AIDS Treatment News #154, July 3, 1992
John S. James

Advantages of this online journal include:

* Speed of access to new results. Current Clinical Trials plans to release articles to the press and the public within 24 to 48 hours after acceptance. There will be no press "embargo"; all of the public, subscribers and the press, will have access to new articles at the same time.

* Ease of use. We have seen the system demonstrated, and noted that it can be learned almost immediately; then it is as easy to find one's way around in the online journal as in a print journal.

* Ability to search for articles containing any words or combinations of words. The whole articles can be searched, or only particular sections (such as the "Results" section). Searches by author, subject, title, and date are also provided.

* Readers are automatically notified about related letters, rebuttals, or retractions -- or anything else that the journal editors think is important about the article. When there is such information, an "alert" button flashes until the reader clicks to read it. (Since these items occur after the article is published, there is no easy way to find them in print journals.)

* When the text refers to a figure or table, readers can "click" to see the illustration displayed immediately, in high-quality graphics on the screen. (Equally important, readers can click to go back to the point in the text which referred to the graphic.)

Alternatively, readers can pull up an instant index of all the tables or figures in the article, and select which they want to view.

And they can see a list of all "open windows" (representing points they have already viewed in the article), and return to continue reading at any of them.

* When readers encounter a reference number in the text, they can click to see the reference immediately. More importantly, they can also immediately see the abstract of the published article, if it appeared in Medline (the large database of medical articles, provided by the National Library of Medicine) from 1986 on. (These abstracts are copied from Medline into the Current Clinical Trials database, when the article which references them is published; the system does not need to enter Medline directly.)

* Text size can be enlarged for ease of reading, or reduced for convenience.

* Articles can be "downloaded" to disk (at extra charge) for printing or later use. Alternatively, copies can be mailed or faxed, if a typeset-quality printer is not available locally.

* The journal will include a news section, with clinical alerts and meeting notices. It is negotiating to include the text of MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control).

* Because there has never been a journal like Current Clinical Trials before, each article includes a recommended citation for use by scientists who need to refer to it in articles published in other journals. For example, there is no issue numbers in Current Clinical Trials, since articles can be published online at any time; a "document number" is used instead. Similarly, there are no page numbers, so paragraph numbers are used. But for consistency with other bibliographic formats, a "volume number" will be used; it will be the year of publication.

* Readers can sign up for automatic fax or mail notification about articles in fields of interest to them.

How to Subscribe

To use the full features including graphics, you need a computer running Windows 3.0. A 9600-bps modem is recommended; 2400-bps will work. (Apple Macintosh software is expected to be ready in 1993.)

An alternative is to use text-only access, from any computer (including Macintosh) running software emulating a VT100 terminal.

Subscriptions are by calendar year; the 1992 subscription is $95.

To order a subscription, send your name, title, address, and telephone number to: Current Clinical Trials, Subscription Dept., OJC, PO Box 3000, Denville, NY 07834-9653. They will send an invoice and subscriber agreement, which must be signed and returned. For information about subscribing, call 202/326-6446.

Note: Potential authors should obtain a copy of Information for Authors, and of Guidelines for Reporting Clinical Trials. Authors should contact Maria L. Lebron, Managing Editor, Current Clinical Trials, 1333 H Street, NW, Washington DC 20005, phone 202/326-6735 or 202/842-2868 (fax). All material, including letters, will be peer reviewed before publication.

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Copyright ©1980, 1992. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .