Abstract
Looking Back on 2018
The last 12 months have certainly been eventful for open‐access publishing, particularly with open access, or more generally, open science, hitting the headlines on more than one occasion. The phrase “open access” has been turning a few heads throughout North America and Asia, but nowhere near to the same degree as it has in Europe. The so‐called Plan S was released by Science Europe on September 4th, 2018.1 The main principle of Plan S is that, by 2020, scientific publications resulting from research that was funded by certain public grants must be published in fully compliant open‐access journals or on compliant open‐access platforms. The announcement was met with mixed feelings throughout the academic and publishing worlds, and the precise details and future implementation of Plan S remain somewhat unclear. Nevertheless, ChemistryOpen is proud to have been the first fully open‐access society‐owned chemistry journal, which published its first issue back at the start of 2012, putting us in a strong position going forward. Co‐owned and supported by ChemPubSoc Europe
(a consortium of 16 European chemical societies), ChemistryOpen remains fully compliant with mandates globally, making it a sound choice for your next open‐access publication.
ChemistryOpen excelled during 2018, with a record‐breaking number of submissions and number of published papers. We published well in excess of 100 articles in 2018 and achieved approximately a 10 % increase in the number of downloads, representing significant growth compared to previous years. On top of this, we doubled the number of issues we publish and made valuable workflow changes. In doing this, we managed to shave a full 7 days off the time it takes for your manuscript to traverse all steps from submission, through a comprehensive peer‐review process and post‐acceptance check, to online publication. Furthermore, through our continuous publishing model with, in most cases, immediate pagination, there is no longer an extensive waiting period between online publication and full citation details being available. We have managed to optimize our procedures to maintain a rigorous peer‐review process, but with swift publication times, and the average time it takes from submission to publication in an issue currently stands at an impressive 2 months. Nevertheless, we did not stop there! Given the ever‐growing importance of open access, ChemistryOpen strives to be the best it can be. Therefore, we have very recently implemented a series of post‐acceptance workflow changes, which we believe has now completed the technical optimization process.
Where Do We Go Next?
Having successfully streamlined our workflows, we now turn our attention to providing the best possible overall experience for our authors and our readers. We are working closely with our sister journals in the ChemPubSoc Europe and ACES portfolios to develop the best possible presentation of your research output. Together, we recently reached out to all members of the Editorial Advisory Boards for feedback regarding the distinction between Full Papers and Communications. The level of participation was overwhelming, and we are still in the process of analyzing all of the data. Nevertheless, there was a very clear majority in favor of removing the current distinction between Communications and Full Papers, largely stemming from changes in academic and publishing practices that have evolved throughout the decades. Given that we are in a digital age, we are now poised ready to revolutionize the way in which we present your manuscripts. To further bolster the project, we are now also working with the Advanced Materials family of journals to maximize the effectiveness of our endeavors. Watch this space for a new article type with added features, likely to be rolled out some time in 2019!
Along with our sister journals, ChemistryOpen is introducing the ORCID reviewer recognition program, which is expected to be finalized by mid‐January. Your reviewer ORCID profile can then be updated automatically with information about reviews completed for a publication using Editorial Manager (be assured, however, that the actual content of your report will not be published for all to see). The details of your activity are added to the ORCID site as Peer Review Activity records. You will be asked to approve the transfer of your first review by responding “Yes” to an authorization request configured to appear on the Review Form. You can also select a default response, so that the current and any future reports are recognized at ORCID. An authorization interaction with ORCID is required and you will need to log in to the ORCID site to authorize the publication and to update your ORCID record with the review. ORCID also provides Reviewers with the option to give permission for a one‐time‐only authorization. If you prefer to choose this option, the Editorial Manager system will not be able to deposit future reviews automatically.
A Closer Look at Our Content
The scope of ChemistryOpen is broad—we are dedicated to covering all areas of chemistry and related fields. Nevertheless, there are disciplines that receive less airtime than others. One of the ways in which we strive to feature certain areas is through Special Collections (previously referred to as Virtual Issues). To this end, we collaborate with leading research scientists to invite papers that are featured in dedicated themed collections.
Throughout 2018, we compiled a number of Special Collections on “Translational Chemistry”, “Chemosensors”, “Medicinal Chemistry”, and “Heterocycles”. ChemistryOpen recently teamed up with Professors F. Matthias Bickelhaupt (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Miquel Solà (Universitat de Girona, Spain), and Frank De Proft (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) (Figure 1) and are in the process of building a collection of invited papers on “Computational Chemistry”, which we hope that you enjoy browsing. Please do keep checking back to the collection, as new articles will be added regularly, as soon as they are published! “Biosynthesis of Microbial Natural Products” is another key field that is somewhat underrepresented by the content of ChemistryOpen. Therefore, we have teamed up with our Editorial Advisory Board member Prof. Mikko Metsä‐Ketelä (University of Turku, Finland) as well as Dr. Charles E. Melançon III (CEO, Lucent Scientific Services, Albuquerque, USA) to expand into this important research area. With their expertise, we endeavor to prepare a top themed collection dedicated to the topic.
Figure 1.
