The American College of Rheumatology Board of Directors and Committee on Journal Publications (CJP) are thrilled that the College is adding a third official journal: ACR Open Rheumatology (ACROR). Editors-in-chief Drs. Patricia P. Katz and Edward H. Yelin, and deputy editors Drs. David I. Daikh and Bruce N. Cronstein, are hard at work reviewing the manuscripts that are already coming the journal’s way. ACROR will accept manuscripts describing potentially important findings of rigorously conducted studies in all aspects of rheumatology. The editorial board looks forward to receiving manuscripts from clinical researchers, basic science researchers, and allied health/epidemiology/socioeconomics researchers.
Both ACR/ARHP journals Arthritis & Rheumatology and Arthritis Care & Research have enjoyed great success, with annual submission numbers in the thousands. The editors of those journals are not able to accept as many articles as they would like, and some articles reporting on well-performed studies with novel results fall just shy of the cutoff for acceptance. For these articles, the authors will be invited to take advantage of an internal resubmission to ACR Open Rheumatology, with expedited review (i.e., the review from A&R or AC&R would be utilized). Alternatively, authors may submit their article to ACROR first, without having submitted it earlier to A&R or AC&R.
As an open-access journal, immediate access to full content of ACROR will be available to anyone, with no login required. Articles in ACROR will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which means they can be used, distributed, and reproduced in whole or in part in any medium by anyone, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is not for commercial purposes.
The electronic-only format of the open-access journal, as well as other aspects of the review and production processes, will allow for faster review, publication, and sharing of articles. ACROR will apply for indexing shortly after launch and, when eligible, should receive an Impact Factor.
The projected article publication fee (APC) for ACROR will be $2,500, with a discounted rate of $2,000 for articles in which the first or corresponding author is a member of ACR/ARHP. There will be waivers for invited articles as well as for some authors meeting need-based criteria. In addition, there will be waivers of the APC for all articles submitted in the first six months from the time submission opens. For more information, please visit www.acropenrheum.org.
Drs. Yelin and Katz comment, “We’re very excited to lead the new journal. Our editorial team is poised to handle articles representing the breadth of topics covered in A&Rand AC&R, ranging from basic science to clinical science, rehabilitation research, health services research, and epidemiology. We look forward to working with the editors of A&R and AC&R and the College to develop ACROR into the ACR’s third flagship journal.”
With the launch of ACR Open Rheumatology, the American College of Rheumatology will be the published home of even more exciting and promising studies in rheumatology and rehabilitation research to advance the field and ultimately, benefit patients. Look for the first issue at the beginning of 2019!
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