Abstract
I am pleased to announce the launch of Japanese Clinical Medicine–-a new peer reviewed open access journal published by Libertas Academica.
Japanese Clinical Medicine is a broad-scoped journal focussing on human medical clinical research, and is intended for researchers and clinicians working across this broad field.
The journal will accept papers across a broad range of fields:
Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disorders
Cardiology
Circulatory, Pulmonary, Respiratory
Dermatology
Ear, Nose and Throat and Otolaryngology
Endocrinology
Ethics, Health Services and Epidemiology
Gastroenterology
Geriatrics
Obstetrics and Gynecology, Reproduction, Women's Health
Oncology
Pathology
Psychiatry, Neurology, Psychology
Trauma and Intensive Medicine
Urology and Nephrology
Original research, case reports, reviews, methodologies and many other types of papers will be published.
Japanese Clinical Medicine will compete with a number of existing journals, but will offer significant advantages to authors:
Exceptional open access visibility. Free access to all papers and in excess of 5,500 articles downloaded on average per month.
International readership and international industry-standard manuscript processing.
Balanced, fair and prompt peer review by international experts.
Full use of digital technologies through the use of electronic PDF format, including data sets, links to other web pages, animations, slides, videos and unlimited colour figures at no additional cost beyond the standard article processing fee. Authors can include all relevant information within their article.
High-quality typesetting.
Authors retain copyright in their published article.
The journal will be competing head-on with a number of existing subscription-based journals. However, there is clearly a niche for the new journal. The reason for this is because all journal articles will be accessible without any access boundaries to all internet users throughout the world. Another major benefit of open access online journals is that anyone can contribute, and not only those in major institutions. These freedoms are coupled with rigorous, fair and prompt standards of peer review.
Japanese Clinical Medicine is published exclusively online. Articles will follow a consistent format so that the visual impact will be high and equal to that of the best hard-copy publications. In contrast to paper-based journals, however, the electronic format allows the full use of digital technologies and permits the inclusion of large data sets, from field and laboratory studies, links to other web pages, animations, slide shows, video clips and unlimited colour, all at no additional charge. Open access means that all articles are freely available to all, worldwide, and at no cost to the reader. Authors retain copyright of their work and can grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate it, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced.
In hard-copy journals, the costs of publication are met by subscriptions, paid by the reader. In Japanese Clinical Medicine, as in other open access journals, these costs are borne by the author in the form of a publication processing fee. Many grant-awarding bodies recognise the value of open access publishing by allowing their funds to be used for PPFs. Fee waivers and discounts are available on a case-by-case basis, and we shall make every effort to ensure that lack of funds does not impede the overall objective of publishing the best science, irrespective of authorship or country of origin.
I do not foresee that open access, online journals will totally replace the traditional print format in the immediate future, although this may be an increasing trend with time. I am certain, however, that the benefits of online publication, and the extra opportunities that digital technologies give to authors, will be increasingly recognised. Open access is of huge benefit to the researchers working in institutions around the world where institutional libraries are unable to afford subscription fees for a full range of journals.
I expect that Japanese Clinical Medicine will attract manuscripts of the highest quality which are of the greatest possible benefit to readers. Peer review is undertaken by at least two leading experts in the area of the manuscript.