American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine


Publisher’s Report

January 2008

Contents

Editorial Development

SAGE’s Role in the Development of AJHPM

The AJHPM Editorial Board’s Role in the Development of AJHPM

Journal Activity Summary

Circulation and Readership

Production

Abstracting & Indexing

Thomson Scientific JCR® Ranking and Impact Factor

AJHPM Online

Usage Statistics

Article Usage Statistics

General Online Usage Data

Marketing

Online Marketing

Individual Subscription Marketing

Conferences

Institutional Marketing

Commercial Sales

Advertising Summary and Outlook

Reprints

Sponsored Subscriptions

Appendix A: Frequently-Asked Questions

Appendix B: AJHPM’s Publishing Team at SAGE

Editorial Development

Some of SAGE’s current points of emphasis across our entire journals program are editorial quality and development, so we are especially pleased that the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HOSPICE & PALLIATIVE MEDICINE (AJHPM) consistently publishes such high quality content under the capable guidance of Editor Robert E. Enck, MD. Below you will find some areas where we are currently working in an effort to make AJHPMeven more successful, as well as some ways that the editorial board can help us ensure that AJHPMremains a journal of choice for top authors to both submit their articles and to search for relevant content for citation.

SAGE’s Role in the Development of AJHPM

  • Thomson Scientific ranking. Publishing ahead of print, distribution of press releases announcing articles of special import, and vigorously promoting online usage will help to increase AJHPM’s citations. Since we submitted AJHPMin 2007 toThomson Scientific for consideration for inclusion in the Journal Citation Reports®, increasing citations is even more important.
  • Technological Advancements.In 2008, SAGE plans to transition most journals to SAGETRACK and publish ahead of print to simplify and streamline the review process and give articles the chance to be read and cited as soon as they are accepted into the journal. AJHPM is already on SAGETRACK and articles are published online prior to being assigned to an issue.
  • Increasing electronic usage and citations. We will continue to arrange free-access trials and other promotions to encourage online usage. With AJHPM’s backfile available online, readers can access even more of AJHPM’s content, increasing overall usage. For 2008, we will begin introducing recommended reading lists to journal homepages to give readers an overview of some of the best papers published in AJHPM.
  • Journal Email Alerts. A major objective in 2008 for SAGE is to promote our Journal EmailAlerts, a vehicle for increasing usage and citations. Our Journal Email Alerts are a sure way of bringing users to AJHPM’s webpage.

The AJHPM Editorial Board’sRole in theDevelopment of AJHPM

An activeeditorial board is key to the success of any journal, and we appreciate the support that the AJHPM editorial board provides. Here are some suggestions of ways an active editorial board can be most effective:

  • Promotion. Refer to the journal whenever possible: in presentations, press releases, and professional discussions. If you are attending any local, regional, or national conferences whereAJHPM might be well received, notify your marketing manager, Judy Erickson, who will be happy to supply you with marketing materials and journal samples to take to the conference.
  • Strategic support.Participate in editorial board meetings to assist the editor with journal development and planning. Inform the editor of late-breaking research, events or potential papers for recruitment. Proactively commission articles from highly cited authors.
  • Manuscript development. Help contributors bring their concepts to fruition as articles. Identify and recruit other potential reviewers and authors for the journal.
  • Increase usage.Assign AJHPM articles for course reading, ifappropriate and applicable. Encourage your institution and those of your colleagues to subscribe to the journal. Cite AJHPM articles in upcoming papers, as applicable.

Journal Activity Summary

Circulation and Readership

Expanding Institutional Access via Consortial Sales & Developing World Initiatives

As we have seen over the last few years, librariescontinue to migrate from individual institutional subscriptions to consortial subscriptions, where many libraries join together to negotiate deals on packages of journals from publishers. The following chart details how many traditional and consortial institutions now have subscriptions to AJHPM. As you can see, 1,044 institutions had access to AJHPMin2006, but due to recently-signed consortia agreements, we can now report that approximately1,820 libraries have access to the journal—an increase of more than 74 percent over last year!

