The world's largest scientific society American Chemical Society (ACS), US, has begun a pilot programme that will make some journal papers available online about two to seven weeks earlier than was the case previously. Authors publishing in the journals ACS Chemical Biology, Journal of Proteome Research, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmaceutics can now opt to have their peer-reviewed, accepted manuscripts posted on the ACS Publications website within three days of acceptance. These "Just Accepted" manuscripts are assigned a digital object identifier (DOI) that can be used to cite the papers. The manuscripts are free to all readers.
ACS is providing this service to expedite the dissemination of scientific information in a fully citable format. It will monitor the number of authors and readers who use the feature and will assess the impact of the public availability of accepted manuscripts.
A "Just Accepted" manuscript proceeds through the usual ACS production process - technical editors edit and format it for the Web, and authors approve galleys. The final published article retains the same DOI as the "Just Accepted" manuscript, ensuring that citations link to the final scientific article of record when it becomes available.
The American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has been offering a similar programme for its journals since 2002. ASBMB's 'Papers in Press' programme reduces the time from acceptance to publication by six to eight weeks. The society places each accepted manuscript in a permanent, publicly accessible archive on the respective journal's website. However, according to an ASBMB official, this free access hasn't eroded subscription demand.
