Abstract
Arthritis Research & Therapy continues to evolve. When Arthritis Research - Arthritis Research & Therapy 's title until 2003 - was conceived over 10 years ago, it was projected to be the first fully online open access journal in rheumatology. We successfully pioneered the open access model in rheumatology and soon established unique qualities (described below), and feel we have become a leader in the worldwide progress toward open access publishing. The Internet has fundamentally changed publishing, and scholarly articles are now primarily accessed electronically. In 2005 European online sales in scientific, technical and medical publishing were greater than print sales for the first time [1], and in 2009 it was reported that nearly 10% of all scientific, technical and medical journals were published under the open access model [2]. Indeed, the Directory of Open Access Journals now indexes more than 5,000 journals [3]. In 2002 Arthritis Research made the innovative decision - later replicated in other leading journals - to publish research articles in full online only, with the print journal being a compendium of what has been recently published online. Now that we have established ourselves as a leading rheumatology journal, it is time to move to the next stage of our evolution and become a fully online journal. We believe that the rheumatology world has become much more comfortable with electronic communication in the past decade, and we feel that a fully electronic format will enhance the functionality and purposefulness of the journal and will provide a better service to readers and authors. The success of online, open access, publications has long assuaged any theoretical concerns about the permanency and impact of online-only articles. Since we can no longer identify a necessity for a regularly printed journal we can no longer justify its adverse environmental impact, of which there is increasing awareness. The last regular printed issue of Arthritis Research & Therapy will therefore be published at the end of 2010 and distributed in January 2011.
Highlights
Arthritis Research & Therapy continues to evolve
In 2005 European online sales in scientific, technical and medical publishing were greater than print sales for the first time [1], and in 2009 it was reported that nearly 10% of all scientific, technical and medical journals were published under the open access model [2]
Recent developments Regular readers and authors of Arthritis Research & Therapy will have noticed that in January 2010 we implemented a complete redesign of the layout of our article PDFs – both the print and online versions
Summary
In 2002 Arthritis Research made the innovative decision – later replicated in other leading journals – to publish research articles in full online only, with the print journal being a compendium of what has been recently published online. That we have established ourselves as a leading rheumatology journal, it is time to move to the stage of our evolution and become a fully online journal.
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