Introducing eJP
Authors: Robert M Frederickson, Malcolm K Brenner
Journal: Molecular Therapy (2010)

“If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” We have all heard that expression, and we have been hearing similar comments over the past few weeks with regard to the upcoming move of the journal to a new manuscript submission and tracking system, eJournalPress (eJP). It is not that we have been unhappy with our current system, Editorial Manager, which we have used largely without major complaints or problems over the past seven years, but rather that there are now compelling advantages to moving to a system that is used by the vast majority of the journals published by our current publisher, Nature Publishing Group (NPG). We decided three years ago, when we moved to NPG from Elsevier, to continue to use the Editorial Manager submission and tracking system, at least for the time being, as we felt we had enough on our plate with the journal redesign and the move of production to NPG's systems. It also provided our authors and reviewers a sense of continuity despite the various changes the journal was undergoing. However, with that successful transition behind us, and with the recent changes to our editorial workflow, including the addition of a panel of Deputy Editors, there are now clear advantages to making the move to a submission and tracking system that is better integrated with the production and customer service functions of our current publisher. We have also benefited by having the new system customized to our specific workflow and needs by a set of dedicated NPG staff who work with eJP on a daily basis. As one of only two journals published by NPG currently using the Editorial Manager system, we were not benefiting from the high level of customer and technical support that we will have access to once we move to eJP. NPG holds quarterly meetings between users of the eJP system and their in-house tracking-system managers with a view to improving the system. There are other advantages to moving to eJP. Accepted manuscripts can be deposited automatically to PubMed Central, satisfying funding agencies’ demands on authors and facilitating authors’ adherence to these demands. We will also benefit from seamless CrossCheck integration so that editors can check articles for any suspected plagiarism. Authors and reviewers will benefit from a single user-profile database—authors need only one login for all the eJP journals in which they have published or for which they have reviewed. Moreover, there will be seamless integration with production systems so that authors can be notified automatically when their articles are in production, and, in the near future, they will be able to download usage statistics for their articles. Finally, it will be much easier for authors to submit manuscripts previously reviewed at other NPG journals to Molecular Therapy, should they wish to do so. Of course, no submission and tracking system is perfect, and each has its own idiosyncrasies. However, we are confident that users will rapidly become happy with the new system after a hopefully short and relatively painless period of adaptation, which should begin after the rollout of the new system following completion of testing sometime in May. As noted above, we have also made some changes to our editorial workflow. We have added a panel of six Deputy Editors, all of whom have worked more or less unofficially in a similar role with the journal, and their placement in this role ensures continuity in our review process. Indeed, another advantage of the new eJP system will be the ability to gather detailed metrics on the fate of submitted papers and to ensure uniformity between the decisions of the various Deputy Editors. Our commitment to a speedy and fair review remains unchanged. Key criteria for publication in the journal continue to be novelty, general interest to the readership, and technical excellence. There is, of course, some degree of subjectivity in assessing general interest, but clearly there is overlap between, for example, the interests of developers of a genetic vaccine who want to enhance an immune response and workers who want to avoid the activation of the immune system following gene transfer to treat or correct a disease state. Novelty is not always a strict rule—confirmation of important results published in a higher-impact journal by an independent group that performed the work contemporaneously with the original study is clearly of benefit to our readers and other workers in the field. Finally, although we are the official journal of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, the journal retains an international editorial outlook, and welcomes and actively encourages participation of authors and reviewers from around the globe.