AUA to launch new open access journal

Launching in early 2023, JU Open Plus is the American Urological Association’s newest peer-reviewed journal focused on high-quality research in all areas of urology. The international, peer-reviewed, open-access monthly online-only journal will join the peer-reviewed scholarly journals of the AUA, which includes The Journal of Urology® and Urology Practice®. Together, these publications represent the definitive and collective voice of urology.

“With JU Open Plus, anyone with internet access can log on and get full PDF-formatted articles just like you would from The Journal of Urology® or Urology Practice®, but without encountering a pay wall or requiring a subscription,” said John W. Davis, MD, FACS, the inaugural editor of JU Open Plus.

The new journal is part of a trend toward making scientific publications more transparent and readily available so that results of research are freely accessible from the time an article has been accepted.

JU Open Plus offers a nimble, streamlined decision process and wide dissemination of scientifically rigorous research, thereby advancing the specialty of urology. “JU Open Plus will have a diverse and expert editorial board that will focus on helping authors optimize their work,” Dr. Davis said. “It will also give authors the opportunity to publish papers that may be more challenging to get accepted into highly competitive journals, such as valuable research that’s more confirmatory versus brand new or trials with interesting negative results.” Article types accepted for submission include reviews, full-length original research articles, video presentations, research communications or comments. The board will devise a table of contents organized by methodology—reviews, prospective studies, health services research, retrospective studies, rare conditions and video presentations.  And with the digital format of the journal, keyword searches will facilitate finding articles by subspecialty type.

The submission process is designed to streamline the peer review process to expedite publication. “Authors can submit directly to JU Open Plus if they know it’s a good fit and/or they need an open-access type of journal,” Dr. Davis said. Authors can also submit first to one of the other two AUA journals. If a submission is not accepted for publication at The Journal of Urology® or Urology Practice®, authors will have the opportunity to transfer their work with its respective reviews to JU Open Plus. Authors will maintain the copyright of their work published in JU Open Plus.

All new journals require a three-year start-up period to be indexed by PubMed. Once JU Open Plus is indexed by PubMed, the entire catalog will be retroactively uploaded. In the interim, articles published in JU Open Plus will be highly promoted by the AUA’s online team through social media and website platforms. “A Tweet with a visual abstract with a link to download the entire paper instantly can result in a ton of marketing promotion for your work,” Dr. Davis said.

Dr. Davis is professor of urology and director of the Urosurgical Prostate Program at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He brings extensive editorial expertise to JU Open Plus, having served as an associate editor for Oncology and an associate editor for initial triage for the British Journal of Urology International, and the online content editor for both The Journal of Urology® and Urology Practice®. JU Open Plus will begin accepting submissions in the second half of 2022. The publication of the inaugural issue is planned for January 2023.