensure that authors' choice/funder requirements can have no bearing on the editorial peer review and decision-making process. Payment of the SAGE Choice fee will enable articles to be immediately available on SAGE Journals to non-subscribers (Gold Open Access), as well as to subscribers to Ultrasound. It will also permit authors to submit the final manuscript to their funding agency's preferred archive if applicable. Those authors who do not wish to use this service will be under no pressure to do so, and their article will be published free of charge, in the usual manner. All existing policies on author posting of the final version will then apply.
Future development plans for the Ultrasound web pages include extending the current online digital archive. At present, the archive includes all issues from the current issue back to Volume 12 (2004). From September, the archive will include all issues back to Volume 1. Other features currently under development include an Ultrasound ‘widget’, which comprises of a live table of contents, OnlineFirst and most read tab which users can place on any website. The widget is designed to increase the ease of access for readers from various locations. SAGE is also developing a site to optimise viewing of the journal via handheld devices. This new site should be launched within the coming months. Why not take a look at the new web pages via http://ult.sagepub.com or through the BMUS website, where you can watch out for the latest news on these developments. Oh, and do enjoy this August issue of Ultrasound.