Volume: 131(5) - May, 2009
In my May 2008 editorial, I had mentioned our desire to offer more archiving publication options for materials that exceed the current presentation capabilities of the journal as a print medium. I am pleased to let you know that authors of ASME Transactions Journals will be now able to submit material supplemental to their papers. The ASME journals team has made this service available through the Electronic Physics Auxiliary Publication Service (EPAPS) depository of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). It will be provided without charge to the author. Last Fall, the ASME Transactions Editors council appointed a committee consisting of Jerry Miller, Panos Papalambros, Bahgat Sammakia and Demetri Telionis, and charged it with setting up guidelines for the implementation of this new archiving mode. These guidelines are provided further below.
We all feel that the following three elements are very important for the success of this new archiving program: (i) Reviewing the material; (ii) making it available for posterity and (iii) establishing standards. We recognize that this new capability will increase the workload of both editors and reviewers, and we should make sure that this increase be minimal. The proposed guidelines aim to accommodate these goals.
ASME is launching this service on a trial period, with some journal editors volunteering to get it started and report on their experience. The plan is to have this service available to all journals.
I am pleased to make this new venue available to JMD authors. We will be providing further information and updates at the JMD website: http://www.asmejmd.org. As this program moves forward, both the Associate Editors and I will welcome input from authors and reviewers on how to make this new service efficient and valuable to the JMD constituents.
Transactions of the ASME Journal Program Guidelines: Supplementary Material to Research Papers
Authors of ASME Transactions journals can submit material supplemental to their papers. Both editors and reviewers will review supplementary material to a journal paper. Such material has the value of an archival contribution. It should therefore be considered part of the original contribution.
The following material will be considered for archiving.
Appendices
The text of appendices should be very short, equivalent of one journal page. Material in an appendix should not be an extension of the paper. No new ideas, new results and/or new conclusions should be included. Appendices should not be space for another paper. Material in such an appendix could be additional frames of figures already included in the main body of the paper. These figures could be in color, and presented in better quality. For example, for a phenomenon that evolves in time, due to lack of space, a figure in a paper could present only a few frames. In an appendix the same results could be presented in terms of dozens of frames. Figure numbers in an appendix should match with the figure numbers in the main body of the paper. The corresponding text should only explain what specific figure in the paper the supplemental material corresponds to. Appendices could also include derivations of analytical results described in the main body of the paper, or other supplemental material like computer programs or data files.
Video Files
Video files should be directly linked to the main body of the paper, and to one or more figures included in the paper. ASME IT would like us to impose some file type and file size restrictions. But this can be determined after the trial period.
Three-D Rendering Files
These files should follow the guidelines listed above.
Computer Programs
Computer programs should correspond to the material described in the paper. These should be the programs the authors have used to derive the results and conclusions presented in the main body of the paper. They should be presented in the form of an appendix. There are issues associated with copyright of the program that have to be ironed out. We believe that to avoid any problems, authors should publish only their own computer program.
The main body of the paper will include prominent indications that it is accompanied by supplemental material.