Continuous Publishing

Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice has changed to continuous publishing. This will improve the publication process and provide a more timely online publication for the benefit of authors and readers. In 2021, we have had our largest manuscript submission to date for the journal. This was to a great extent due to the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) because many additional submissions have been related to COVID-19. As an example, for the November issue, 33% of the articles were related to SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19. Because of the increase in submissions and eventually accepted papers (despite a higher rejection rate), the wait time for online publication based on the monthly budgeted number of online pages has increased. Continuous publishing will allow a more rapid time to official publication time. So what is continuous publishing? Continuous publishing replaces serial publishing with a parallel process where articles are officially published in real time rather than waiting for the bimonthly issue. Continuous publishing makes the publication process significantly faster and more efficient. As soon as an article is accepted, copy edited, and professionally formatted with all author corrections completed, the article will post online as the final version of record, including full citation details with volume and issue, and full-text html and PDF formats. Page numbers will be replaced with e-location ID derived from the digital object identifier. Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice will remain bimonthly. When an issue cycle closes, the latest articles will be pulled into the open issue. Benefits: Rapid publication of articles in their final form Rapid article access Articles are no longer dictated by journal issue schedule Special collections (special issues for continuous publication titles) do not have to have a final close date, new research can be added to the collection Quick to publish feeds into the use of search engines' growth to search by individual articles New issue alerts can be sent to people who opt in to that service Corrections can be published more quickly The individual article final version is not tied to a particular publication date, which can work for press releases, conferences, and other benefits This process will enhance our journal and provide more timely online publication. I look forward to the future of Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice.