Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: It is very common for researchers to receive emails from journals inviting them to submit a manuscript. Many of these journals are open access and will require the authors to pay a fee if their article is accepted for publication. The Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine (JEBM) (ISSN 1756-5391) is a MEDLINE-listed, international, peer-reviewed journal, which is available online and follows the subscription model.
Objective: To examine whether clearly indicating that the journal is open access in an invitation email has an effect on authors invited to submit articles to JEBM.
Methods: Authors of systematic reviews published from 2011 to 2015 were identified with a search using the terms ‘meta-analysis’ or ‘systematic review’ in Web of Science. Duplicate emails and authors were removed. Three invitation emails were designed. These differed only in relation to a sentence describing the journal as not being open access in which 1) the JEBM is described as using the subscription model and not open access, 2) the JEBM is described as not open access, and 3) no mention is made of the subscription model or open access. The authors were randomized to one of these emails, stratified by country, and the order for sending the emails was also randomized. Two official email accounts for the JEBM were used to send a batch of each of the three emails every day. The proportion of emails that were replied to, the proportion that were followed by the submission of a manuscript and the time from sending the email to receiving a manuscript will be analyzed, with the first analyses using a six-month follow-up.
Results: Approximately 50,000 emails were identified from Web of Science and the emails were sent in April 2016. Analyses will be presented at the Cochrane Colloquium.
Conclusions: Conclusions will be presented at the Colloquium, and may have implications for highlighting whether a journal is subscription-based or not open access.
Objective: To examine whether clearly indicating that the journal is open access in an invitation email has an effect on authors invited to submit articles to JEBM.
Methods: Authors of systematic reviews published from 2011 to 2015 were identified with a search using the terms ‘meta-analysis’ or ‘systematic review’ in Web of Science. Duplicate emails and authors were removed. Three invitation emails were designed. These differed only in relation to a sentence describing the journal as not being open access in which 1) the JEBM is described as using the subscription model and not open access, 2) the JEBM is described as not open access, and 3) no mention is made of the subscription model or open access. The authors were randomized to one of these emails, stratified by country, and the order for sending the emails was also randomized. Two official email accounts for the JEBM were used to send a batch of each of the three emails every day. The proportion of emails that were replied to, the proportion that were followed by the submission of a manuscript and the time from sending the email to receiving a manuscript will be analyzed, with the first analyses using a six-month follow-up.
Results: Approximately 50,000 emails were identified from Web of Science and the emails were sent in April 2016. Analyses will be presented at the Cochrane Colloquium.
Conclusions: Conclusions will be presented at the Colloquium, and may have implications for highlighting whether a journal is subscription-based or not open access.