Elsevier Editors' Home

Winners of First Annual ProSPER.Net-Scopus Young Scientist Award Announced

Elsevier and The network for the Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research (ProSPER.Net) Announce Winners of First Annual ProSPER.Net-Scopus Young Scientist Award.

Exclusive Webcast on Measuring Performance in Multidisciplinary Research Landscape

Elsevier Hosts Exclusive Webcast on Measuring Performance in Multidisciplinary Research Landscape.

EES online training session: February 18th

EES Using Classifications, more information and registration.

EES online training session: March 4th

EES People Database Management, more information and registration.

Introducing SciTopics

The new free online expert generated knowledge sharing service. Designed as a perfect starting point for scientific research, SciTopics integrates a content publishing platform with search functionalities and community feature.

Elsevier to publish Energy for Sustainable Development

Journal of the International Energy Initiative targets policymakers, business leaders and researchers interested in the sustainable production and use of energy. Starting this month, Elsevier will publish the peer-reviewed quarterly Energy for Sustainable Development, the official journal of the International Energy Initiative (IEI).

Reference linking: a new service enabling reviewers to have direct access to referenced articles published by Elsevier, directly from the manuscript they are reviewing

Reference linking means that by clicking on the hyperlinks, listed alongside the referenced articles, reviewers are brought to the abstracts of those articles. Furthermore, depending on the reviewer's personal or their institute's subscription entitlements, reviewers can also link directly, via CrossRef's DOI service, through to the articles referenced in other publishers' journals. This functionality and the facilitating tools are integrated, seamless and accessible through Elsevier's submission and peer review editorial system (EES).

ScienceDirect has introduced Document Download Manager, a new feature that enables researchers to download multiple full-text articles simultaneously

ScienceDirect, Elsevier's online STM platform, today announced that it has partnered with QUOSA to introduce the Document Download Manager, a new feature that enables researchers to download multiple full-text articles simultaneously.

Reviewers' Home now live on elsevier.com

Reviewers' homepage is now live on elsevier.com

The Elsevier Foundation is seeking grant proposals for its Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries and New Scholars programs

Grant proposals for the programs are due by September 15, 2008. The grants will be awarded in December 2008 and provide one, two and three year awards between US$5,000 and US$50,000 per year.

Plagiarism detection software, CrossCheck, to be implemented after successful pilot

Elsevier will implement CrossCheck, the plagiarism detection service offered by CrossRef in collaboration with iParadigms. With plagiarism a growing problem for journal editors, Elsevier has invested in CrossCheck to develop, pilot and implement, a single database of published articles enabling publishers to easily verify the originality of submitted and published work.

Spam Alert

Fraudulent emails target authors.

Life Sciences launches global contest

Elsevier Grand Challenge seeks innovative ideas for communicating scientific information.

Reed Elsevier announces the sale of three remaining defence exhibitions

Reed Elsevier has sold three defence exhibitions, DSEi, ITEC and LAAD to Clarion Events. This concludes Reed Elsevier's withdrawal from the defence exhibitions sector announced last year.

Scopus announces launch of the Scopus Journal Analyzer

Scopus has announced the launch of the Scopus Journal Analyzer, a new feature available to all subscribers that enables users to easily evaluate and compare journals using article and citation data. This new feature empowers researchers and librarians by providing them with a quick and transparent overview of the performance of individual journals. For further information on Scopus or the Scopus Journal Analyzer, please visit: http://www.info.scopus.com/journalanalyzer

The Lancet launches child-survival report in South Africa

The Lancet launched its special edition on maternal and child mortality last month at a conference of policymakers, elected officials and health experts from around the world. The Countdown to 2015 took place during the 118th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union April 17 to 19 in Cape Town. The objective of the Countdown conference was to mobilise policymakers to take action that will lead to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on maternal and child health set by the United Nations. The Lancet's report, "Countdown to 2015 – an update on maternal and child mortality," focuses on the 68 countries that have 97% of the world’s maternal and child deaths, and examines interventions that have been proven to improve maternal, newborn and child survival. It concludes that less than a quarter of these nations are on track to reaching the millennium goals for maternal and child mortality. While some countries, notably China, have made significant progress, many more, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, have seen no progress or even reversals of progress. The Lancet concludes that rapid progress in many of these nations is achievable and would get them on track.

Elsevier's contributions help spur scientific activity in developing world

Elsevier collaborates with other scientific publishers and the World Health Organisation to provide free and low-cost health research to developing nations. Research now shows that these U.N.-sponsored programs are having a significant impact on advancing scientific discovery and output in these regions.

