Dalton Transactions: Developing for the Inorganic Community

Abstract

Happy New Year!

Jamie Humphrey

Paul Walton

2005 was an excellent year for inorganic chemistry. At a time when some people question its usefulness, it is very pleasing to read, in Dalton Transactions and other inorganic chemistry journals, of the excellent research being performed in inorganic chemistry. The award of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Chauvin, Grubbs and Schrock for their work on understanding and developing catalysis for the metathesis reaction, one of our most industrially important reactions, confirms the fundamental contribution that inorganic chemistry makes to chemical science research.

2005 has been a busy year for Dalton Transactions, with many developments being introduced, all to improve the service that the journal provides its readers and authors. The first of these developments is evident in 2006: From issue one, 2006, Dalton Transactions will appear as a ‘weekly’ print journal. This development reflects the growing strength of inorganic chemistry as a whole, and Dalton Transactions as a journal. You will also have noticed a new design for the journal. We have adopted the very popular format of the RSC journal Chemical Communications. Many readers of this journal have commented that this new design (slightly smaller journal size, different font size) makes the printed issue far easier to browse than the ‘older’ style, which is particularly important as increasing numbers of readers access the journal electronically. To mark and celebrate the launch of weekly issues, and new issue format, this, the first issue, contains articles written by members of the Editorial and Advisory Board. It seems fitting that papers from those who have provided input into these developments are gathered together in this issue

Naturally, the content of the journal, continues to develop reflecting the developments on inorganic chemical research, something which is vitally important if the journal is to continue to serve the international inorganic chemical community as the leading inorganic chemistry journal. The quality and quantity of bioinorganic and biological inorganic chemistry content has increased in the journal, especially since the announcement that the National Institute of Health was including Dalton Transactions in MEDLINE. Notable articles published in Dalton Transactions from this area in 2005 included Dalton Perspectives by Nick Le Brun,¹ Stephen Chapman² and Jan Reedijk.³ November 2005 saw the publication of a theme issue arising from the meeting Dalton Discussion 8: Metals: centres of biological activity,⁴ containing Perspectives from, among others, Amy Rozensweig, Fraser Armstrong and Ralf Mendel. As explained in the Editorial by the meeting's organising committee, this area of chemistry, while presenting significant challenges to researchers, is particularly rewarding, with a very bright future. The crystal structure of the particulate form of methane monoxygenase from Rozenswig's laboratory appeared on the front cover of that issue.

Chemical biology content published in Dalton Transactions is highlighted in the Chemical Biology Virtual Journal. The portal, which was launched in 2002 in recognition of the significant amount of chemical biology material published across RSC journals, enables interested readers to readily access relevant items. All chemical biology articles and related papers published in RSC journals are drawn together online every two weeks, with a selection of the primary literature free to access for a month.

January 2006 sees the launch of another exciting new supplement from the RSC: Chemical Biology. A companion publication of Chemical Science and Chemical Technology, it draws together coverage from RSC publications and provides succinct accounts of the latest chemical biology research. This issue of Dalton Transactions includes, free, the first issue of Chemical Biology. Later issues of Chemical Biology will appear monthly in RSC journals Molecular Biosystems, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry and Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences.

The 2004 impact factors, released by ISI© in June 2005, showed an impressive average increase of over 10% for RSC journals. In a year when most inorganic chemistry journals saw a drop in their impact factors, the impact factor for Dalton Transactions saw a rise to 2.93. Dalton Transactions maintains its position as the leading European-based inorganic chemistry journal and one of the leading international journals for inorganic chemistry, as measured by impact factor. Indeed, the impressive citation statistics of Dalton Transactions have been featured by ISI in an interview with the Editor, Jamie Humphrey, in the online publication In-Cites. Statistics produced by ISI Essential Science Indicators Web Product show that articles published in Dalton Transactions are amongst the most highly cited. The full article can be found on the web at http://www.in-cites.com/journals/DaltonTransactions.html

Calculated annually, ISI impact factors provide an indication of the quality of a journal—they take into account the number of citations in a given year for all the citable documents published within a journal to the preceding two years. It is worth noting that alongside the ACS Publications, journals from RSC Publishing have the highest median impact factor among publishers in the chemical sciences (Fig. 1). This encouraging statistic demonstrates the recognition and status that researchers place in society published work.

