An update from the Bioinformatics Editors
Executive Editors
In this editorial we take the opportunity to highlight changes in the journal Bioinformatics, during 2005.
FOUR DAYS FROM ACCEPTANCE TO ONLINE PUBLICATION; 10 WEEKS FROM ACCEPTANCE TO PRINT
During the past couple of years the journal had accepted more papers than it could publish and this resulted in a backlog of manuscripts waiting some months to appear in print. We are very pleased to say that this has been relieved by publishing four large issues in April and May of this year. It now takes only 10 weeks from acceptance until publication in the print issue; manuscripts are also rapidly published online ahead of print (on the ‘Advance Access’ page) within 4 days of acceptance on average. We have now taken steps to carefully monitor the acceptance levels in the journal to improve quality even further and to ensure that we do not increase the acceptance to print times in the future. The current acceptance rate is 25%. We have also improved our review process so that 80% of submissions receive a final editorial decision in 40 days.
EMPHASIS ON HIGH QUALITY CONFERENCE PAPERS
During 2005 we have published special supplement issues of the journal containing the proceedings of both ISMB and ECCB conferences. The journal also occasionally publishes special sections where a small number of papers from a conference are included in a regular issue. Currently these are submitted on an ad hoc basis by conference organisers. We wish now to regularise this process and hereby request proposals for conference proceeding papers for publication in 2006. The deadline for these proposals is 30th January 2006 and we also welcome preliminary proposals for conferences in 2007. Details about the type of information we will require about conference proposals can be found in the journal's Instructions to Authors. It is expected that the conference papers put forward for publication in the journal will be peer-reviewed by the organisers, liaising with a Bioinformatics Associate Editor, to ensure a high standard.
OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING IN BIOINFORMATICS
Since July 2005, and following the successful experience of our sister journal Nucleic Acids Research, we have launched a new Open Access option. Authors can now choose whether or not to publish their work ‘open access’. For more information about the Oxford Open initiative visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen. If an author does not choose the Open Access option their paper will be made freely available online twelve months following publication.
We are convinced that this important decision will best satisfy the desires of our authors, as expressed in our author survey (read about the results of this survey in Bioinformatics, 22, 4071–4072).
RECRUITING WELL-RESPECTED BIOINFORMATICIANS TO JOIN THE EDITORIAL TEAM
During 2005, the following new Associate Editors have joined Bioinformatics: Keith Crandall, Joaquin Dopazo, Dmitrij Frishman, Chris Stoeckert and Anna Tramontano. More recently we welcome on board the following new Associate Editors: David Rocke, an expert in statistics with particular dedication to DNA array analysis, Jonathan Wren, a bioinformatician now working in areas related with information extraction and text mining, and Golan Yona, a computer scientist particularly interested in the analysis of networks. Additionally during the year the following scientists have joined the journal's Editorial Board: former Associate Editors Russ Altman, Carlos D Bustamante, Gary Williams and Michael Zhang, and Mikhail Gelfand, Adam Godzik, Jaap Heringa, Ina Koch, Wentian Li, Isidore Rigoutsos, Burkhard Rost, N Srinivasan, Olga Troyanskaya and Limsoon Wong.
The Associate Editors are responsible for arranging the peer review of submissions, making editorial decisions and working together to decide the future direction and policies of the journal. To increase the transparency of the editorial process, and following suggestions from our readers and authors, we have recently decided to make known the name of the Associate Editor responsible for each manuscript, and to include their names on appropriate papers in the published version. The Editorial Board members also play an active role in Bioinformatics, acting as the main consulting body for journal policies, aims and scope, and helping with difficult editorial decisions.
We would like to thank those who are stepping down in 2005: Associate Editors Phil Bourne, Frank Dudbridge, Steen Knudsen, and Steve Salzberg, and Editorial Board members Terry Gaasterland, Mike Gribskov, Steven Henikoff, Webb Miller, and Eugene Myers. Without their dedication and hard work it would not be possible to produce this journal.
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