2007 Corporate Responsibility Report now available

The report outlines a range of initiatives undertaken during 2007, as well as achievements to date such as the 13% decrease in carbon emissions since 2003 (when normalised against business growth). It also points to some emerging areas for attention such as the increased energy usage at our data centres as more of our content goes online.

New Publishing Ethics Resource Kit

New Publishing Ethics Resource Kit to support our editors in dealing with issues of plagiarism, article retraction and related legal and ethical issues.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) announces partnership with Elsevier

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has announced its partnership with Elsevier. More than 2000 journals, the full collection of Health Sciences and Science and Technology journals published by Elsevier have been added to the list of COPE members. "Our editors face an increasing number of cases of plagiarism and unethical publishing behaviour. As publishing ethics is a major aspect of the peer-review process, we're delighted to announce the partnership with COPE which can act as a sounding board for all our editors seeking for an external authoritative opinion on difficult cases", said Martin Tanke, Managing Director, Elsevier S and T Journals Publishing. Editors from Elsevier can benefit from attending the COPE meetings, scheduled every three months, to discuss complex ethical problems which have arisen during the publication process. They will also have access to other editors, their peers, to examine cases of publishing misconduct. In addition, they will be able to use the information and educational services that COPE is developing.

Grants to foster health and economic advancement in the developing world and help new scholars

The Elsevier Foundation is awarding 13 grants to libraries and academic institutions from around the world in support of their initiatives in science, technology and medicine. Recipients were selected for their innovative proposals and their potential to impact the developing world and the academic workplace. The awards total $594,000 (USD). Six grants are from the Foundation's Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries program, which helps libraries build their capacity to use STM information to promote health and economic advancement. The awardees are working in Africa, Latin America and Asia to improve access to scientific information and train librarians and researchers to use and deploy information for health care and research, AIDS prevention, disaster preparedness and agricultural development.

With WiserWiki and a new Facebook application, Elsevier's innovators are testing new platforms for the sharing of medical knowledge

Two of Elsevier's new Internet offerings offer free content to patients and the public: a medical wiki filled with information on all kinds of diseases and disorders, and a Patient Research application on Facebook that lets people view abstracts in Elsevier's Health Science journals.

ScienceDirect usage for 2007 exceeds expectations

ScienceDirect achieved 386 million downloads in 2007 - 23 million over the projected target and far exceeding the 18 million downloads achieved in 2000, when article downloads were first recorded. The steady growth was supplemented by a quicker-than-expected roll-out of Elsevier’s articles in Google’s search results."We should not forget what usage represents," said Joep Verheggen, Director of ScienceDirect. "And that’s not just article downloads – it’s researchers getting access to information that is forming the basis for critical developments in all fields." The most downloaded item of 2007 (107,077 downloads) was a 2005 Bioresource Technology paper: Application of the ADM1 model to advanced anaerobic digestion. ADM1 was found to be a powerful tool for predicting the behaviour of anaerobic digesters – an important discovery with a positive environmental impact. "I believe that the success of this paper results from a 'perfect storm' of driving forces," said Wayne Parker, author of the paper. "Anaerobic digestion of organics is of growing interest because of its potential to generate bio-gas as a renewable alternative fuel." The usage target for 2008 will be at least 450 million downloads. "It’s more than just a number," Joep said, "It’s a sign of how many new research breakthroughs Elsevier is helping to disseminate."

E-Suite simplifies Authors' interaction with Elsevier

Launching mid-November, E-Suite removes the burden of printing and faxing paper order forms for offprints and colour figures in print. E-suite will be rolled out over the coming months.

Elsevier has published a new statement about Access and Dissemination (Open Access)

Elsevier and our partners in the scientific and health communities have a shared interest in encouraging wide access to authoritative, peer-reviewed scientific, technical and medical (STM) information. Disseminating scholarly information is fundamental to our contribution to advancing scientific and medical knowledge, and enabling its use and application.

The ScienceDirect journal homepages are now appearing on search results in Google, leading to higher page rankings and more exposure for Elsevier content

Part of an ongoing process, this latest development represents the outcome of a project, released in April, to make the ScienceDirect journal homepages crawlable through Google. Separate from the indexing of the full text of the articles – due to complete in autumn – this development will help drive usage when searches are performed on journal title names and other associated keywords across any search engines that have indexed www.ScienceDirect.com. Google ranking depends on several factors including the quality and quantity of third-party linking to pages - the more high-quality links, the higher the ranking in Google. Plans to further optimise ScienceDirect to better leverage Google's ranking algorithm should help increase ranking for all Elsevier journal homepages over time.

