This past spring, APTA's Board of Directors decided that APTA will enter into a partnership with Oxford University Press (OUP) to co-publish PTJ, starting in January 2017. As editor in chief of PTJ, I am very excited about the Board's decision to partner with OUP.
I believe that Oxford University Press will be a great fit for PTJ. As the world's largest university press with the widest global presence, OUP publishes more than 6,000 titles a year worldwide, including journals, dictionaries, English-language teaching materials, scholarly monographs, printed music, higher education textbooks, children's books, and schoolbooks. Oxford University Press has more than 350 journal titles that receive an impact factor, with about 22% of its journals ranked in the top 10% of at least 1 subject category, reflecting OUP's position as a trusted gateway to high-quality scholarly research and resources.
Oxford University Press will offer PTJ a publishing platform powered by Silverchair Information Systems. The new website will allow both seamless delivery of journal content and integration with other online resources for PTJ readers. Our aim is state-of-the-art dissemination and display of scholarly work, and the new website will be a key component in the next phase of PTJ's development.
Partnering with OUP also will expand the international reach and ultimate impact of PTJ. Oxford University Press will use its marketing and technology expertise, with close connections to Google, to ensure that the research published in PTJ has excellent visibility and worldwide dissemination through social media, blogs, email, and YouTube. Authors will immediately benefit from promotion via OUP's social media hub and its extensive reach. At the heart of this hub is the OUPblog, one of the most widely read academic blogs in the world, with a monthly average of about 70,000 visitors. The blog (http://blog.oup.com) will share content to both PTJ's core audience and beyond, to the lay public.
Beginning January 2017, OUP will assist PTJ in offering open access (OA) options for our authors. This is an important change for PTJ and brings the journal in line with many medical and scientific titles that currently offer this choice. Oxford University Press was one of the first publishers to transition a mature journal to OA and currently publishes more than 300 journals using their optional OA model, in addition to 9 fully OA journals. PTJ will provide authors with 2 types of OA licensing:
Noncommercial open access (CC-BY-NC-ND)
Unrestricted open access (CC-BY)
Noncommercial OA will allow PTJ authors and others to download and share an article for noncommercial purposes, as long as the article is reproduced in whole without changes and the original authorship is acknowledged. In contrast, unrestricted OA will permit our authors as well as others to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the article in any way, including for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the authors for the original creation.
PTJ articles will be made OA upon the author's payment of an article processing charge (APC), which will be competitive with the APCs of the majority of rehabilitation journals. (For more information, visit the PTJ website.) The provision of an unrestricted OA license option will allow authors who receive funding from bodies such as the Wellcome Trust and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to publish in PTJ. These and other organizations mandate that the authors they fund publish under this type of OA license, and the organizations provide funding for the APC fees associated with this.
Importantly, PTJ authors will continue to have the option to publish in PTJ under traditional rules. For non-OA articles published in PTJ, our policy will be to embargo the article for 12 months; that is, non-OA articles will become freely accessible to the public 12 months after the issue publication date.
Over the next few years, OUP also will help APTA begin a process of moving the journal to online only for APTA members. There are several advantages to be gained. First, I would argue that the online platform is the best way to present and consume research because it allows podcasts, videos, access to archives, and enhanced searching across all devices to help readers get the most out of new information and find what they want whenever they want it. Second, social media are playing an increasing role in how readers get access to information, and ensuring that PTJ articles are highlighted by APTA and OUP social media is essential. Third, there are environmental considerations. Each month, APTA currently prints about 60,000 copies of PTJ; that's a lot of trees. And finally, money saved on print will be invested in providing new services and tools for PTJ readers.
I fully recognize that a major benefit of print is its physical nature. Some of us value the “thud” of a journal hitting the doorsill, or the ability to flip through pages on the train. Those things can't really be duplicated online, but the PTJ editorial team, with OUP, will strive to recreate some of the “tangibility” of print through attractive email alerts that drop in your inbox to highlight when new issues publish, when new articles are available in advance access, and when articles of special interest to you are posted. The journal will continue to have collections of articles on specific topics, such as acute care or diabetes, and readers with those interests can sign up to have email alerts sent directly to them. As the pace of new research continues to accelerate, these alerts will link you to the latest findings to help you adapt your practice and deliver the very best care.
I believe APTA's decision to co-publish with OUP puts PTJ in the very best position for future development, and I can assure our readers and authors that having OUP as a partner will in no way diminish the PTJ editorial team's control over PTJ's content. Oxford University Press will work in partnership with our editorial team to continue PTJ's growth and leadership in an increasingly complex and challenging publishing landscape, and will be the publishing partner that can take PTJ to the next level by building on our strategic goals and vision.
I hope you will share my excitement as we move your journal to this next stage.
- © 2016 American Physical Therapy Association
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