AJHPM Average Circulation 2006 -2007
2006 / 2007 / ’06 – ’07 Change
Individuals / 613 / 554 / -9.6%
Institutions / 1,044 / 1,820 / 74.3%
Institutions – Traditional1 / 1,044 / 982 / -5.9%
Institutions – Consortia2 / 0 / 838 / N/A
Total Subscriptions / 1,657 / 2,374 / 43.3%
1Libraries purchasing AJHPM directly from SAGE. This is a combination of print only, e-access, and combined subscriptions.
2Groups of libraries joining together to buy packages of titles, including AJHPM. There may be a few traditional subscribers in this number, e.g., libraries which have migrated to a consortial arrangement but have not yet cancelled their original direct subscription.

SAGE Premier

One way that AJHPM content is available to consortia is through the SAGE Premier package of journals, which includes nearly the entire SAGE portfolio (currently 484 titles). Sales of SAGE Premier are negotiated on a case-by-case basis by our sales. The advantages of this sort of deal are thatall SAGE content is more widely disseminated and, hence, used; additional 'new' revenueis gained by SAGE and the participating titles; the consortium is less ableto cancel its primary subscriptions; and the consortium is able to better predict what its future spending will be with SAGE.

Journals already held by a consortium will continue to see their full revenue plus a share of the additional revenue from the SAGE Premier deal, and journals that were not originally held by the consortium will now receive a share of the incremental revenue. The main benefit should be viewed asthe increased exposure and usage that a participating journal will receive and the decreased likelihood of cancellations going forward.

Consortia receiving the SAGE Premier package of journals are based in the following countries: Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Korea,New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. Please note that this list is not comprehensive.

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© SAGE

Confidential to the AJHPM Editorial Board and SAGE

Geographic Distribution
The chart below illustrates the geographic distribution of institutional subscribers including traditional institutions and consortia.

Note: Regions and categories with < 1% of total subscribers are represented as 0%.

Production

SAGE’s Journals Production department rates highly amongst authors who submit articles to our journals. In July 2007, we conducted a survey of our production process, with 130 authors responding. When asked to evaluate their overall experiences with SAGE production on a scale of excellent, good, fair, or poor, 78 percent of the authors answered excellent, while none of the authors answered poor. Less than six percent of all responses in all categories were poor or fair. In response to the question “Would you recommend SAGE to your colleagues?,”100 percent of respondents answered yes. Our diligent production department will continue to provide excellent service and facilitate the editing process on behalf of AJHPMto help produce the best journal possible.

Editorial Page Budget

The page budget for Volume 24 ofAJHPMwas a maximum of 480 editorial pages, an average of 80 pages per issue. As the table below shows, the journal averaged 86 editorial pages per issue in 2007, which was on target with the editorial page budget.

AJHPMPage Budget
2007 – 2008
24/1 / 24/2 / 24/3 / 24/4 / 24/5 / 24/6 / YTD / Annual / % of Annual
Feb/Mar / Apr/May / Jun/Jul / Aug/Sep / Oct/Nov / Dec/Jan / Total / Budget / Budget
Pages allotted / 80 / 80 / 80 / 80 / 80 / 80 / - / 480 / -
Pages used / 88 / 81 / 79 / 80 / 106 / 82 / 516 / - / 107.5%

Publish Ahead of Print

SAGE OnlineFirst is featured on the homepage of AJHPM through SAGE Journals Online. It allows finalized articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final AJHPM print and online issue. This feature is commonly referred to as “publish ahead of print,” “publish before print,” and “continuous publishing.”

SAGE OnlineFirst provides clear benefits to all researchers and users of AJHPM’s online content. The feature allows subscribers and members the ability to access the very latest papers in the field. Authors also benefit from greatly reduced lead times between submission and publication of articles. Without OnlineFirst, an author's work would only appear online once a finalizedAJHPM issue was sent to print. However, with OnlineFirst, AJHPM manuscripts can appear online while other articles are being completed for an upcoming issue. An author’s research will therefore reach its audience more quickly, enabling an article to receive greater usage and exposure, including earlier citation opportunities by related work, increasing AJHPM’s citations. For more information, please see the FAQ in Appendix A.

