Open Access LogoWhen eLife emerged in 2012, the biomedical journal aimed to be on-par with such competitors as Nature and Cell as far as content goes, but publish those papers at no cost to the author or reader.

After 1,800 papers four years of a complete open access model, eLife will get another boost from its funders to allow the journal to continue down its path of high standards and openness.

eLife’s status in the field is rising quite quickly,” eLife editor Sjors Scheres told Nature News. “I liked the idea behind it — to make a high-impact journal completely driven by scientists, and open.”

ECS’s Free the Science initiative draws many parallels to eLife’s publication model. Much like eLife, ECS looks to maintain our rigorous peer-review process as we move toward making the ECS Digital Library completely open access.

Free the Science is an initiative that seeks to remove all fees associate with publishing and accessing our scientific content so scientists can share their research with readers around the world, allowing more minds to think about and solve problems.

Learn more about Free the Science and watch our video explaining why it has never been more important to advance our technical domain.

Please join us on Tuesday May 31 at 0700h for an invigorating morning run in support of ECS’s open access efforts.

The race winners (top male and top female) runner will each receive an Open Access Credit! This credit may be used to publish a paper as OA in either JES or JSS.

For more information on ECS publications, please visit the ECS Digital Library and the ECS online store and be sure to stop by the ECS Publications booth, located on the Sapphire Level of the San Diego Hilton Bayfront.

Looking forward to seeing you in San Diego!

ECS Open Access Raffle

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New for the 229th ECS Meeting: Stop by the ECS Publication Booth for a chance to win 1 of 4 Open Access Credits! These credits may be used to publish your paper as OA in either JES or JSS.

Please stop by the ECS Publications Booth, located on the Sapphire Level (Fourth Floor) of the Hilton Bayfront any time during Registration Hours and drop off your business card to enter the raffle. ECS will be raffling off 4 Open Access credits during the 229th ECS meeting (each credit is worth $800)!

Questions? Please email oa@electrochem.org and we’ll see you in San Diego!

JESDeadline: June 15, 2016

ECS  is seeking to fill the position of Technical Editor of the Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry, Electrocatalysis, and Photoelectrochemistry Topical Interest Area for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

The Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry, Electrocatalysis, and Photoelectrochemistry (PAEEP) Topical Interest Area (TIA) includes fundamental aspects of interfacial science and electroanalytical chemistry. Specific topics include double layer theory and experiments, theoretical and experimental aspects of electrocatalysis, in situ spectroscopy, photoelectrochemical cells, scanning probe microscopy, and X-ray and electron microscopy methods.

The Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) has been in existence since 1902. Along with the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS), JES and JSS provide unparalleled opportunities to disseminate basic research and technology results in electrochemical and solid state science and technology. JES and JSS each publish a minimum of 12 regular and focus issues each year. All ECS journals offer Author Choice Open Access.

ECS maintains 13 TIAs, and there is one Technical Editor for each TIA, supported by Associate Editors and an Editorial Advisory Board. Technical Editors for the ECS journals ensure the publication of original, significant, well-documented, peer-reviewed articles that meet the objectives of the relevant journal, and are within the scope of the Society’s TIAs.

Read the full description of the position and contact ECS Deputy Executive Director & Publisher Mary Yess if you would like to be considered or recommend someone for the position.

ECSTSeven new issues of ECS Transactions have just been published for the 229th ECS Meeting.

The papers in these issues of ECST will presented in San Diego May 29 to June 3, 2016. ECST Volume 72, Issued 1 to 7 can be found here.

New for 2016: these issues of ECST can also be purchased in the NEW ECS ONLINE STORE as full-text digital downloads. Please search for ECST issues from the 229th ECS meeting in the ECS online store here.

ccc-transparentAs part of our continued commitment to Open Access publishing, ECS is in the process of ensuring an increasingly robust management of article credits, APCs, and APC discounts. ECS is pleased to announce we are partnering with CCC RightsLink, which is a sophisticated self-service system that allows authors to pay the appropriate fee or select the article credit for their articles. CCC RightsLink will help ECS to future-proof its Open Access activities in a sustainable way.

