Program Highlights

Living up to their reputation as “most trusted, most cited, and most-read,” ACS Publications developed new and enhanced content and delivery options. At the same time, its 44 peer-reviewed journals solidified their preeminence in citations and Impact Factors.

According to 2013 Journal Citation Reports®, which were released by Thomson Reuters in June 2014, ACS journals continued to perform extremely well. They received more than 2.4 million total annual citations and ranked #1 in citations in each of the seven core chemistry categories.

The Publications Division completed the successful first full calendar year of publication of ACS Photonics and Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Six leading scientists were selected by Editor Search committees for editorial terms commencing with the 2015 publishing year.

• Dr. Paul Chirik (Princeton University) - Organometallics
• Dr. Sharon Hammes-Schiffer (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) - Chemical Reviews
• Dr. Thomas F. Hofmann (Technical University of Munich) - Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
• Dr. Kai Rossen (Sanofi) - Organic Process Research & Development
• Dr. David L. Sedlak (University of California, Berkeley) - Environmental Science & Technology and Environmental Science & Technology Letters
• Dr. Françoise M. Winnik (Université de Montréal) - Langmuir

In addition, three inaugural Editors were appointed to lead the Society’s newest journals, following recommendations of the Editor Search committees and approval by the Board of Directors.

• Dr. Courtney Aldrich (University of Minnesota) - ACS Infectious Diseases
• Dr. Caroline Bertozzi (University of California, Berkeley) - ACS Central Science
• Dr. David L. Kaplan (Tufts University) - ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering

ACS Publications received two prestigious PROSE Awards from the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division: ACS Synthetic Biology was recognized with the AAP PROSE Award for Best New Journal and ACS ChemWorx received the PROSE Award for Best New App or e-product.  The annual PROSE Awards celebrate the best in professional and scholarly publishing, including books, journals, and electronic content in over 40 categories, judged by peer publishers, librarians, and medical professionals.

In January 2014, ACS Publications launched an ambitious 4-pillar open access (link: www.acsopenaccess.org) publishing strategy to position ACS as an open access publisher:

• ACS Central Science
  A highly selective peer-reviewed journal covering the broad spectrum of the chemical sciences, free to readers and authors.

• ACS Editors’ Choice
  Free public access to new research of importance to the global community is accessible at pubs.acs.org/editorschoice.

• ACS Author Rewards
  Corresponding authors receive credits for each article published in 2014, which they can use to fund any ACS open-access option through 2017.

• ACS AuthorChoice
  Allows authors to facilitate open access for a one-time fee with discounts for ACS members and researchers at subscribing institutions.

The program debuted on New Years’ Day with the selection of the first ACS Editors’ Choice article. Each day, a noteworthy article from an ACS journal—selected by the journals’ editors—is made openly accessible; articles from every journal were featured during 2014, drawing more than 600,000 page views.

With ACS Author Rewards, digital certificates are being provided to the more than 40,000 ACS authors of record in 2014, as a stimulus program to facilitate the transition to Open Access.  As part of this effort, staff developed ACS ChemWorx apps to track rewards and to purchase open access options.  Prior to the end of December, more than 25,000 authors of record were contacted to provide them their rewards, eligible for redemption 2015-2017. This year also saw a doubling in the number of authors opting to publish using expanded options available under the ACS AuthorChoice license, to meet the open access requirements of their funders.

In preparation for the 2015 launch of the ACS’s first fully open access journal, ACS Central Science, acclaimed chemical biologist Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi (HHMI/UC Berkeley) was appointed as Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Bertozzi is a champion for open access, and also aspires to build a top-tier multidisciplinary journal that will challenge the elite science journals. Dr. Bertozzi has recruited a global editorial board of nearly 60 renowned scientists. The journal submission site opened in early December, with dozens of manuscripts submitted in the first month.

In August 2014, ACS Publications released an improved version of ACS ChemWorx (v2.0), a collaborative reference manager coupled with timesaving tools and valuable services for authors. It helps researchers access their library from anywhere, share references and files with collaborators, and track metrics for their ACS articles.  The ACS ChemWorx user base has grown to more than 66,000 unique users.

New and improved tools and services for authors also were introduced. These services allow ACS to provide authors with more relevant information about open access options and requirements available to them and help to uniquely distinguish journal contributors. An English editing service was deployed within the ACS ChemWorx environment which provides a fee-based mechanism for authors to improve the English in manuscripts they submit to ACS journals.