Happy new year from JAAS and RSC publishing—recent developments and continuing growth

Happy New Year from JAAS and RSC Publishing! We take this opportunity to highlight the latest developments in the journal and RSC Publishing.

Publishing the most topical research in the field

We are delighted to let you know that at 0.940 JAAS has the highest immediacy index of all analytical chemistry journals. This measure shows that JAAS is the clear choice for publishing topical work of the highest quality in analytical atomic spectrometry. The immediacy index is a measure of how quickly articles are cited after publication. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in 2006, by the total number of citeable articles published in that year.

We are delighted also to announce that with an impact factor of 3.63, JAAS has maintained its position as a Top 5 analytical chemistry journal and is still the highest ranked primary research journal for spectroscopy. 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.

Continuing growth of JAAS

JAAS has had an exciting year in 2007. Our second special issue on Metallomics, Guest Edited by Gary Hieftje and Dave Koppenaal, was published in issue 8. This issue provided excellent coverage of an important and growing topic. We have also introduced a ‘metallomics and biological elemental speciation’ page on our website highlighting the work published in the journal in this area. This page accents our recent content and also provides links to other relevant RSC webpages, http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/JA/News/biological_content.asp

Read also our Editorial from Gary Hieftje, Chair of the JAAS Editorial Board, and Norbert Jakubowski, Reviews Editor, DOI: 10.1039/b717131p, on the developing scope of JAAS. In this they outline how the development of the journal is mirroring the development of the atomic spectrometry community.

Editorial Board news

We are pleased to welcome Frank Vanhaecke and Joanna Szpunar to our Editorial Board. We are looking forward to working with all of our Editorial Board members over the coming year. We would like to extend our thanks to Dave Koppenaal who retired from the Board at the end of 2007. Dave’s input into JAAS has been very valuable over recent years and we are delighted that he will continue to work closely with us as a member of our Advisory Board.

Plate1 Frank Vanhaecke

Plate2 Joanna Szpunar

We would also like to welcome Spiros Pergantis who has recently joined the Advisory Board. We thank Jose Ignacio Garcia Alonso (Nacho), David Littlejohn, Adilson Curtius, Wolfgang Frech and Vahid Majidi who retired from our Advisory Board at the end of 2007. It has been a pleasure working with all of our Editorial and Advisory Board members over the past year and we thank them for their input during this period.

Chemical Technology and Chemical Science

From January 2008, each issue of JAAS will contain Chemical Technology, a short news magazine that showcases the best work from the RSC’s collection of journals. Chemical Technology focuses on the exciting science behind the latest applications and technological aspects of chemistry.

The JAAS Editorial Board has decided that Chemical Technology should replace its sister magazine, Chemical Science, which has been providing readers with a glimpse of the latest developments across the chemical sciences since 2004. Chemical Science fans can still read the magazine on the web, where all the content is freely available. The journal homepage will continue to alert readers to new issues of Chemical Science.

Award-winning technology and enhanced HTML articles

Launched in February 2007, RSC Project Prospect has had an exceptional first year. Bringing science alive via enhanced HTML articles in RSC journals, the project delivers: hyperlinked compound information (including downloadable structures) in text; links to IUPAC Gold Book terms; ontology terms linked to definitions and related articles; plus RSS feeds that include structured subject and compound information, enabling at-a-glance identification of relevant articles. As the only publisher able to offer these enhancements, we were delighted to be awarded the 2007 ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for Publishing Innovation, where judges described RSC Prospect articles as “delightfully simple to use … benefits to authors and readers are immediately obvious.” Around 1400 articles have now been published with enhanced HTML—to see for yourself, look out for the RSC Prospect icon on our website. Further developments to the project will be announced in 2008. Many of you have already told us how impressed you are with the project—www.projectprospect.org has examples of enhanced articles, feedback from the scientific community, plus the latest news.

Following feedback from journal readers a number of changes have been introduced across all RSC journals. The JAAS homepage now contains the contents list for the current issue, delivering the content you want to see as soon as you arrive at the site. Graphical abstracts are included as standard, allowing you to browse content much more conveniently. A more prominent and easy-to-use search box also makes finding published research much more intuitive. Advance Articles will soon be available in pdf format.

For authors, the RSC Journal templates have been revised and updated to assist submission in a format similar to the journal layout. The guidelines for the use of colour in the printed versions of RSC Journals will be relaxed in 2008, and the decision on the free use of colour will be based on whether the use of colour enhances the scientific understanding of the figure (the old policy required the colour to be essential). In addition, for the online version of the journals, colour will be provided at no cost in both the pdf and html versions.

Energy & Environmental Science

RSC Publishing will be launching a new journal in summer 2008. Energy & Environmental Science will cover all aspects of the chemical sciences relating to energy conversion and storage and environmental science. Visit the website for the latest news: www.rsc.org/ees

‘JAAS book of choice’ scheme

Launched in spring 2007, the RSC eBook Collection offers scientists across the globe online access to a prestigious and wide ranging portfolio of chemical science books which span 40 years of research and opinion.

The RSC eBook Collection is testament to RSC’s publishing innovation as well as the high quality of the content contained in our books. With further technical developments and new 2008 content being uploaded throughout the year, the RSC eBook Collection is set to become a key resource. To search the collection or for further information visit www.rsc.org/ebooks

Scientists from all four corners of the globe are taking advantage of the free first chapter downloads and, from January 2008, JAAS will regularly highlight a book specifically for our readers through our ‘JAAS book of choice’ scheme. More information is available on the JAAS website.

25% book discount for RSC authors, editors and referees

If you would like to buy a print copy of the ‘JAAS book of choice’ or other titles from the RSC, and you are an RSC author, editor or referee, you can enjoy a special 25% discount on your book purchase. You can redeem this offer online through the RSC Online Shop. To find out how to claim your exclusive discount, visit www.rsc.org/shop

Final remarks

2008 promises to be an exceptional year for JAAS. We thank all of our authors, referees and readers for their continued support. On behalf of the Editorial Board and the JAAS team at the RSC, we would like to wish you a happy and successful 2008. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome: please e-mail the Editorial Office at jaas@rsc.org.

Plate3 Niamh O’Connor

Plate4 Gary Hieftje

Niamh O’Connor, Editor

Gary Hieftje, Chair, Editorial Board

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