As of May 12, 2016 CCC RightsLink will be fully integrated with our article submission process. Authors will be able to pay color charges, supplemental material fees, and claim Open Access article credits through RightsLink’s self-service portal. (more…)

Open Access: Cost vs. Value

openaccessroundWhether you’re looking at the transformation of scholarly publications or the overall conversation across the globe, it’s clear to see that open access is picking up steam nearly everywhere. In a recent article from Thomson Reuters, the firm takes a deeper look at the move toward open access and its implications.

Cost of open access

Like any publishing model, open access is not without its costs and values. In a traditional open access model, the burden of the cost falls back, in part, on the researcher. Because publishers are not earning subscription fees and individuals no longer have to purchase articles, the author takes on some of the cost of publishing and copy editing.

However, Reuters points out that it is pretty common for publications that are truly dedicated to open access to make affordable those costs to people who may typically not be able to afford it (i.e. waiving fess or article processing credits).

Academic and societal value

In contrast to the cost, the value of open access publications is felt on both an academic and societal level.

For researchers, open access allows scientists to get their findings published faster. By getting the data disseminated faster, researchers can get more citations and begin to connect the dots between the science and our everyday lives.

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Work, Finish, Publish, Promote

share your workMichael Faraday may have suggested that the formula for scientific success is “work, finish, publish,” but Faraday said that back in the 19th century. In 2016, there are plenty of compelling reasons to tack another item onto the end of the list. Millions of scientific articles are published each year, making your work just a drop in the ocean (and we have authors who do a lot of work). In order to ensure that your work is read, cited, and has impact, it’s becoming increasingly necessary to add a little self-promotion to your workflow.

To help you get started we have a few suggestions – here are ECS’s top 5 tips to maximize impact and promote your published research.

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Open access continues to gain momentum globally

openaccessroundGlobally, open access can help create a world where everyone from the student in Atlanta to a researcher in Haiti can freely read the scientific papers they need to make a discovery; where scientific breakthroughs in energy conversion, sensors, or nanotechnology are unimpeded by fees to access or publish research.

The global open access effort aims to break down barriers and make online scholarly information free to everyone, promote the global exchange of scientific discoveries, and open the door to the faster development of practical applications that could address some of the world’s most pressing issues.

(READ: “Robert Savinell on Preserving Scientific Research“)

Accelerating discovery in Africa

Recently, Senegal started building this framework for African countries that often lack access to scientific and education information. During April’s Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, representatives from the west-African country decided to begin the process to ensure the establishment of a national open access policy, making them the first African country to establish such a policy.

Leaders hope this new policy will encourage the creation of open platforms free and accessible for all researchers, innovators, teachers, students, media professionals, and the public and will encourage collaboration, production, dissemination, and knowledge economies.

(more…)

Research highlighting transformative scientific discoveries

Editors' ChoiceECS published its first Editors’ Choice article on Tuesday, March 22, 2016 in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. The article, entitled “Communication—Comparison of Nanoscale Focused Ion Beam and Electrochemical Lithiation in β-Sn Microspheres,” details transformative findings in the dosage and spatial distribution of lithiation.

Editors’ Choice articles are a special designation of ECS’s newly established Communication articles, which are designed to highlight breakthrough preliminary research and bolster the scientific discovery process. ECS journal editors designate exemplary Communication articles as Editors’ Choice when the research presented is transformative, detailing either novel advancements in a field or completely new discoveries.

“This paper introduces the use of a focused Li-ion beam (Li-FIB) as a new tool that is designed to probe lithiation mechanism at the nanoscale,” says Nick Wu, Associate Editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. “This technique, which employs a focused Li-ion beam with spot size of a few tens of nanometers and kinetic energy of a few keV, enables precise dosage and spatial distribution of lithiation.”

Papers chosen as Editors’ Choice are regarded as having the highest quality, impact, significance, and scientific or technological interest to electrochemical and solid state science and technology. In order to disseminate these findings to the scientific community at large and open the door to faster developments of practical applications, all Editors’ Choice articles are published Open Access.

“Furthermore,” Wu says, “lithiation in this technique is carried out in the absence of electrolytes so that it allows the study of lithiation dynamics solely in the bulk or surface layers (coatings) of the electrode material without the confounding influences from the electrolyte interactions.”

Each paper undergoes the same rigorous peer-review process associated with ECS journals, with Editors’ Choice articles showing extraordinary direction, concept, interpretation, field, or way of doing something.

Read the full Open Access paper in the ECS Digital Library: http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/163/6/A1010.full.