The American Chemical Society (ACS) has announced that its peer-reviewed scientific journals have been ranked as leaders in 27 subject categories in a recently released independent study. In this study, 60 percent of all journals published by ACS have an Impact Factor (a widely accepted metric of a journal’s impact in its field) of 4.0 or over — a greater proportion than any other publisher in the chemical or related sciences. Thomson Reuters reports that ACS Publications retains its leadership as the most cited sources in seven core chemistry publishing categories.
The standardised Impact Factors and ranking system of Thomson Reuter’s Journal Citation Reports are seen as the foundation of how scientists around the world determine where to publish and what sources of chemical research they use in their professional endeavours. ACS Publications journals achieving superlative results in 2010 include the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the most cited journal in Multidisciplinary Chemistry with a record 369,164 total citations and a rise in Impact Factor to 9.019, and Chemical Reviews, the highest impact journal in chemistry, with an Impact Factor of 33.033. All told, journals from ACS Publications rank number one in either Impact Factor and/or total citations in 14 ISI scientific categories.
Citation statistics — the number of times papers from a journal are cited by other scientists each year in their own research — are said to be important indicators of a journal’s value and vitality to active researchers. With over 1.4 million citations in the seven chemistry categories, ACS Publications journals are the most cited in chemistry. Thomson Reuters calculates that total citations of American Chemical Society journals increased by 8 percent in 2010, posting 1.8 million total citations on the year.
The high ranking of ACS Publications journals is seen as a testament to the independent editors of ACS journals, who are all noted and practicing scientists, and the 60,000 plus scientists from around the world that choose to publish with the ACS each year. The journals of the American Chemical Society are stated to have global impact. Indeed, over 6 percent of total articles published by ACS Publications come from outside North America. Journals from ACS Publications are available to scientists at over 5,500 institutional libraries and research centres worldwide: This community downloaded over 71 million peer-reviewed articles and papers from ACS Publications in 2010.
Authors are seen to submit their work to ACS, trusting the publisher’s use of technology to get newly published research into the hands of the scientific community as quickly as possible. The ACS Paragon Plus Environment, its digital review and editing suite, enables quick peer-review and publication. The ACS Web Editions content platform — hosting over one million original research and news articles, and its mobile-friendly app, ACS Mobile for iPhone, iPad, and Android — received awards for innovation from the Association of American Publishers in 2009 and 2011.
The Journal Citation Reports are also stated to affirm ACS’ strategy of introducing new journals that reflect the changing needs of the chemistry community. ACS Nano, introduced in 2007, increased its Impact Factor from 7.493 to 9.855 in 2010. In 2011, ACS Publications will introduce two new journals: ACS Macro Letters, the short-form communication partner to ACS’s existing polymer science publication, Macromolecules, and ACS Synthetic Biology, dedicated to publishing high quality research in the emerging fields of synthetic and systems biology.
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