Publisher-author initiative results in lifting of restrictions on authors from Cuba, Iran and Sudan

In response to a lawsuit filed in cooperation with author advocacy group, PEN, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has revised regulations that prohibited Americans from publishing works written by authors in publications from countries considered a threat to national security.

New content on Editors' Home: Updated information about plagiarism detection

The peer review process is at the heart of the success of scientific publishing. As part of our commitment to the protection and enhancement of the peer review process, Elsevier has an obligation to assist the scientific community in all aspects of publishing ethics, especially in cases of (suspected) duplicate submission or plagiarism.

New Corporate Responsibility Report now available

Reed Elsevier Corporate Responsibility Report now available online.

New Information on Editors' Home

Editors' home has new information about our production process, our strategy and policies and ways we can help you support your reviewers. August 3, 2007.

Publishers renew commitment to bringing free access to scientific research to developing world

At a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., Elsevier and other publishers extended their commitment to the UN program to provide online access to research for more than 100 of the world's poorest countries. In a World Health Organization (WHO) survey conducted in 2000, researchers and academics in developing countries ranked access to subscription journals as one of their most pressing problems. To address this disparity, more than 100 publishers, including Elsevier, Springer and Blackwell and three UN organizations have renewed their commitment to programs that provide free, or almost free, access to online peer-reviewed journals. Emphasizing the company's commitment to the program Vice Chairman, Y.S. Chi comments, "The gap in income and education should not be a reason for the increasing distance between the developed and less developed nations. Science, technology and medicine are areas that can lift a nation out of such situations to sustainable growth and prosperity."

New content on Editors' Home

Editors Home has a new article about how your authors can use their Elsevier published-articles including posting on institutional home pages, making copies for teaching, and including the paper in a book or collected works.

2006 Citation Reports indicate Elsevier journal quality continues to improve

This year over 65% of Elsevier's journals increased in Impact Factor, ahead of major competitors including Wiley-Blackwell, Springer and Taylor & Francis Informa; a tribute to continued efforts to forge stronger relationships with editors and authors. The Impact Factor - a measure of the citations to science and social science journals - is frequently used as a measure of the importance of a journal to its field. The 2006 Impact Factor of a journal measures the average number of times papers published in 2004 and 2005 were cited in articles published in 2006. CEO Erik Engstrom said: "The continued increase in Impact Factors across our journals in both Science & Technology and Health Sciences demonstrates progress in building world class content, reflecting the dedicated effort of our publishing staff to establish closer relationships with editors."

Editors idea realised: Procedures Consult benefits patients, doctors and medical institutions

The first-of-its-kind product, which launched this week, started as an editor's idea and grew into a year-long collaborative Health Sciences (HS) project involving input from more than 100 educators, residents and medical students. Doctors looking to maintain their skills and knowledge have a new, easy way to access important reference content. Procedures Consult is an online multimedia reference and training tool that helps medical residents, students and physicians prepare for, perform and test their knowledge of top medical procedures. The product features include 24/7 access to videos of high-risk, high-volume procedures, plus animation, illustrations and step-by-step instructional text. To learn more about the product, visit the website at http://www.ProceduresConsult.com

New collaboration tool allows researchers and academics to rate and tag bookmarks, which will help stimulate networking in the wider scientific community

The product is specifically aimed at the professional research community who depend on finding relevant scientific, technical and medical information. Similar social networking tools exist, but none with a focus on encouraging research collaboration. Unlike storing your "Favorites" in your browser, 2collab allows you to store your bookmarks on a platform that is free and accessible to everyone. "But the real benefit is you can also share these resources on the tool," says Michiel. "You can set up private or public groups and share your bookmarks with them, encouraging networking, discussion and collaboration." A common scenario is that if a researcher is writing an article with co-authors around the globe, he or she can store in 2collab any bookmarks for related articles so his or her colleagues can access them. The bookmarks can be tagged with keywords so they're easy to find. And, best of all, users can start discussions by commenting on and rating these bookmarks. This makes collaboration more efficient and reduces long email strings that can become too convoluted. The site is integrated with Scopus and ScienceDirect, so users add information in one-click to 2collab. This week 2collab was launched as a beta. While anyone can visit and use the tool, our primary focus is the 30 academic and government institutes who are Development Partners of Scopus and ScienceDirect.

New content on Editors' Home: Publishing Research Consortium

Elseviers' Editors' Home now includes a link to the Publishing Research Consortium, a group of publishing societies and individual publishers, which supports global research into scholarly communication in order to enable evidence-based discussion. Their objective is to support work that is scientific and pro-scholarship. They aim to promote an understanding of the role of publishing and its impact on research and teaching.

Elsevier Foundation announces two new grant programs

The grants benefit institutions around the world, with a focus on support for the world's libraries, and scholars in the early stages of their careers. The Elsevier Foundation has launched two new programs to support the communities we serve: the Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries Program and the New Scholars Program. "These programs are part of our commitment to contributing to the health and science communities in meaningful ways," says David Ruth, Director, Corporate Relations. "Both programs concentrate on an area where we believe we can have an impact by making a focused contribution to an identified need." Requests for proposals for the new programs began in some of our journals last week and will continue through 1 October. The grants will be awarded in December.

Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries Program

This program provides grants to enhance developing world libraries capacity in the fields of science (including the social sciences), technology and medicine (STM). The Foundation will provide grants to libraries in the developing countries and supporting organizations in the following areas: Programs that enhance library infrastructure, technology or information services in ways that significantly enhance their ability to make STM information available. Programs that enhance or expand library information resources in the developing world through digitization or preservation of information that advances science, health, the environment, and indigenous knowledge. Training and education programs, for library staff, students or researchers, contributing to sustainable improvements in the library's capacity to provide STM information in the developing world. Partnerships between libraries in the developing countries and institutions in the developed countries to provide technical assistance or training."We are looking to our colleagues with librarian contacts in the developed world to help us promote this program and identify good candidates for collaboration," says David.

New Scholars Program

This program gives priority to the efforts of the academic and research community to address the challenge of balancing childcare and family responsibilities with demanding careers in science, technology and health. The challenge of managing family responsibilities has been identified as a particular obstacle to recruiting, retaining and developing new academics and researchers, particularly women. This program focuses on doctoral candidates and scientists in the first five years of their post-doctoral careers. "We want to support the efforts of societies, universities and departments in helping scientists with childcare and other family responsibilities when attending the scientific conferences, meetings, workshops and symposia that are critical to establishing a career in science," says David. The Foundation provides one–, two– and three–year grants to non-profit academic and research institutions, learned societies, professional associations, and governmental and non-governmental organizations in the following areas: Programs that enable scientists to attend conferences, meetings, workshops and symposia that are critical to career development by helping them with childcare and other family responsibilities. Programs that, as part of an institutional commitment to advancing women in science, provide support to promising new scientists to attend scientific gatherings. Programs that encourage networking and mentorship within the institutions and disciplines in ways that support the challenges of faculty and staff with family responsibilities. Research, advocacy, and policy development to advance knowledge, awareness and application of programs to retain, recruit and develop women in science. To learn more about the challenges of young scholars, read a seminal study, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering.

More than 900 leading research libraries and corporations worldwide join eBooks trial

The trial that began 9 May provides participants with access to 500 of the 4,000 scientific and technical books to be launched on ScienceDirect in the third quarter. The new eBooks programme represents a major expansion to the world-class content already available on ScienceDirect, including reference works, handbooks and book series. "The growing trend to provide books through platforms such as ScienceDirect gives librarians compelling opportunities to ensure better use of library resources and deliver a more comprehensive online research experience to our users," says Joep Verheggen, Director, ScienceDirect. "Researchers are able to search across all relevant information published in books and journals, focusing research efforts and saving time." At launch, the programme will comprise high-quality selected titles published from 1995 to present covering a range of scientific disciplines, including those published under the renowned Pergamon and Academic Press imprints. Following launch, about 50 newly published titles will be added to the eBooks list each month.

Science and Technology and Health Science customers benefit from new productivity enhancing online solutions

Four user-friendly features go live on ScienceDirect. "In our latest release [of ScienceDirect], we're implementing some new functionality that is modelled on popular second generation Internet-based services," explains Joep Verheggen, Director, ScienceDirect. The features include: RSS feeds - available for search results, citations and new articles, and more than 300 pre-selected topics. Users are alerted when there is new content of interest to them. Cited By in Scopus - gives access to a wealth of citation information with links to specific citations. Included on article pages, "Cited By" also features a real-time citation count. Live Chat - allows users to communicate with the e-Helpdesk through an online, real-time instant messaging service available 24 hours a day, Monday-Friday. It will roll out in phases following a trial period with development partners and select customers. Inward linking simplification - ScienceDirect supports OpenURL standard 1.0 instead of 0.1. This change enables new partners to build links more easily and with more flexibility.

