Scholarly publishing news has been buzzing about 1science’s recently published large-scale study on the impact of Open Access. This study analyzed more than 3 million papers and found that Open Access papers have a 50% greater citation advantage than papers in subscription-based journals.

Meanwhile, ECS has also been performing its own (much smaller-scale) research to confirm this hypothesis. In May 2015, ECS launched a study, led by Daniela Solomon, a librarian at Case Western Reserve University, to examine the citation advantage for Open Access articles published in Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES).

The study looks at both downloads and citations of articles published in a single volume of JES. This brief note outlines the results at the end of one year; however, we consider these results preliminary as we will continue to run the study for another year.

We will publish our findings again when the study closes: in the meantime we’d be interested in hearing your comments and thoughts on our findings so far.

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Now that more and more publishers are requiring ORCID iDs, and with the advent of ORCID’s Collect & Connect program, ORCID has been receiving an onslaught of questions about how to properly display ORCID iDs.

When ORCID first released its guidelines on collection and display in 2013, the publishing environment was very different and ORCID was still very young. The constantly changing publishing landscape coupled with the widespread uptake of ORCID iDs has created a need to reevaluate these practices and address any gaps or frequently asked questions.

In order to accomplish this, ORCID has gathered a group of publishing professionals to look at the document and create recommendations for a new set of guidelines. To be successful, these professionals must use their publishing experience, coupled with suggestions from the community. (more…)

As 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 continues to gain momentum globally

Globally, 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.

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Research highlighting transformative scientific discoveries

ECS 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.

Communication article highlights scientific breakthroughs

In an effort to more quickly disseminate breakthrough research and bolster the scientific discovery process, ECS has established Communication articles for researchers to quickly get the word out to a large scientific community on impressive preliminary research results.

ECS has been publishing Communication articles since October 2015. These articles define a special category of short reports for publication in either the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) or ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS).

“Although the research is preliminary,” says Dennis Hess, editor of JSS, “the content of these articles has the potential to change the direction of a field or supply the solution to a critical problem, thereby benefiting greatly science, technology, and society.”

With little time between acceptance and publication and concise reports of 2,000 words or less, Communication articles have the potential to open the door to the faster development of practical applications and overall advancement of the science.

All Communication articles undergo the same rigorous peer-review process associated with ECS publications. Each report is designed to demonstrate the high-impact of the research to the scientific community at large, providing a preliminary step for authors to highlight significant breakthroughs prior to publishing a full study/paper.

Learn more about Communication articles.

PS: Check out the Communication articles that have already been published in JES and JSS.

ECS is celebrating Open Access Week this year by making all the content—over 120,000 articles—in the ECS Digital Library freely accessible from October 19 through 25, 2015.

The ECS Digital Library is home to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the flagship journal of ECS, published continuously since 1902, and to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, and Interface.

We have been increasing the number of articles we publish as open access at no cost to the author for almost two years now, but we wanted to take the opportunity of Open Access Week to show the world our vision: all of our content freely available to anyone who wants to read it.

The research in these journals directly addresses the sustainability of our planet. Our scientists are looking to solve some of the most pressing problems the world is facing today:

• energy storage and conversion, from small-scale to large scale: batteries, fuel cells, biofuels, supercapacitors, grid-scaling;

• environmental remediation of materials used in research;

• corrosion of infrastructures;

• clean water and sanitation;

• the growth of nanotechnology;

• processes to develop safer and more effective drugs;

• improving and developing new medical devices; and

• sensors for environmental cleanup, emissions monitoring, detection of illegal and dangerous materials, home and workplace safety, and medical diagnosis and care.

ECS believes that open access—especially in electrochemistry and solid state science—is an important goal for scientific and technological development and, quite simply, creating a better world.

Ensuring that everyone working on these issues—wherever they are in the world, and for whomever they work—has access to the latest research is in our best interests as a nonprofit professional society supporting researchers everywhere, and in the best interests of all the sciences.

ECS has not yet reached a place where it can sustainably make all of its publications open access, but it is our goal and we want to celebrate our vision of the future during Open Access Week.

Take advantage of the free content in the ECS Digital Library October 19 through 25, 2015.

Peer Review Week is still going strong, with publishers and reviewers across the globe chiming in with astute articles and intelligent commentary. Here at ECS, we’ve gotten insight from one of our associate editors, looked at how the peer review process works, and examined how it has become the heart of scholarly publication.

Now we’d like to take a moment to thank our reviewers, who use their technical expertise to help us maintain high-quality publication standards in all four of our peer reviewed journals. Take a look at these tips for peer reviewers.

Scott Lillard is currently the Professor & Carboline Endowed Chair in Corrosion at the University of Akron, where he leads academic research and is and major contributor to the establishment the university’s new Corrosion Engineering program. He has recently been appointed to the ECS Electrochemical Science & Technology (EST) Editorial Board as an Associate Editor for a two-year term beginning July 1, concentrating in the Corrosion Science and Technology Technical Interest Area.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new role as the EST Editorial Board Associate Editor?
I have some experience working on the board of some other journals, but I don’t think that’s what I really contribute. What I contribute is this idea of customer service. There are a number of reasons why people publish in the journal. It might be the appropriateness of the content or the impact factor, but the third reason is probably customer service. What does that mean? That means getting good peer reviews in a timely manner and treating the authors in a professional manner.

How do you think peer reviewed journals have changed over the years?
I think the goals of authors are the same as they were 20 years ago. They want to get their publication out to people in their field so they can read it. They want to do that in as timely a manner as possible. The way in which the process is expected to occur is much different now than it was 20 years ago. It would take you six or nine months to get reviews back. That’s just not expected anymore. Everything is expected to be much more efficient now. I think efficiency, speed, and customer service are the things that are changing.

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