SAGETRACK Online Peer Review System

SAGE is pleased to announce that a SAGETRACK Online Peer Review website was custom built to suit the needs of AJHPM in 2006. SAGETRACK: Powered by ScholarOne® is a powerful and dynamic system through which manuscripts are submitted, peer reviewed, revised, decided upon, and ultimately sent to SAGE. The system streamlines the submission and peer review process through its ability to host and track manuscripts from beginning to end in a user friendly, Web based environment. AJHPM’s SAGETRACK website went live and became available for submissions in December 2006.

AJHPM’s SAGETRACK website provides clear benefits to the journal’s editorial office, authors, reviewers, and the journal as a whole, and the site’s completion in 2006 was an exciting achievement. Authors are now able to submit their manuscripts online and check on the status of their submissions through SAGETRACK. Dr.Robert Enck can invite reviewers through the system, who are instantly able to respond to their invitation via an email link and access the article to be reviewed from any location via the Internet. Additionally, the SAGETRACK system generates automatic email reminders and notifications, saving the editorial office valuable time and effort. Finally, accepted manuscripts can be sent to SAGE’s Production Department directly through the system for ultimate publication in the journal.

The SAGETRACK system also generates detailed reports on such items as manuscript submissions received, manuscripts in progress, and manuscripts accepted or rejected. These reporting capabilities give both AJHPM’s editorial office a readily available view of the number and kinds of articles submitted, accepted, and rejected, as well as statistics related to reviewer workloads, time from submission to acceptance, and acceptance/rejection rates.

Abstracting & Indexing

Abstracting and indexing activity is key to creating researcher awareness and attracting contributions. AJHPM has good coverage among the primary indexing services. The list given below is also available online at.sagepub.com (click on “Abstracting and Indexing”), where it is updatedregularly.

  • AgeLine Database
  • CINAHL database and CUMULATIVE INDEX TO NURSING AND ALLIED HEALTH LITERATURE print index
  • MEDLINE

Thomson Scientific JCR® Ranking and Impact Factor

The Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), published by Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI), is a comprehensive and unique resource for journal evaluation, using citation data drawn fromover7,500 scholarly and technical journals worldwide.Coverage is both multidisciplinary and international, incorporating journals from over 3,300 publishers in 60 nations. To be included among the journals in the JCR is indeed a great accomplishment, as only the top 10–12 percent of all scholarly journals is included.

AJHPM was resubmitted to the JCR in early 2007. We expect that increased exposure on SAGE Journals Online will help to increaseAJHPM’s citations, thereby increasing the journal’s chances for acceptance into the JCR, as it is now under consideration. A number of other strategies can be employed, including the following:

  • Timeliness. Maintain on-time publication. Publishing on time implies a healthy backlog of manuscripts, which is essential for ongoing viability.
  • International diversity.Improve the number of international authors and Editorial Board members to reflect a global approach and coverage—Thomson Scientific looks for journals that will meet the needs of its international subscriber base.
  • Articles on emerging topics. Publish on emerging topics to help differentiate AJHPM from its competition—Thomson Scientific looks for content that will enrich their databases.
  • Review articles. According to Thomson Scientific, “Review articles generally are cited more frequently than typical research articles because they often serve as surrogates for earlier literature, especially in journals that discourage extensive bibliographies.” (Thomson Scientific, “The ISI Impact Factor,”
  • Selection of widely-cited authors. Publish articles written by authors who have contributed to other journals ranked in the JCR—they are likely to cite their previous work to support their current article, which could potentially increase the citation count for your journal.

AJHPMOnline

Online Summary

Online usage, along with traditional subscriber growth and retention, is an important indicator of a journal’s success. Librarians monitor how often a journal is being accessed and use this information when they make their renewal and cancellation decisions. Journal editors can also use online usage statistics to review citations, up-and-coming topics in the field, and declining subject areas.

