AJP to Launch Advance Online Edition of Studies Accepted for Publication

After 164 years of monthly print publication, the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) will produce an additional, bimonthly advance edition that puts papers online before they appear in print.

The first AJP in Advance issue will be posted on November 7; thereafter, the online edition will be updated on the 1st and 15th of each month. Subscribers will be able to access the online edition of the journal by clicking on the AJP in Advance icon, which will be added to the AJP Web site at<http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org>.

Michael Roy, editorial director of AJP and the American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. journals, told Psychiatric News that the usual time to process manuscripts, from the initial submission by the author to the actual printing in AJP, had been from six months to a year. The journal's editorial board decided to reduce that time by several months by posting papers online ahead of print.

Online publication responds to requests from APA members for access to new clinical research findings as soon as possible. Rapid progress in scientific fields for which researchers have a small window of exclusivity to publish their findings—such as psychiatric genetics—have also dictated the need for accelerated publication.

In addition to addressing distinct or exceptional topics in a timely manner, producing an advance online edition will allow AJP to compete for high-impact research with medical journals that publish weekly or biweekly.

Robert Freedman, M.D., AJP's editor in chief, added, “AJP in Advance gives psychiatrists access to new evidence as soon as possible for decisions about patients and facilitates rapid exchange of research findings among scientists investigating mental illness. Michael Roy, along with [staff members] Molly Douglas, Julie Blair, and Jason Glance have worked for over a year to establish this capability for our readers and authors.”

Roy said he expects that articles will be published in the advance online edition within weeks following initial acceptance. Articles will remain on the advance edition Web site until they appear in the print edition, which is also available online. Articles will be indexed on PubMed as soon as they are posted electronically.

Although articles will be copyedited before posting, by the time an online article reaches print, corrections or slight changes may have been made. Readers will be alerted to the changes.

While there is no set time period from when an article will appear online to when it will be published in print, Roy believes most articles will travel from online to print within a few months.

Not all articles that appeared together in an online edition will necessarily be published in the same print edition. For example, a collection of several related articles posted online at different times could lead to a special theme issue that focuses on a timely subject, such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

Not all articles slated for print, however, will be published online in advance. Roy said the online edition will be reserved for peer-reviewed research, which makes up approximately 80 percent of AJP. Complementary editorials to particular articles, education and clinical teaching pieces, and historical features will appear only in the print edition, as will letters to the editor and book reviews. ▪