American Chemical Society Launches ACS Editors’ Choice Open Access Service

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 14, 2014 –– ACS Publications, a leading scientific journal publisher and a Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), has launched ACS Editors’ Choice, a major component of the Society’s expanded portfolio of open access options.

Every day – 365 days a year -- ACS Editors’ Choice features a new scientific article of broad public interest made open to anyone at no charge. Each peer-reviewed article is nominated by ACS’s global team of more than 400 editors of the Society’s 44 journals.

“The debut of ACS Editors’ Choice on New Year’s Day is our first step in expanding open access to articles that exemplify the Society’s commitment to improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry,” said Dr. Darla Henderson, Assistant Director, Open Access Programs. “Providing the cadre of ACS Publications Editors -- all practicing scientists and world-renowned leaders in their research fields -- with the opportunity to recognize exciting and impactful research positions ACS Editors’ Choice as a showcase of the high-quality research across the breadth of chemistry published by our community of authors every day at ACS.”

All peer-reviewed article types published in ACS journals may be considered for selection into the ACS Editors' Choice program. Articles are typically nominated by journal editors into the program following peer review at the time of acceptance. ACS Editors’ Choice articles are open access immediately upon publication in their respective journal and indexed at pubs.acs.org/editorschoice. Articles remain free for all to access and read and there are no article publishing charges for authors.  

The first article selected for ACS Editors’ Choice on Jan. 1, 2014, A Cis-Membrane FRET-Based Method for Protein-Specific Imaging of Cell-Surface Glycans, was selected from the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “Our editorial team is pleased to be a part of the launch for this bold new venture,” said Dr. Peter Stang, editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “ACS Editors’ Choice provides a unique opportunity for top-notch impactful research to be made available to an even wider audience all for the benefit of the global research community.”

Over the course of this and every year, ACS anticipates that the ACS Editors’ Choice program will recognize the diversity of articles published in all ACS journals, spanning the breadth of chemistry from traditional arenas such as organic chemistry to cutting-edge fields including nanotechnology and synthetic biology.

ACS will use a variety of channels to promote the articles featured in ACS Editors’ Choice. In addition to residing on the ACS Publications platform, the articles will be promoted via social media and readily discoverable within curated scientific indices, such as CAS and SciFinder, as well as publicly available search engines, such as Google. ACS Publications also offers a free email alert service.

ACS Editors’ Choice is part of ACS’s expansion of open access publishing options that were announced on November 1, 2013. The other components include: ACS Central Science, a major new open access journal currently in development; expanded ACS AuthorChoice, offering more licensing choices for authors; and ACS Author Rewards, a stimulus program for authors publishing in ACS journals in 2014 to facilitate future open access publications, presenting the research community with a potential savings of $60 million. Additional details can be found at www.acsopenaccess.org.

About ACS Publications: ACS Publications manages the scholarly publishing program of the world’s largest scientific society. Every year approximately 40,000 articles authored by research teams from the community of scientists are selected for publication within the 44 peer-reviewed journals from ACS Publications. Noted for their high quality, rapid time to publication, high immediacy and impact, as well as prevalent citation in future research, ACS journals are available in print, online and mobile formats at more than 5,000 academic, business and corporate institutions worldwide. In addition, ACS members have flexible options for access to the research published in ACS journals as a benefit of membership. ACS editors are all independent active scientific researchers, highly published in their respective fields of inquiry. ACS Publications supports more than 400 editorial offices at leading research universities and government-funded laboratories throughout the world to ensure the integrity, global reach and expertise of its peer-review process. ACS Publications also publishes Chemical & Engineering News—the Society’s flagship news periodical covering the global chemical enterprise and related sciences.

About ACS: The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.