FAQs for Annals of Thoracic Surgery Short Reports

1. How is Annals Short Reportsdifferent from The Annals of Thoracic Surgery?
   • Annals Short Reports is proud to join the family as an official STS Publication. Our scope and target readership is the same as The Annals, and also encompasses a broader reach across critical care, cardiovascular and thoracic oncology specialties, and science. Annals Short Reports is the new home for the majority of case reports and shorter feature articles, and it provides another outlet for authors who prefer to publish open access or who have funding bodies that mandate open access publication. While The Annals is focused primarily on high-impact clinical and human translational research, Annals Short Reportsis an all-encompassing publication ideal for papers that supplement the broader Annals mission to promote scholarship in cardiothoracic surgery patient care, clinical practice, research, education, and policy. For more details on topics of interest and article types, please see our Aims & Scope.
2. What types of papers is Annals Short Reportslooking for?
   • The highlight original research article type is the “short report,” with the following specifications: <2,500 words; < 4 combined tables/figures; < 10 references. Also featured are engaging editorials, focused mini-reviews, new technology reports, educational and impactful case reports, “how to do it” technique papers, and images in cardiothoracic surgery. For more information, find our Guide for Authors here.
3. When will the first issue publish?
   • The first issue of Annals Short Reportswill likely publish in the first half of 2023.
4. When will my article be citable with a DOI?
   • Annals Short Reportswill publish accepted manuscripts as well as corrected proofs prior to the final version of the article appearing online. A DOI will be assigned when your article is accepted, and the article is citable as soon as it is online. This is usually within a week of finalizing the accepted manuscript for transmittal.
5. What is gold open access?
   • Gold open access enables the author or their funding body to pay a publication fee to make their article immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download upon publication, with permitted reuse. Open access articles are fully peer-reviewed and must meet the same rigorous publication standards as subscription articles. The copyright allows for reuse by other parties, dependent on the authors’ selected copyright license.
6. When will Annals Short Reportsbe indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central?
   • Annals Short Reportswill apply for PubMed Central and MEDLINE indexing as soon as we are able. PubMed Central requires 25 published articles and MEDLINE requires 40 published articles before they will consider your application. Once Annals Short Reports is indexed, every single article published from Volume 1, Issue 1 onwards will be included.
7. How do I submit to Annals Short Reports?
   • Annals Short Reportswill accept submissions through the journal’s Editorial Manager submission portal: https://www.editorialmanager.com/atssr. Please review the Author Guidelines specifics on article types and formatting prior to submitting.
8. What is the open access fee for Annals Short Reports? Are there any discounts or promotions available?
   • As an open access journal with no subscription charges, a fee (Article Publishing Charge/APC) is payable by the author, institution, or research funder to cover the costs associated with publication. This ensures your article will be immediately and permanently free to access by everyone.

The APC for this journal is USD $975, excluding taxes. Members of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons who are corresponding authors are eligible for a discount of 50% off the open access publication fee. In addition, for the first year, authors of the first 25 accepted articles will receive a 100% discount wavier on the APC.

Annals Short Reports’ publisher, Elsevier, automatically applies APC waivers or discounts to those articles in Gold open access journals for which all authors are based in a country eligible for the Research4Life program. Find out more about the APC waiver and discount eligibility here.

Editorials, commentaries, and letters to the editor do NOT have an APC.

9. How do I pay?
   • Once an article is accepted, authors receive an emailed link to complete a Rights and Access form. During this process, authors can indicate a preference for paying online with a credit card or receiving an invoice. For more details, see this Support page.
10. Which open access licenses does Annals Short Reports offer?
    • Annals Short Reports’ publisher, Elsevier, offers authors a choice of two user licenses, which define the permitted reuse of articles (see https://www.elsevier.com/openaccesslicenses). Permitted reuse is defined by your choice of one of the following user licenses:
      • Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND):For non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.
      • Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY):available by author request, lets others distribute and copy the article, to create extracts, abstracts, and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation), to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), to text or data mine the article, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the author(s), do not represent the author as endorsing their adaptation of the article, and do not modify the article in such a way as to damage the author's honor or reputation.