One of SAGE‘s goals for 2008 is to include new Web 2.0 features on all journal homepages which are geared toward increasing the “discoverability” of our journal content. On the sidebar of every abstract is a link labeled “email this article to a friend” along with links at the bottom of the abstract to CiteULike, Connotea, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, and Technorati, which are social networking sites that allow users to mark articles and share the links with friends and colleagues through the platform of the site itself, rather than via email. This method of distribution has several advantages, namely, an additional presence on the internet that is not as easilydeleted as an email, and a way to personalize articles and recommendations of material for individual readers. With these enhancements,AJHPMwill be at the forefront of web technology.

AJHPM Homepage

AJHPM’s homepage on SAGE Journals Online (SJO) at shown on the next page. Please note that on November 16, 2006, SJO, powered by HighWire Press, was updated to incorporate a few site design changes and additional functionality, including:

  • New design to SAGE Journals Online portal page ( including new header design, login options, and background colors;
  • New header design and background colors carried over to all journal homepages, but general core homepage design unchanged;
  • Easy-to-locate, site-level quick search function (moved from bottom center to left center on journal homepage);
  • More user-friendly advanced search page, including new "Fielded Boolean Search" options;
  • Refined search functionality, including search history lists and saved searches options;
  • New "My Tools" tab providing all personalization and alert features in one easy-to-find location;
  • Improved marked citations, including email, print, and save options; and
  • Institutional branding option on interface (see SAGE Publications name in top right corner of screen shot).

These are the points. The AJHPM website on SJO, powered by HighWire Press, continues to have the following features and functionality:

  • Free online sample issue;
  • Ability to view manuscript submission guidelines andeditorial board information;
  • Most-cited and most-read articles;
  • Tables of Contents since 1984;
  • Toll-free inter-journal reference linking between AJHPM and other SJO/HighWire-hosted journals;
  • Customizable advertisements and banners;
  • Library Recommendation Form;
  • RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feed
  • User-friendly advanced search page, including new "Fielded Boolean Search" options,search history lists and saved searches options;
  • "My Tools" tab providing all personalization and customizable Journal EmailAlerts, Citation Tracking, and My Favorite Journalsin one easy-to-find location;
  • Marked citations, including email, print, and save options; and
  • Publish ahead of print alerts.

Usage Statistics

Each year, we are seeing significant increases in online usage across all of our journals. As a part of our efforts to promote online usage, we provide free-access periods to targeted markets on a regular basis. Our most recent SAGE-wide free-access period was offered in February 2007 to all institutions subscribing to at least one SAGE journal, while a registered free-access period was offered inNovember2007 and was our most successful trial to date, due in large part to a comprehensive and wildly successful marketing campaign promoting the trial urging registration, with over 100,000 users signing up. It is important to note these periods when reviewing usage data, as “hits” and downloads increase significantly during those times.

A detailed summary of online usage activity for 2006 - 2007 is provided in the following table.

AJHPM OnlineUsage Statistics, May 2006 – December 2007
2006
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec / Total
Article Views1 / - / - / - / - / 6,682 / 15,408 / 25,424 / 12,781 / 3,328 / 4,659 / 5,350 / 2,170 / 75,802
Total Accesses2 / - / - / - / - / 16,592 / 37,652 / 57,088 / 26,762 / 15,785 / 24,567 / 25,864 / 28,950 / 233,260
2007
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec / Total
Article Views1 / 2,614 / 6,923 / 16,726 / 18,270 / 3,723 / 5,263 / 8,073 / 7,082 / 6,345 / 5,928 / 17,763 / 3,514 / 102,224
Total Accesses2 / 31,876 / 37,769 / 43,477 / 47,178 / 28,558 / 25,981 / 29,081 / 25,364 / 25,960 / 30,157 / 42,054 / 21,343 / 388,798
1Article Views includes data from SAGE Journals Online.
2Total Accesses includes hits to the home page, TOCs, searches, and abstracts, and full-text downloads via SAGE Journals Online only.

The chart below illustrates the number of article downloads (FTDs) made per month since May 2006.