A new MD Consult enhancement gives physicians faster access to information

The online clinical reference tool now enables physicians to have accelerated access to information and educational content for better diagnosis and treatment. "Clinicians want fast, concise answers at the point of care, and they want to have access to the most important information about a medical condition from high-quality trusted resources," says Dr. Jonathan Teich, an attending physician in emergency medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Elsevier's Chief Medical Informatics Officer. Based on input from physicians, medical students, librarians and healthcare professionals, the enhancements include a new user interface and revamped search capabilities. "The [enhancements] enable healthcare professionals to quickly access information in formats they can put to immediate use," says Jonathan, who joined Elsevier in November with responsibility for leading efforts to translate our world-class content into products that provide a new level of support and value to clinical practice and healthcare delivery. To encourage use of the new enhancements, access to MD Consult is free through May.

Elsevier congratulates Richard Horton, Edinburgh Medal recipient

Lancet editor accepts prestigious award given annually to a science and technology professional whose achievements are judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding and well-being of humanity. Richard accepted the award at a banquet on April 2 and delivered a keynote, 'Can Science Save Us?'. 'Richard Horton campaigns endlessly on the need for medicine as a vital cultural and global force in society and has been outspoken over the role of the pharmaceutical industry in medicine, the MMR vaccine, euthanasia, the ethics of medical publishing, and global health,' reads a press release from the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

California hosts first Editors' Conference of '07

The conference met its two objectives: to celebrate California's contributions to science and to Elsevier, and to clarify Elsevier's pricing policy. "We value California very highly as a contributor to research and as a major client," says Hans Kort, Associate Director Research & Academic Relations. California is responsible for about 13% of all US and 4% of all world Science, Technology and Medical (STM) papers, and the state contributed about 37,000 published papers in 2005, Youngsuk "YS" Chi, Elsevier Vice Chairman, said during his opening presentation at the conference, held in La Jolla 23-24 March. Sixty California-based editors attended representing major Elsevier journals such as Surgical Neurology, FEBS Letters, and Physics Letters B. Editors' conferences are a forum for editors to meet, share ideas and learn about developments in publishing. Three more conferences are planned this year across the globe, each focused on particular subject areas and generic topics, such as journal management, but Hans says the California conference was unique because of its specific presentations on pricing, and for only having California-based editors attending. "The California academic community has been persistent in its criticism of Elsevier's pricing policy, but we were able to demonstrate that we're among the publishers with the lowest average price increases every year," Hans says. "It's a perception issue. So the purpose of this conference was to get the right facts across to these editors and I think we managed to do that very well." Anecdotal feedback so far is positive. One editor remarked to Mayur Amin, SVP/Director, Research & Academic Relations, "I noticed that you guys really understand and care about science." In a joint presentation, Mayur talked about the nature of journals and why prices differ and Chrysanne Lowe, VP Global Customer Marketing, focused on deals and what it has meant for some universities. "I think many of the California editors were surprised to see the value they have achieved through consortia licensing and growing usage," Chrysanne says. "For example, the University of California system's spend per article download today is less than a quarter of what it was in 2001."

STM publishing declaration submitted to the European Commission

The declaration will serve as the basis for the industry's communications with European policy makers about open access initiatives. On 13 February 2007, a group of 35 major publishers and eight publishing trade associations issued a joint declaration laying out ten principles through which scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishing can continue working for the benefit of science and society. It was issued in the context of the European Commission's Communication on Scientific Information and its Conference on Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area, which was held in Brussels on 15-16 February 2007. Despite very significant investment and a massive rise in access to scientific information, challenges on the practice of scholarly publishing continue. The declaration represents the STM community's collective response and underlines the role of specialist publishers in ensuring the integrity of scientific research.

Online "Journal Publishing Agreement" goes live

The online Journal Publishing Agreement (JPA), formerly known as the copyright form, dispenses with the need for authors to print a PDF, sign it and return it to Elsevier by post, fax or email. In January the first ten journals went live with the new service. When a journal switches to the online publishing agreement, the copyright type, funding information (e.g., US National Institutes of Health), and data protection is transferred automatically into the journal Production Tracking System (PTS). A HTML version of the accepted online form is sent to the author and a copy is stored by Elsevier. The service will have a phased rollout throughout 2007.

Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication

Elsevier has published the Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication. In this document Elsevier has laid down standards of expected behaviour by all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society for society-owned or sponsored journals.

Access to Scopus for Editors and Reviewers

Scopus, the world's largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources, is now available to all editors using EES (Elsevier Online Submission). To assist reviewers in the reviewing process, and as a token of our appreciation, Elsevier also offers reviewers access to Scopus for 30 days. With Scopus they can search for papers by the same author, related articles and references and track citations. Updated daily, Scopus offers you access to 28 million abstracts and 245 million references from over 15,000 peer-reviewed titles.