2018: a year in review for Open Biology

Abstract

A new year is with us again and Open Biology moves forward to meet new challenges in the ever-changing world of scientific publishing. Hopefully, we manage to keep the best of the old while keeping abreast of the new.We are still managing to turn papers around with some speed. In 2018, the average time from submission to first decision was 30 days, and then it took an average of 25 days to get from the final decision to online publication. Why use a preprint server? Although we are equally happy if you do and are happy to sign articles from the popular servers, we hope that all of this makes our authors happy. Our readers are! In 2018, Open Biology articles received their highest usage to date with over 1.1 million downloads.In the past few years, we have encouraged the submission of review articles from leaders in their fields. The response has been tremendous, and our review articles have become one of the hallmarks of the journal. We particularly encourage review articles that generate innovative and testable ideas and constructive discussions and/or critiques of their fields. In 2018, 62 invited reviews were submitted and 48 have already been published-almost double the 25 from 2017. The rest will follow shortly and be enhanced by the articles that are in the pipeline. We see this as an important role for the journal in providing a forum that stimulates the circulation and discussion of up-to-date results in developing fields in the widest possible way.