Journal of AAPOS (more) online

Now well into my tenure as editor in chief of the Journal of AAPOS, I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the state of our publication and its current challenges. The journal continues to grow by all measures. We receive more and more varied and high-quality submissions than ever before from all over the world. Our editorial board has never been stronger, with 34 dedicated colleagues headed by an incomparable executive committee of 8 associate editors, including our senior associate editor, Paul H. Phillips, MD. They have studiously considered every incoming manuscript and in concert carefully monitored our threshold for acceptance. Our managing editor keeps submissions and publications moving where they need to go and contributes in myriad other ways to the Journal’s development. In sum, we are following a trajectory for continued growth, and we have been living within our means.Our greatest challenge for 2016 will be to oversee carefully the increasingly rigid space constraints of the print journal while expanding our use of increasingly generous e-only formats. As many of you are aware, the Journal of AAPOS has been gradually decreasing the number of print pages per volume. At the same time the number of e-only pages available to us has risen, although, in truth, we have not yet taken full advantage of these pages. Nevertheless, we have been exploring ways to make the online experience a more integral part of the Journal—witness our new Video Articles—and, in partnership with our publisher, Elsevier, and with input from the entire editorial board, to determine the best ways to balance our print and online offerings.Through its Content Innovation initiative, Elsevier has been developing new tools for online publication with a view to creating the “Article of the Future” (www.articleofthefuture.com); we encourage you to explore the available and planned innovations at www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals/content-innovation. Let us know what looks like it might be promising for our Journal.In 2016 we must step more boldly into the realm of e-only publishing. At this stage, it will likely not be a matter of simply relegating some categories to an online-only existence from the point of publication (although we may want to do that in the future). This year we will be using a scalpel rather than a machete. I want to emphasize above all that the articles we publish in whole or part online are in no sense of lesser value than what appears first in print—our online offerings in 2016 will include major scholarship, including John Sloper’s 2012 Knapp Lecture, “The Other Side of Amblyopia.” I hasten to add that regardless of its first published form, the electronic version of any publication is the Journal’s version of record, that is, the one found at jaapos.org, Science Direct, and abstracted on MEDLINE.In 2016 we will also offer authors of extended research articles the possibility of submitting articles destined for e-only format from the outset. These articles will be free of the limitations on word count, number of figures, references, and so forth that currently apply to our Major Articles. Other interesting developments will follow.In closing, I would like to express my thanks to the AAPOS for entrusting the journal to my care at this crucial time of transition, to the readers of the journal demanding the best of authors and editors, and, especially, to all of our reviewers, who make this journal the model of academic quality and integrity that it proves itself to be issue after issue. Now well into my tenure as editor in chief of the Journal of AAPOS, I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the state of our publication and its current challenges. The journal continues to grow by all measures. We receive more and more varied and high-quality submissions than ever before from all over the world. Our editorial board has never been stronger, with 34 dedicated colleagues headed by an incomparable executive committee of 8 associate editors, including our senior associate editor, Paul H. Phillips, MD. They have studiously considered every incoming manuscript and in concert carefully monitored our threshold for acceptance. Our managing editor keeps submissions and publications moving where they need to go and contributes in myriad other ways to the Journal’s development. In sum, we are following a trajectory for continued growth, and we have been living within our means. Our greatest challenge for 2016 will be to oversee carefully the increasingly rigid space constraints of the print journal while expanding our use of increasingly generous e-only formats. As many of you are aware, the Journal of AAPOS has been gradually decreasing the number of print pages per volume. At the same time the number of e-only pages available to us has risen, although, in truth, we have not yet taken full advantage of these pages. Nevertheless, we have been exploring ways to make the online experience a more integral part of the Journal—witness our new Video Articles—and, in partnership with our publisher, Elsevier, and with input from the entire editorial board, to determine the best ways to balance our print and online offerings. Through its Content Innovation initiative, Elsevier has been developing new tools for online publication with a view to creating the “Article of the Future” (www.articleofthefuture.com); we encourage you to explore the available and planned innovations at www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals/content-innovation. Let us know what looks like it might be promising for our Journal. In 2016 we must step more boldly into the realm of e-only publishing. At this stage, it will likely not be a matter of simply relegating some categories to an online-only existence from the point of publication (although we may want to do that in the future). This year we will be using a scalpel rather than a machete. I want to emphasize above all that the articles we publish in whole or part online are in no sense of lesser value than what appears first in print—our online offerings in 2016 will include major scholarship, including John Sloper’s 2012 Knapp Lecture, “The Other Side of Amblyopia.” I hasten to add that regardless of its first published form, the electronic version of any publication is the Journal’s version of record, that is, the one found at jaapos.org, Science Direct, and abstracted on MEDLINE. In 2016 we will also offer authors of extended research articles the possibility of submitting articles destined for e-only format from the outset. These articles will be free of the limitations on word count, number of figures, references, and so forth that currently apply to our Major Articles. Other interesting developments will follow. In closing, I would like to express my thanks to the AAPOS for entrusting the journal to my care at this crucial time of transition, to the readers of the journal demanding the best of authors and editors, and, especially, to all of our reviewers, who make this journal the model of academic quality and integrity that it proves itself to be issue after issue.