Open Science for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Abstract

The world is changing at a breathtaking rate. In child and adolescent mental health, shifts in the awareness, appreciation, and commitment to action to address the developmental roots of mental health and well-being are seismic and long overdue.1Mei C. Fitzsimons J. Allen N. et al.Global research priorities for youth mental health.Early Interv Psychiatry. 2020; 14: 3-13https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.12878Crossref Scopus (33) Google Scholar This spotlight creates unique opportunities for us to better educate, advocate, and share new and age-old knowledge. Indeed, our Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) family of journals aims to promote the well-being of children and families globally by publishing original research and papers of theoretical, scientific, and clinical relevance to the field of child and adolescent mental health. Now, more than ever, we can harness the increased attention on children and families to translate this information in an open fashion with the end goal of improving their lives. With more readers and wider dissemination come increased opportunities for collaborations, creating a positive feedback loop for more citations and policy impact.2Purtle J. Nelson K.L. Horwitz S.M.C. McKay M.M. Hoagwood K.E. Determinants of using children’s mental health research in policymaking: variation by type of research use and phase of policy process.Implement Sci. 2021; 16: 13https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-021-01081-8Crossref Scopus (7) Google ScholarEqually seismic are the shifts in the accessibility of science from the highly privileged to the public, broadly defined. This “open access” movement is changing scientific publishing in exciting ways. Most academic journals make their articles available online by means of either a paid subscription or membership arrangements (for example, an academic library). Thanks to the Internet, along with the consent of authors and copyright holders, a new scholarly publishing model known as open access has emerged over the last 2 decades and is rapidly growing. Open access literature is digital, online, free to read, and often published under new and evolving copyright and licensing agreements.So, building on the values and prominence of JAACAP, it is our distinct pleasure to introduce JAACAP Open, a fully open access journal designed to promote dissemination of scientific work from a broad array of original hypothesis-testing, hypothesis-generating, and mixed-methods investigations, meta-analyses, reviews, and pre-registered reports in domains relevant to child, adolescent, and family mental health, such as basic, translational, clinical, epidemiologic, health policy, population science, and global health research. These areas may encompass observational studies and/or studies designed to test the many modalities of interventions currently available or being developed in our field. JAACAP Open aims to provide outstanding peer review and efficient dissemination of articles to our global readership. Like JAACAP,3Novins D.K. Wagner K.D. The Journal and the Academy.Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2018; 57: 299https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.02.007Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (0) Google Scholar the editorial team at JAACAP Open will have full editorial independence from the Academy to assess submissions, edit, select, and schedule content, and to review advertisements (in accordance with AACAP policy). As a gold open access journal, JAACAP Open charges a fee to authors upon acceptance of a full-length article for publication. AACAP members are eligible to receive a discount when publishing in JAACAP Open. There is no fee to submit an article to JAACAP Open for consideration. A resource guide for authors will outline options available to fund publication in our open access journal.Scholarly publishing will continue to evolve to keep current with the growth of open access funder mandates and demand for increased accessibility of the work generated from our field. A growing number of authors now seek out open access publication options to follow such funding mandates and for personal and philosophical reasons. As recently indicated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP),4Nelson A. Ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research.https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdfDate accessed: October 27, 2022Google Scholar open access returns research results more swiftly and readily to the public, who provide significant funding for scholarly work. Authors may also appreciate the increased visibility, influence, and potential benefit of their work when published via open access. Open access also dismantles cost barriers that can create global inequities in research access. The launch of JAACAP Open ensures that an AACAP publication option continues to be available to all authors in service to AACAP’s mission to meet the professional needs of child and adolescent psychiatrists throughout their careers. Although progress toward open science is still young relative to the centuries-long history of traditional publishing, JAACAP Open will strive to make work from our field rapidly and universally accessible, which we hope will encourage collaborative, reproducible, and diverse translational research to accelerate and sustain steady streams of discovery in our field.As