Happy New Year from The Analyst

Welcome to issue 1 of The Analyst, 2007. We take this opportunity to highlight the latest developments in both the journal and RSC Publishing.

Editorial Board news

We are delighted to announce that Professor Mengsu Yang (City University of Hong Kong) has joined TheAnalyst Editorial Board. Professor Yang is the journal's first Editorial Board member based in Asia and was previously a member of the International Advisory Board. We would also like to thank Professors David Clemmer (Indiana University, USA) and Jonathan Sweedler (University of Illinois, USA) who retired from the Board in 2006, for their support over the last three years.

Fig. 1 Professor Mengsu Yang.

We are also pleased to welcome two new members of the International Advisory Board: Dr Rachel McKendry (University College London, UK) and Dr Dana Spence (Wayne State University, USA).

Emerging investigators

Issue 2, 2006 was dedicated to papers contributed by Emerging Investigators in analytical science. On behalf of the Editorial Board, we would like to sincerely thank our guest editors, Dana Spence and J. Justin Gooding, and all the authors for contributing to such a successful issue.

The Analyst was very pleased to continue its support of younger scientists as sponsor of the Young Investigators’ Symposia at the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies meeting in Orlando, FL, USA on September 25th 2006. We would like to congratulate the organisers, speakers and presiders for contributing to an excellent scientific programme.

The Analyst—the leading journal for fast publication of high impact communications

Communications in The Analyst report preliminary research findings that are highly original in nature, of immediate interest and are likely to have a high impact in their field. The key aim of communications is to provide a concise format to present innovative chemical concepts with important analytical implications. As such, communications need only demonstrate ‘proof of principle’: it is not expected that the analytical figures of merit will necessarily surpass those of existing, highly refined analytical techniques. In 2004, the journal published an editorial highlighting communications in The Analyst as one of the fastest and most effective ways analytical scientists can disseminate exciting new results and ensure their work is read by their peers (Expectations for the quality and originality of communications submitted to The Analyst, Analyst, 2004, 129, 477).

Recent Analyst communications featured in Chemical Science and Chemical Technology

Highly sensitive electrochemical detection of trace liquid peroxide explosives at a Prussian-blue ‘artificial-peroxidase’ modified electrode—read Perceiving peroxide or electrochemically exposing explosives in the January 2007 issue of Chemical Technology, Donglai Lu, Avi Cagan, Rodrigo A. A. Munoz, Tanin Tangkuaram and Joseph Wang, Analyst, 2006, 131, 1279–1281.

 

Diffusional protection of electrode surfaces using regular arrays of immobilised droplets: overcoming interferences in electroanalysis—read Interfering metals get blocked out in the October 2006 issue of Chemical Science, Andrew O. Simm, Olga Ordeig, Javier del Campo, Francesc Xavier Muñoz and Richard G. Compton, Analyst, 2006, 131, 987–989.

 

Solid-supported room temperature phosphorescence from aflatoxins for analytical detection of Aspergillus spp. strains—read Finding the phosphorescent fungi in the July 2006 issue of Chemical Technology, T. Rojas-Durán, I. Sánchez-Barragán, J. M. Costa-Fernández and A. Sanz-Medel, Analyst, 2006, 131, 785–787.

The Analyst is the leading analytical science journal publishing communications and offers a variety of benefits to authors, including being highly cited, having short times to publication and having a high profile within the journal. The articles are fast tracked through the publication process, with typical receipt to publication times of 50 days or less. Analyst communications are also regularly promoted to a wider audience through the RSC's supplements; Chemical Science, Chemical Technology and Chemical Biology. Three communications published in 2006 were highlighted in this way—see box above.

To find out more and read selected free to access communications throughout 2007 visit our webpage www.rsc.org/analyst/communications. Better still visit www.rsc.org/resource to submit your communication. Please don't forget to include a letter of justification stating the urgent nature and impact of the work and remember that we have a strict three-page limit for communications.

The Analyst offers a dedicated editorial service which aims to publish all papers in a timely and professional manner—to find out more visit www.rsc.org/analyst/whypublish. If you don't want to take our word for it, and because we believe that RSC Publishing offers the best service of any scientific publisher, we have published a selection of the comments received from authors from around the globe—take a look at www.rsc.org/authorquotes. We are always happy to receive feedback from authors, especially if it helps us to further improve the publishing experience.

Detection science

The Analyst prides itself for not only being at the forefront of cutting edge science, but for responding to the changing needs of the analytical community. To reflect developments the scope of the journal was refocused to make it more accessible to those researchers who may not consider themselves analytical scientists, but whose work will impact on analytical methods and techniques and influence analytical innovation.

The issue 8, 2006 editorial Connecting health, environment and security: The Analyst and the science of detection (Analyst, 2006, 131, 865–867) highlighted the new subtitle of the journal: interdisciplinary detection science and discussed some of the new and exciting science coming out of this area.

For more information and details on the changing scope of The Analyst, see the news item on our website www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/an/News/detection.asp.

Some of our recent i-section articles showcasing detection science

Critical Review: Metabolic fingerprinting in disease diagnosis: biomedical applications of infrared and Raman spectroscopy, David I. Ellis and Royston Goodacre, Analyst, 2006, 131, 875.

