Acta Cryst. F will focus on
the rapid publication of structural genomics, protein structure and
crystallization results. It will be available through the IUCr's Crystallography
Journals Online initiative, see http://journals.iucr.org/ and
will commence publication in January 2005.
The new journal will be wholly electronic with respect to deposition,
submission, refereeing and publication.
Acta Cryst. F aims to
provide a home for communications on the crystallization and structure
of biological macromolecules. Structures determined from high-throughput
structural genomics initiatives or from iterative studies such as those
used in the pharmaceutical industry will be particularly welcomed.
Publication will be fast and simple, articles will be published online
as soon as they are ready, and a streamlined route from database
deposition to publication will be provided. All communications will
benefit from unlimited free use of colour illustrations, and movies or
other enhancements are encouraged.
The new online-only journal will provide three categories of
publication:
Each communication will be required to include refereeable
scientific content and citations of related work, and will consist of:
Atomic coordinates and structure factors will be accessible via links to the appropriate
database.
Individual articles will be published as soon as they are ready for
publication. At the end of each month, articles published in that month
will be collected together into formal journal issues.
The journal will provide:
Authors will be supplied with electronic reprints.
Acta Cryst. F and Acta Cryst. D will together provide a
full range of publication options for the rapid publication of
structural biology and crystallization research.
The current 'crystallization papers' section of Acta Cryst. D will form part of Acta Cryst. F from January 2005.
Acta Cryst. D will continue to
welcome papers on biological structures and on crystallographic
methods and theory including novel methods related to crystallization.
The journal has a distinguished Editorial Board under the guidance
of the Editors, Howard Einspahr and Mitchell Guss. Details of the
Editorial Board
are available from the journal web site.
All papers in the journal will be fully peer reviewed.
The journal does not make any publication charges (e.g. page charges, colour charges, set-up fees etc.). Authors or organizations wishing to make their papers open access (see below) may opt to pay an open-access fee.
It is expected that the journal will be covered by all the main databases (e.g. MEDLINE, ISI etc.). Applications for coverage have been lodged.
Information on the impact factor of the journal will be posted on this page as soon as it becomes available. However, because of the way impact factors are calculated, it usually takes three years from the launch of a journal before an official ISI impact factor is assigned.