JAACAP Open begins to accept manuscript submissions, this endeavor is supported by an amazing team of newly minted editors and editorial board members, who represent key areas of expertise in our field. Colleagues are selected based on their expertise in specific areas relevant to the scope of articles published (eg, genetics, treatment research). Given the high volume of submissions and the technical and scientific expertise required to review them, action and consulting editors will be essential to the smooth and effective operation of the review process, and will be consulted on policies and publishing activities that affect the journal. The members of the JAACAP Open team are highly qualified and accomplished individuals who are committed to our journal’s mission and its new role as a member of the JAACAP family. They are excited by the opportunity to serve the journal, the Academy, and our field at large, and they will undoubtedly make important contributions to the journal.What can you do to get involved with JAACAP Open? You can read the articles and share them freely and broadly, as they may be accessed without any fees. You can contribute your work to JAACAP Open. Review the Guide for Authors, which outlines editorial policies, article types, and submission instructions, and will include information about upcoming calls for papers. You can serve as a peer reviewer for JAACAP Open—after all, peer reviewing is a great way to learn about innovations in our field and to contribute to improving the overall quality of the work our field generates. As our work proceeds, we encourage you to reach out to us with any questions and comments. Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] .Arguably, our field is fundamentally built on prosocial values, so the paradigm shift in science that dismantles research silos and culturally moves toward more collaboration, data sharing, and interdisciplinary cross-fertilization may not be novel to many of us. Nevertheless, with increased awareness that mental illness transcends political, socioeconomic, and racial boundaries, these open science trends have the added benefit of exposing more people to the methods and findings specific to child and adolescent psychiatry. This can have the important effect of facilitating applications of methods across diverse settings and people. What a remarkable opportunity for growth if our efforts can truly generalize to address more comprehensively the unmet needs of the patients and families we serve. This is a big step for the JAACAP “family” of journals, our Academy, and our child and adolescent mental health community. We look forward to partnering with you and welcoming with open arms the next generation of child and adolescent mental health research to be published in JAACAP Open. The world is changing at a breathtaking rate. In child and adolescent mental health, shifts in the awareness, appreciation, and commitment to action to address the developmental roots of mental health and well-being are seismic and long overdue.1Mei C. Fitzsimons J. Allen N. et al.Global research priorities for youth mental health.Early Interv Psychiatry. 2020; 14: 3-13https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.12878Crossref Scopus (33) Google Scholar This spotlight creates unique opportunities for us to better educate, advocate, and share new and age-old knowledge. Indeed, our Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) family of journals aims to promote the well-being of children and families globally by publishing original research and papers of theoretical, scientific, and clinical relevance to the field of child and adolescent mental health. Now, more than ever, we can harness the increased attention on children and families to translate this information in an open fashion with the end goal of improving their lives. With more readers and wider dissemination come increased opportunities for collaborations, creating a positive feedback loop for more citations and policy impact.2Purtle J. Nelson K.L. Horwitz S.M.C. McKay M.M. Hoagwood K.E. Determinants of using children’s mental health research in policymaking: variation by type of research use and phase of policy process.Implement Sci. 2021; 16: 13https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-021-01081-8Crossref Scopus (7) Google Scholar Equally seismic are the shifts in the accessibility of science from the highly privileged to the public, broadly defined. This “open access” movement is changing scientific publishing in exciting ways. Most academic journals make their articles available online by means of either a paid subscription or membership arrangements (for example, an academic library). Thanks to the Internet, along with the consent of authors and copyright holders, a new scholarly publishing model known as open access has emerged over the last 2 decades and is rapidly growing. Open access literature is digital, online, free to read, and often published under new and evolving copyright and licensing agreements. So, building on the values and prominence of JAACAP, it is our distinct pleasure to introduce JAACAP Open, a fully open access journal designed to promote dissemination of scientific work from a broad array of original hypothesis-testing, hypothesis-generating, and mixed-methods investigations, meta-analyses, reviews, and pre-registered reports in domains relevant to child, adolescent, and family mental health, such as basic, translational, clinical, epidemiologic, health policy, population science, and global health research. These areas may encompass observational studies and/or studies designed to test the many modalities of interventions currently available or being developed in our field. JAACAP Open aims to provide outstanding peer review and efficient dissemination of articles to our global readership. Like JAACAP,3Novins D.K. Wagner K.D. The Journal and the Academy.Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2018; 57: 299https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.02.007Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (0) Google Scholar the editorial team at JAACAP Open will have full editorial independence from the Academy to assess submissions, edit, select, and schedule content, and to review advertisements (in accordance with AACAP policy). As a gold open access journal, JAACAP Open charges a fee to authors upon acceptance of a full-length article for publication. AACAP members are eligible to receive a discount when publishing in JAACAP Open. There is no fee to submit an article to JAACAP Open for consideration. A resource guide for authors will outline options available to fund publication in our open access journal. Scholarly publishing will continue to evolve to keep current with the growth of open access funder mandates and demand for increased accessibility of the work generated from our field. A growing number of authors now seek out open access publication options to follow such funding mandates and for personal and philosophical reasons. As recently indicated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP),4Nelson A. Ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research.https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdfDate accessed: October 27, 2022Google Scholar open access returns research results more swiftly and readily to the public, who provide significant funding for scholarly work. Authors may also appreciate the increased visibility, influence, and potential benefit of their work when published via open access. Open access also dismantles cost barriers that can create global inequities in research access. The launch of JAACAP Open ensures that an AACAP publication option continues to be available to all authors in service to AACAP’s mission to meet the professional needs of child and adolescent psychiatrists throughout their careers. Although progress toward open science is still young relative to the centuries-long history of traditional publishing, JAACAP Open will strive to make work from our field rapidly and universally accessible, which we hope will encourage collaborative, reproducible, and diverse translational research to accelerate and sustain steady streams of discovery in our field. As JAACAP Open begins to accept manuscript submissions, this endeavor is supported by an amazing team of newly minted editors and editorial board members, who represent key areas of expertise in our field. Colleagues are selected based on their expertise in specific areas relevant to the scope of articles published (eg, genetics, treatment research). Given the high volume of submissions and the technical and scientific expertise required to review them, action and consulting editors will be essential to the smooth and effective operation of the review process, and will be consulted on policies and publishing activities that affect the journal. The members of the JAACAP Open team are highly qualified and accomplished individuals who are committed to our journal’s mission and its new role as a member of the JAACAP family. They are excited by the opportunity to serve the journal, the Academy, and our field at large, and they will undoubtedly make important contributions to the journal. What can you do to get involved with JAACAP Open? You can read the articles and share them freely and broadly, as they may be accessed without any fees. You can contribute your work to JAACAP Open. Review the Guide for Authors, which outlines editorial policies, article types, and submission instructions, and will include information about upcoming calls for papers. You can serve as a peer reviewer for JAACAP Open—after all, peer reviewing is a great way to learn about innovations in our field and to contribute to improving the overall quality of the work our field generates. As our work proceeds, we encourage you to reach out to us with any questions and comments. Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] . Arguably, our field is fundamentally built on prosocial values, so the paradigm shift in science that dismantles research silos and culturally moves toward more collaboration, data sharing, and interdisciplinary cross-fertilization may not be novel to many of us. Nevertheless, with increased awareness that mental illness transcends political, socioeconomic, and racial boundaries, these open science trends have the added benefit of exposing more people to the methods and findings specific to child and adolescent psychiatry. This can have the important effect of facilitating applications of methods across diverse settings and people. What a remarkable opportunity for growth if our efforts can truly generalize to address more comprehensively the unmet needs of the patients and families we serve. This is a big step for the JAACAP “family” of journals, our Academy, and our child and adolescent mental health community. We look forward to partnering with you and welcoming with open arms the next generation of child and adolescent mental health research to be published in JAACAP Open.