FIRST WEB-ONLY PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL PUBLISHED BY EMORY EYE CENTER FACULTY

March 25, 1996
Media Contact: Sarah Goodwin at 404/727-5686, e-mail: sgoodwi@emory.edu

Three faculty members from Emory Eye Center have joined together, not to upload an existing journal onto the Web, but to publish a Web-only journal.

Jeffrey H. Boatright, Ph.D., John Nickerson, Ph.D. and Robert Church, Ph.D., are editors of Molecular Vision, a Web-only scientific journal and, according to Dr. Boatright, the first peer-reviewed Web-only journal in the life sciences arena.

The journal is set up like most other scientific journals. Papers are submitted (by regular mail), and are sent to members of an editorial board, comprising 38 researchers and scholars from across the United States and around the world. The papers are then either accepted or rejected, or are sent back to the authors for revision. The table of contents looks much like that of any other scientific journal.

The Web medium has its advantages, Dr. Boatright said. The journal, which covers basic science vision research, receives an average of approximately one new article per month that is accepted for publication. Instead of having to wait three months after acceptance to be included in the next printed journal, the article can be uploaded immediately onto the Web site. In addition to speed of publication, the Web format of Molecular Vision allows for use of color, an extremely expensive option in a print journal, according to Dr. Boatright. The format also provides capability for three- dimensional figures and movies or animation.

Molecular Vision and its editors are receiving notice; the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology awarded them free exhibition space at the association's upcoming international meeting, citing the journal as "the future of publishing" in the scientific world. The journal also has been recognized by Point Communications as among the top five percent of World Wide Web sites. Perhaps the best indicator of the journal's effectiveness is its readership; Dr. Boatright said each of the pages has been accessed more than 500 times.

"This is important because it has been estimated that a typical scientific journal article is read by fewer than 100 people during the useful life of the article," Dr. Boatright says. Molecular Vision can be located at

For more general information on The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center, call Health Sciences News and Information at 404-727-5686, or send e-mail to hsnews@emory.edu.