Elsevier to launch all-discipline OA journal

Elsevier is preparing to collaborate with the research community to develop an open-access journal covering all disciplines on one platform, with the aim of enabling 'continual experimentation and innovation'.

The publisher says plans include improving the end-to-end publishing process and integrating its smart technologies to improve search and discovery. Elsevier says the journal will offer researchers a streamlined, simple and intuitive publishing platform that connects their research to the relevant communities. Articles will be assessed for sound research rather than their scope or impact.

The as-yet unnamed journal 'reflects Elsevier's goal to provide a home for all sound research', the publisher's website states.

Publishing and product director Sara Grimme said: 'We are building an online interface that provides authors with a step-by-step, quick and intuitive submission process. As part of a transparent publishing process, we will alert authors on the progress of their submitted papers at each stage.

'To streamline the editorial process, we plan to use assets and technology developed by Elsevier. For example, by using data from Scopus and the technology behind it, we can quickly match papers to relevant editors and reviewers, significantly shortening peer review times.

'Once papers have been reviewed, edited and published, the goal is to bring this vast amount of information to readers and help them make sense of it for their own research. Every reputable journal aims to publish papers that are accurate and disseminate them to the right reader to support the advancement of science.'

Authors will have the choice of publishing under Creative Commons licenses CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND.

Grimme continued: 'Elsevier has spent nearly two decades developing smart content, search-and-discovery tools, and a wide range of platforms that are used by researchers worldwide. For example, we use semantic indexing to make search results more relevant and enable more efficient browsing for research on specific subjects. By adding citation and usage data to the indexing, we can enable readers to identify the articles most important to their research.

'The content will appear on ScienceDirect, which has more global usage than any other scientific publication platform, and on a dedicated website, where we aim to structure the content in a way that will make it extremely easy to discover so authors gain maximum visibility and credit for their work.'