Optica, The Optical Society's open access, online journal dedicated to rapidly disseminating the highest impact peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics, is celebrating its second anniversary this month.
As part of its continuing efforts to provide an open and trusted forum for innovative results in optics and photonics research, Optica will now offer authors a fourth type of paper submission called 'Memorandum.' This article type is one that harkens to the past when authors wrote formal letters to the editor. This type of communication has all but disappeared from most scientific research journals as a vehicle for announcing new results, having been replaced by the currently familiar four- or five-page short-paper format. With Memorandum in place, Optica will now offer a total of four article types—letter, article, mini-review and memorandum.
Memorandum submission requirements include a strict two-page limit and a 35-word abstract that must make the impact of the result clear to a broad audience. Using the Journal's existing rapid initial editorial review process, submissions will be assessed by two associate editors from the board of prominent, active researchers. Only one round of review and minor revisions will be allowed. Since memoranda will deal with important and timely results, the aim is to publish them in less than 4-6 weeks.
Published monthly, with articles made available online as soon as they are ready, Optica has established itself as a trusted source for some of the best and most exciting work in the optics and photonics field and provides a forum for that pioneering research to be swiftly accessed by the international community. In a demonstration of its relevance and appeal, the Journal recently achieved a partial Impact Factor (IF) of 5.205 in the 2015 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2016), based on the number of citations to articles published in its first six issues alone. The Journal has experienced a 50% growth in downloads in the last year and submissions continue to increase beyond expectations. Further, articles are regularly featured in mainstream media because of their broad appeal.
Brought to you by Scope e-Knowledge Center, a world-leading provider of metadata services, abstraction, indexing, entity extraction and knowledge organisation models (Taxonomies, Thesauri and Ontologies).
