A Message from ASBMR President Dr. Laura Calvi, MD – August 22, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
ASBMR Publications form some of the core benefits for our membership and help drive our strategic priorities forward. It has been a busy time for the Editors and the Publications Committee, and I wanted to share some updates with you on these important programs.
Beginning late last year, ASBMR started to transition the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR®) and JBMR® Plus to a new publishing partner, Oxford University Press (OUP). This new partnership has enabled the Society to continue to deliver two high-quality journals and enhance the services we provide to members, authors, editors, readers, and our scientific community.
One big change is moving the JBMR® to an online-only model, which was the first step in securing a sustainable future for our flagship journal. While there has been an obvious environmental benefit to eliminating the paper edition, it has also allowed us to remove all non-open access page charges for authors. Submissions to both journals are up 25% over last year at this time, and almost 40% higher than in 2022.
Our thanks to Editors-in-Chief Drs. Raj Thakker and Deb Veis for their leadership during this transition, as well as for initiating several new programs during this time. Changing publishers has also provided us with the opportunity to refine our author marketing, the journals’ submission system, and the author guidelines, which have recently been completely overhauled by a Working Group of the Publications Committee and Chair, Dr. Cheryl Ackert-Bicknell.
Late last year, the Publications and ESI Committees launched the ASBMR Reviewer Training Track (RTT), and 28 trainees were matched with editorial board members for a mentored peer review program. quarterly webinar program has also been produced, focusing on the parts, values, and challenges of peer review. The webinars are open to all ASBMR members and provide great insight into the review process while also educating the next generation of peer reviewers and authors. I encourage you to review the webinars, regardless of your career stage, and recommend them to your trainees! If you missed them, recordings of the first three of these are now in the Education Resource Center.
Our thanks to all of the webinar speakers, the editorial board mentors, the ESI and Publications Committee working group, and the new OUP editorial office for all of your hard work in launching this mentorship program in 2024.
New also for this year, the JBMR® has implemented a new Complex Clinical Challenges article series to educate healthcare providers on the diagnosis and treatment of common and rare bone diseases. Each issue of 2024 has featured a new clinical challenge article and I encourage you to read the early collection.
In JBMR® Plus, a special collection on rare musculoskeletal disorders is currently being commissioned for a publication date of October 2024. This collection, guest edited by Eva S Liu, M.D., and Maegen Wallace, M.D., MBA., will also feature new research from a collaboration with the ASBMR 2024 Rare Bone Pre-Meeting organizers.
The newest collection from JBMR® highlights research on the influence of prenatal and peri-natal maternal behaviors and co-morbidities on the skeletal health of offspring, bone health during pregnancy and lactation, and pediatric and adolescent bone health. Don’t miss these and other topical digital collections from the journals that drive our field forward.
The 10th Edition of the Primer will be published in February 2025 and our new publisher, Wolters Kluwer, is hard at work on the production of all 150 chapters in the new edition. Under the leadership of John Bilezikian, and with the expertise of a combined 34 Associate and Senior Editors, the ASBMR Primer will continue to provide the most up-to-date evidence-based information on basic and clinical bone science that crosses the breadth and depth of the field.
I am also pleased to share with you some recognition of the ASBMR efforts to promote and support research integrity in publications. Authors of a recent Nature article highlight the development of our Research Integrity Panel (launched in 2019 from work done by the Publications Committee) as an example of what journals could and should be doing in this area of vital importance.
Kudos to our Publications Committee and Chair Dr. Cheryl-Ackert Bicknell, to the members of the Research Integrity Panel, and to the Editorial Boards for their often-unrecognized efforts to continually meet this challenge.
Finally, we want to highlight the additional benefits enjoyed by all ASBMR members for our publishing program. All members enjoy free online access to the latest and most comprehensive research in JBMR®, as well as a 15% discount on article publication charges (APC) for open access publication in JBMR® or in JBMR® Plus. Additionally, ASBMR members pay no submission fees to either journal. All papers that are submitted to either journal will receive substantive feedback on improving your work, and you can be assured of the quality, integrity, and professional services provided during your entire author journey. The journal Editors will take your papers from strength to strength, and the Editorial Board members and reviewers in our community provide their expert feedback to make your papers so much stronger.
Don’t forget to sign up for new article alerts and to follow the journals on social media for video content and special announcements!
@The_JBMR
@JBMRPlus
Sincerely,
Laura Calvi, MD
ASBMR President