A new stage and a new partner for RMB.

Abstract

Beginning with this issue of Reproductive Medicine and Biology (RMB), we have a new publisher, Springer Japan. Subscribers will also find that the journal has an attractive new cover design. In keeping with our tradition, however, we will continue to be active in publishing original and informative research articles that provide new insights in the fields of reproductive medicine and reproductive biology. Articles reporting results of clinical trials as well as case reports will also be included in order to accelerate the development of clinical medicine. As part of our new partnership with Springer, we will introduce a fully electronic manuscript submission and processing system, facilitating manuscript submission, review, and tracking. Authors can view the status of their manuscripts online at any time and can both read and respond to reviewers’ comments; they also have the convenience of submitting revisions online. This system substantially shortens the time from submission to acceptance, so that articles can be published that much more quickly in the RMB. Another major change for RMB is the introduction of Online First, which makes it possible to publish accepted articles in electronic form prior to the appearance of the printed journal, without having to wait for the completion of an entire issue, printed or electronic. This makes possible another significant reduction in publication time. As each article becomes ready for Online First publication, it will be published on the Web with its own publication date. Each article will receive a permanent, unique international identification code, the digital object identifier (DOI), which is registered with the International DOI Foundation (http://www.doi.org). Contributions published Online First but not yet available in print may be cited by journal title and DOI only. The print version also includes the DOI and date of online publication. With these concerted efforts, we are eagerly anticipating acceptance in the Medline/PubMed Index and the Science Citation Index, which will make it possible for us to be assigned an impact factor. Springer's global team will be assisting us in applying for these listings by using their international experience and information resources as they have successfully assisted many Japanese scientific journals to achieve the desired results in acceptance by these indexes. I sincerely hope that as we begin our association with Springer, many excellent manuscripts from countries around the world will be submitted to RMB. Hiroshi Imai, Editor-in-Chief