Radiation Protection Dosimetry 108:1 (2004)
© 2004 © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved
Editorial
The dawn of a new era
In the last editorial for the 2003 issues of Radiation Protection Dosimetry, entitled A change of era, some of the journal's history was given. Radiation Protection Dosimetry has been published by Nuclear Technology Publishing (NTP) since 1981 and in the last editorial the author paid tribute to many people who have contributed to its success over the past 23 years.This is the first editorial under the new publisher, Oxford University Press (OUP). Oxford University Press will be familiar to many authors and readers through its extensive and wide-ranging book publishing programme and is also an established publisher of learned and professional journals. Radiation Protection Dosimetry will do well under its ‘new management’. Joe McDonald will remain as Editor-in-Chief, and Eddie Goldfinch will remain as Executive Editor until mid-2004. There are virtually no changes to the membership of the editorial board.
Under OUP, Radiation Protection Dosimetry will continue with the tradition established by NTP of publishing both regular and special issues in the same pattern of five volumes per year, each of four issues. The major publication for 2004 will be the proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Neutron Dosimetry, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in September/October 2003. Four other smaller special issues will also be published, including the proceedings of an international symposium entitled Off-Site Emergency Management – Capabilities and Challenges, held in Salzburg, Austria, in September/October 2003 and a special issue comprising the major papers from a workshop in Torino, Italy, in October 2003, entitled Monitoring and Assessment of Physical Agents in the Environment. In addition, there will be two EULEP/EURADOS special issues. For 2005, the proceedings of the 14th Solid State Dosimetry Conference, to be held in Yale in July 2004, will be published. This continues the tradition of publishing these proceedings, first established in 1983. Late in 2005, but part of the 2006 schedule, the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Radiation Shielding, in combination with the ANS Radiation Protection and Shielding Division Topical Meeting, to be held in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal in May 2004, will be included in the journal series.
The journal has a new look in 2004, which incorporates elements of the original design. The NTP policy of distinguishing between regular and special issues by slightly modifying the cover design will be continued.
A major change for the journal will be that the full text will be published online for the first time. Papers will be available in HTML and PDF formats, with the HTML version linked to Medline and CrossRef. Tables of contents and abstracts for each issue will be accessible outside access controls and non-subscribers will have the option to register for various alerting services. Readers are encouraged to visit the web site at http://rpd.oupjournals.org to register.
Another major development is the use of a web based online submission and peer review system for manuscript submission. All authors are asked to go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/oup/rpd where full instructions are supplied for uploading manuscripts.
Publication online will enable the journal to reach a much wider readership than has been possible with the print journal alone. The online journal can be networked within a subscribing institution, permitting readers to search and browse the journal from their desks. Radiation Protection Dosimetry online will also be available to library consortia and via third party aggregators to a broad audience, and through OUP's developing countries offer, the journal will be accessible free of charge or at greatly reduced rates for institutes in many of the world's poorest nations. This continues the NTP practice. The new arrangements for online submission and peer review will enable authors to submit manuscripts to Radiation Protection Dosimetry easily from anywhere in the world, and then to track the progress of their manuscripts within the system.
The main traditions of Radiation Protection Dosimetry, developed over 23 years, will continue into year 24 and beyond, but additional developments made available by the internet will enable it to remain the foremost journal in radiation protection, and with a wider audience.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||