E-publishing develops rapidly in Romania. The experience of a recently established, English- written, medical journal Monica Acalovschi University Iuliu Hatieganu Cluj-Napoca, Romania Editor-in-Chief Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases

Editing the Rom J Gastroenterol in English Goals to attract international editors, peer-reviewers and authors  larger audience to obtain the Journal indexing in major databases to increase the ability of Romanian authors to communicate in English Risk limitation of the number of local readers and subscribers

Traditional publishing model for medical journals based on subscriptions from the readers; limited access to the published material; large financial profits for the publishers. Different situation for Romanian medical journals because of: low price subscriptions; low subscription rates; restrained circulation of the journals; competition for pharmaceutical industry advertisements; increasing number of new journals.

Traditional publishing Manuscripts submitted on paper Manuscripts sent to reviewers by mail (fax?) Comments back to editors by mail Reviewers’ comments sent to authors by mail Authors changes transferred manually to the editorial copy and sent back to editor by mail The manuscript retyped by typesetters  galley proofs  read and corrected by editors Corrected pages photographed Films  page proofs  printer’s plates  printed journal

Electronic (E-) publishing manuscript sent by information retrieved by authors from journal website accepted manuscript edited and style tagged in Word review process conducted by edited copy ed to the author for correction changes checked by editor using “Track changes” Word file ed to the production department  imported into the page layout program electronic file transferred to the printer in pdf The Internet version of online journals (html and pdf ) is generated from the same files.

Online journals Easy and cheaper (sometimes even free) access to the scientific data. ‘Evolution is what's needed, not revolution’ in the scientific literature (Crane-Robinson C, Nature 2001). The evolving tools for scientific literature are: E-publication Open access (OA) Open peer review Online publication frees journals of print page constraints, and diminishes publication costs.

Advantages of online publishing (1) For authors: easy and cheap submission of articles for publication. Authors can use PubMed to: search for articles in their subject area identify journals that carry that subject review abstracts to assess the standard of work published search out the journals’ Internet site read the guidelines for submissions  submit

Advantages of online publishing (2) For journals: possibility to reach new readers and new papers around the world more easily and cheaply; internationalisation of the journals’ content and world audience facilitated. Everyone has a place to publish, and these places have now become easier to find.

The Romanian Journal of Gastroenterology, also seeking for an international audience, changed its name starting with 2006 into Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases (JGLD)

Advantages of online publishing (3) Speed of publication faster communication (reduced publication delay) the ‘immediacy about electronic communications encourages editors, reviewers and authors to respond more promptly’ (Bingham C, BMJ Publ Group 2003)

Advantages of online publishing (4) Internet submission and peer review process immediate confirmation of receipt of submission; web-based manuscript tracking accessible by the author; more open, peer review procedures; even open dialogue between the authors, the reviewers and the editors. N.B. For the following years, the online journals will continue with anonymous peer-review

Peer-review of JGLD manuscripts hard task to get international peer-review; list of reviewers annually published in the journal and on JGLD indexed in Index Medicus/Medline (2002); references for PubMed set up and sent (XML) in collaboration with the Cluj Medical Library.

Pros and cons of different peer review systems for authors SystemAdvantagesDisadvantages Top-down / ”creaming off” Prestigious journal Detailed peer-review High chance of rejection Slow decision-making Bottom-up / ”weeding out” High chance of acceptance Rapid decision-making Less prestigious journal Cost (processing charges/ page charges/reprints)

Accessibility. Open Access (OA) The full text available free on the Internet (PubMed’s LinkOut program): from the day of publication (PNAS, BMJ…) after a few months Some journals belong to journal networks (ScienceDirect etc)  more readers The ability to locate relevant scientific results quickly  scientific progress and improved medical quality. What is read and purchased is determined primarily by ease of access, so editors should turn to OA. ~ 20% of the articles published annually are OA.

Longitudinal bibliometric analysis of citations of non- OA and OA articles published in PNAS (McCallum C & Parthasarathy H, PLoS Biology 2006,4,e176) Conclusion: OA articles are more immediately recognized and cited than non-OA articles published in the same journal.

Open Access to JGLD articles OA starting with 2004 articles. Full text (pdf) freely available online one year after publication. LinkOut feature established for the journal. There is a correlation between the number of times an article is cited and the probability that the article is free online (Lawrence S, Nature 2001, 411:521)….  we hope for a greater visibility of our authors on the Internet and a higher citation rate.

Economic barriers for OA journals Reduced revenue from subscriptions: BMJ put some content (editorials, education, debates) behind access controls in January 2005; Free OA to all original research articles on BMJ website; Authors value the free OA to research articles and consider this an important factor in deciding whether to submit to the BMJ; Closing access to research articles would have a negative impact on authors’ perceptions of the journal and their likeness to submit. Schroter S, BMJ 2006

How could online journals and databases be financed? Readers pay: per-view by individual subscriptions by institutional subscriptions by society dues or direct government support Writers pay: copyright owned by authors, who disseminate the articles from their own websites immediate access to research articles on Internet access to science for the developing world ! Authors dislike author charges!

In conclusion, E-publishing is the central technology of the scientific medical literature. In a globalised medical literature, it will be easy to move from article to article and journal to journal. E-publishing has started also for some medical journals in Romania.