 

Critical review: The role of biosensors in the detection of emerging infectious diseases, Bobby Pejcic, Roland De Marco and Gordon Parkinson, Analyst, 2006, 131, 1079.

 

Forum: Challenges in forensic toxicology of skeletonised human remains, James Watterson, Analyst, 2006, 131, 961.

Impact factor and immediacy index

Also in issue 8, 2006 we mentioned to you that The Analyst's impact factor increased yet again to 2.858, maintaining the journal's position as the second highest impact journal publishing work on all aspects of analytical, bioanalytical and detection science. 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 citeable documents published within a journal in the preceding two years. The 2005 impact factors, released by ISI^® in June 2006, showed an impressive average increase of over 10% for RSC Journals.

RSC Open Science

Authors publishing in RSC Journals now have the option of paying a fee in exchange for making their accepted communication, research paper or review article openly available to all via the web, with RSC Open Science. The scheme is only made available to authors once their papers have been accepted for publication, following the normal rigorous peer-review procedures (RSC Open Science operates in parallel with the normal publication route, which remains free to authors). Authors who have published their work in RSC journals are also able to retrospectively apply for their work to be included in the scheme. Further information can be found at: www.rsc.org/openscience.

Molecular BioSystems now in MEDLINE

Molecular BioSystems continues to strengthen its position and has had an excellent year. From bioanalytical and highthroughput techniques, microarrays and chip-based microfluidic technologies, to proteomics and biomarkers, the journal focuses on the interface between chemistry, the -omic sciences and systems biology. The journal is now indexed in MEDLINE, thus improving visibility in the community.

Subscribers to The Analyst in 2007 will continue to receive free online access to Molecular BioSystems: www.molecularbiosystems.org.

Changes and developments to Chemical Science, Chemical Technology and Chemical Biology and news of Chemistry World

Showcasing hot science from RSC Journals in Chemical Science, Chemical Technology and Chemical Biology has proved very popular with readers and authors alike. In fact, the free supplements have become so successful that from January 2007, all issues will be eight pages (in print), contain new article types and come complete with a fresh new look for the front page. Supplementary material will also be available online.

Meanwhile Chemistry World, the RSC's award-winning magazine, launched two new web features at the end of 2006. The Chemistry World Blog is an interactive forum for news, discussion and opinion, looking at the science hitting the headlines. The Chemistry World Podcast interviews high profile scientists about the latest and hottest topics in science, and is free to download at www.rsc.org/chemistryworld.

Technological innovation

2006 has seen RSC Publishing invest significantly in technological developments across all of its products. Introduced last year, RSS feeds, or ‘really simple syndication’, have proved extremely popular with our readers. Subscribers receive alerts as soon as an Advance Article is published in their journal of choice, providing both the graphical abstract and text from a journal's contents page. You can subscribe via The Analyst homepage.

Subscribers to The Analyst will now link from journals' contents lists straight through to the HTML view of selected articles, in just one quick step. Here you can download references to citation managers (such as EndNote, Ref Manager, ProCite and BibTex), sign up for RSS feeds, search for citing articles (otherwise known as ‘forward linking’), print the article with just one click and send the article to a friend or colleague.

From 2007, authors publishing in RSC journals will see their science “come alive” thanks to an exciting new project pioneered by the RSC. Enhanced HTML in RSC articles will allow chemical and biological compounds mentioned in the text to be identified; by clicking on the compound readers will be able to obtain further information about that compound, including a downloadable structure plus a list of relevant subject areas. The RSC is the first publisher to utilise the International Chemical Identifier (InChI) (a digital equivalent of the IUPAC name for any particular covalent compound where structures are expressed in terms of five layers of information—connectivity, tautomeric, isotopic, stereochemical, and electronic) for a project of this type and scope. The technology will be used to enhance RSS alerts so that future news feeds can include chemical structures and other enhanced information. RSC Publishing intends to evolve this project to match author and reader needs so tell us what you think: we welcome your feedback on this new functionality and will incorporate your ideas to develop the service further. Find out more at www.rsc.org/sciencecomealive.

These developments demonstrate the investment in publishing products and services over the past year and 2007 will see us enhancing our products further.

Not just journals…

As well as an impressive portfolio of prestigious journals, the RSC has a wide selection of products for anyone with an interest in the chemical sciences. Visit the shop at www.rsc.org/shop to browse over 400 book titles, subscribe to or purchase an individual article from The Analyst or any other RSC journal, join or renew RSC membership, or register to attend a conference or training event.

In addition, RSC Publishing is pleased to announce the launch of the RSC eBook Collection. RSC books are now available online and can be easily downloaded as either chapters or books. The collection is fully searchable and also integrated with RSC Journal content. To search the collection or for further information, visit www.rsc.org/ebooks.

Finally

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers, authors and referees a happy and prosperous 2007. We look forward to receiving your feedback and of course your cutting-edge interdisciplinary work in (bio)analytical and detection science over the forthcoming year.

Claire Darby, Editor

Elizabeth A. H. Hall, Chair, The Analyst Editorial Board

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