Abstract
The Multiple Sclerosis Journal’s (MSJ) open access companion, Multiple Sclerosis Journal-Experimental, Translational and Clinical (MSJ-ETC), reached its one-year anniversary in January 2016. MSJ-ETC was launched because of the steadily increasing activity of MSJ and its inability to publish all of the high quality, interesting manuscripts that were received. MSJ-ETC also allowed us the opportunity to publish manuscripts covering a wider range of topics, which might not be suitable for MSJ, including, for example, those focusing on technical developments, interesting studies related to a particularly geographical region, important follow-up data of previously published studies, and preliminary work which is exciting though not definitive. Importantly, MSJ-ETC’s open access format offers greater flexibility regarding length and the amount of accompanying supporting data.
As of November 2015, we have received 50 manuscripts, of which 22 (61%) ultimately were accepted. Not only have we received referrals from MSJ, but we also are starting to get direct submissions. We are very pleased with the increasing rate of submissions, the number of countries represented (see Figure 1), the quality of the manuscripts, and the wide range of topics covered – exactly what we were hoping for. This has allowed us to submit MSJ-ETC to PubMed, an important milestone in the journal’s evolution.
Geographical distribution of submissions to MSJ-ETC.
The first papers were published in MSJ-ETC on 24 April 2015. Our goal was rapid turnaround. In our first year, the average time from submission to an editorial decision was 28 days for original research papers and 25 days from decision to publication. We are working to increase efficiency even further in the coming year.
We are keen to avoid cost being an obstacle to submission. Although there is a page fee for publication, we have instituted several options to defray those costs and encourage potential authors to contact us directly if they would like to discuss these further.
We would like to thank all the authors who submitted manuscripts to MSJ-ETC. We hope basic and clinical MS researchers will continue to consider the journal a valuable option for publishing their work. We also thank the reviewers whose careful and timely feedback helped maintain the high quality of the papers we publish. Finally, we thank the team at Sage Publications, Ltd. for their support during this exciting new undertaking.