Fig. 1 Median impact factors among publishers in the chemical sciences.

We are very pleased to be able to say that Dalton Transactions retains its number one position as the fastest journal for the publication of inorganic chemistry, with a typical publication time (from receipt to publication) of 90 days for full papers, and 40 days for communications. The Editorial Office and Editorial Board remain committed to publishing the highest quality research in the fastest times. We are also committed to ensuring that the international status of inorganic chemistry is evident in the articles published in the journal. The international percentage spread of authors is shown in Fig. 2, indicating that Dalton Transactions is a truly international journal for inorganic chemists.

Fig. 2 The international percentage spread of authors for Dalton Transactions.

We thank retiring members of the Editorial Board, Professors David Garner, Roger Guilard, Roberta Sessoli and Mike Ward, and Professors Hu, Al Nielson, Tom O'Halloran and Masato Tanaka from the Advisory Board for their efforts to develop the journal during the past few years, as well as providing support for the journal. We welcome to the Editorial Office in Cambridge, Miss Suzanne Abbott, Dr Ian Gray and Dr Niamh O'Connor to the Dalton Transactions Editorial Team. Suzanne Abbott has been with the RSC for two years, during which time she has gained considerable experience working on a number of RSC journals, most recently Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. Ian has recently joined us as part of the RSC Graduate Trainee scheme, after completing a PhD in main group chemistry. Niamh O'Connor joins the team in the role of Deputy Editor, after spending a year with the RSC working in the Analytical Abstracts production department. Niamh holds a PhD in organometallic chemistry.

2005 has seen RSC Publishing invest significantly in technological developments across all of its products. First there was the introduction of the new website in the summer which included a contemporary, fresh look and an enhanced structure for improved and intuitive navigation between relevant, associated content. The improvements to the technological infrastructure have made the site more flexible and efficient, and better equip the RSC to deliver enhanced publishing products and services for its customers in the future. The new look was just the start and towards the end of the year we were pleased to provide further enhancements in the form of RSS feeds and ‘forward linking’ facilities.

RSS, or ‘really simple syndication’, is the latest way to keep up with the research published by the RSC. The new service provides subscribers with alerts as soon as an Advance Article is published in their journal of choice. Journal readers simply need to go to the journal homepage, click on the RSS link, and follow the step-by-step instructions to register for these enhanced alerts. RSS feeds include both the graphical abstract and text from a journal's contents page i.e. they deliver access to new research straight to a reader’s PC, as soon as it is published! Many feed reader software packages also have the added benefit of remembering what has been read previously, which in turn makes tracking and managing journal browsing more efficient.

‘Forward linking’, the reverse of reference linking, enables readers to link from any RSC published paper to the articles in which it is cited. In essence, it allows researchers to easily track the progression of a concept or discovery, since its original publication. With one click of a button (on the ‘search for citing articles’ link) a list of citing articles included in Cross-Ref is presented, complete with DOI links.

At a time when research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary in nature and the amount of published works continues to grow, it is hoped that the new technology, developed in conjunction with Cross-Ref, will significantly reduce the time spent by researchers searching for information.

These developments demonstrate the investment in publishing products and services over the past year and 2006 will see us enhancing our products further, with improvements to the HTML functionality of all journals and ReSourCe (the author and referee web interface) already under way.

As well as an impressive portfolio of prestigious journals, the RSC has a significant collection of book titles. The first titles in three new series: RSC Biomolecular Sciences; RSC Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Series; and Issues in Toxicology were published in 2005, with further titles due during 2006. Future growth in the books publishing programme is planned, which reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the chemical sciences.

The future development of Dalton Transactions depends on you! Please send your thoughts and suggestions to the Editor, Jamie Humphrey (E-mail: Dalton@rsc.org) and help us to keep developing the journal to meet your needs. Have a happy and successful 2006

References

1. A. Lewin, G. R. Moore and N. E. Le Brun, Dalton Trans., 2005, 22, 3597.
2. J. L. R. Anderson and S. K. Chapman, Dalton Trans., 2005, 1, 13.
3. K. Karidi, A. Garoufis, A. Tsipis, N. Hadjiliadis, H. den Dulk and J. Reedijk, Dalton Trans., 2005, 7, 1176.
4. Dalton Discussion 8: Metals: centres of biological activity, Dalton Trans., 2005, 21, 3361–3588.

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