Our team of Guest Editors for our latest Special Collection dedicated to Computational Chemistry. From left to right: F. Matthias Bickelhaupt, Miquel Solà, and Frank De Proft.
If you are interested in contributing to any of the planned Special Collections or in working together with ChemistryOpen as a Guest Editor on a hot topic, please do not hesitate to contact the chemistryopen@wiley-vch.de today!
We are also extremely proud to have published a record number of review‐type articles this year (Table 1). ChemistryOpen published its first Review paper back in 2015 and we introduced the concept of Minireviews to the journal in 2018. We believe that these types of papers are extremely beneficial for novices and experts alike, providing a detailed overview in a convenient and illustrated format. This, coupled with the open‐access nature of ChemistryOpen, ensures the furthest possible reach. As always, we actively encourage anyone interested in authoring a Review or Minireview to contact us here in the chemistryopen@wiley-vch.de, as we would be happy to discuss your proposed topic.
Table 1.
Review‐type articles published in ChemistryOpen.
| Entry | Type | Corresponding author(s) | Title | DOI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Review | Carlos Lodeiro | Green and Red Fluorescent Dyes for Translational Applications in Imaging and Sensing Analytes: A Dual‐Color Flag |
10.1002/open.201700135 | |
| 2 | Minireview | Yi‐Tao Long | Wearable Chemosensors: A Review of Recent Progress | 10.1002/open.201700159 | |
| 3 | Minireview | Alberto Credi | Making and Operating Molecular Machines: A Multidisciplinary Challenge |
10.1002/open.201700181 | |
| 4 | Review | Maria Teresa Barros | Medicinal Attributes of Lignans Extracted from Piper Cubeba: Current Developments |
10.1002/open.201700182 | |
| 5 | Review | Veronica I Dodero | Translational Chemistry Meets Gluten‐Related Disorders | 10.1002/open.201700197 | |
| 6 | Minireview | Laura M Ilharco Mario Pagliaro |
Dihydroxyacetone: An Updated Insight into an Important Bioproduct |
10.1002/open.201700201 | |
| 7 | Review | Ramón Martínez‐Máñez | Chromogenic and Fluorogenic Probes for the Detection of Illicit Drugs |
10.1002/open.201800034 | |
| 8 | Review | M. Teresa Pereira José M. Vila |
From Chemical Serendipity to Translational Chemistry: New Findings in the Reactivity of Palladacycles |
10.1002/open.201800036 | |
| 9 | Review | Sheshanath V. Bhosale | Functionalized Quinoxaline for Chromogenic and Fluorogenic Anion Sensing |
10.1002/open.201800163 | |
| 10 | Minireview | Leonid Voskressensky | Recent Advances in Phthalan and Coumaran Chemistry | 10.1002/open.201800184 |
Securing a Discount on Your Next Publication
As a society‐oriented journal, being co‐owned and supported by ChemPubSoc Europe, ChemistryOpen is dedicated to maintaining a fair article publication charge (APC) with no hidden page or color costs. We are, therefore, happy to confirm that there will be no increase in the APC going into 2019 and our fixed‐rate APC remains static at 1800€. On top of this, we also offer a number of discounts! If you are a member of any of the ChemPubSoc Europe national societies, you are automatically eligible for a 20 % discount, bringing the APC down to only 1440€! Furthermore, we actively pay royalties back to our society partners, further strengthening bonds throughout the ChemPubSoc Europe community.
ChemistryOpen also grants a 20% discount for manuscripts received via a transfer from a number of journals, including all of our sister journals in the ChemPubSoc Europe portfolio as well as Angewandte Chemie, the ACES journals, the Advanced Materials family, and many more! No‐one likes to receive a negative decision, and in an attempt to lessen the blow, our colleagues are now offering a discount on the APC if your manuscript is subsequently transferred and accepted at ChemistryOpen.
For further information about all of our discounts and available waivers, please go to the journal's homepage at www.ChemistryOpen.org/charges for comprehensive details.
Our Latest Sister Journal Has Arrived
ChemPubSoc Europe has recently announced the newest member of the family: ChemSystemsChem. Systems chemistry is an emerging field of chemistry, in which the properties of interacting networks of chemicals or molecular assemblies/components, mostly away from equilibrium, are investigated. The last few decades have brought us a better understanding of non‐covalent interactions between molecules, supramolecular chemistry, and self‐assembly, so that the logical next step is to improve our understanding of molecular assemblies that are not at equilibrium and that demonstrate emergent functions. Practical advances in materials synthesis are sought that enable the manufacture of high‐precision microfluidic devices and provide advances in imaging, especially super‐resolution imaging, Increased control over supramolecular assemblies as well as vast progress in our ability to model complex systems have enabled the emergence of systems chemistry.
Get in Touch!
As always, we actively encourage all of the authors and readers of ChemistryOpen to get involved with the journal; whether it be with a comment, criticism, advice, idea, Special Collection topic, or a Review proposal, we look forward to hearing from you! On behalf of the entire ChemistryOpen Editorial Team, we thank our Editorial Advisory Board members, reviewers, authors, and readers for their support and wish you all the best for 2019!
Dr. Kate Lawrence Editor‐in‐Chief ChemistryOpen
K. Lawrence, ChemistryOpen 2019, 8, 4.