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Objective: Abstracts submitted to meetings are subject to less rigorous peer review than full-text manuscripts. This study aimed to explore the publication outcome of abstracts presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting. Methods: Abstracts presented at the 2008 AAO meeting were analyzed. Each presented abstract was sought via PubMed to identify if it had been published as a full-text manuscript. The publication outcome, journal impact factor (IF), and time to publication were recorded. Results: A total of 690 abstracts were reviewed, of which 39.1% were subsequently published. They were published in journals with a median IF of 2.9 (range 0–7.2) and a median publication time of 426 days (range 0–2,133 days). A quarter were published in the journal Ophthalmology, with a shorter time to publication (median 282 vs. 534 days, p =0.003). Oral presentations were more likely to be published than poster presentations (57.8% vs. 35.9%, p

In recent years, it has been proposed that unrealistic requirements for academics and medical doctors to publish in scientific journals, combined with monetary publication rewards, have led to forms of contract cheating offered by organizations known as paper mills. Paper mills are alleged to offer products ranging from research data through to ghostwritten fraudulent or fabricated manuscripts and submission services. While paper mill operations remain poorly understood, it seems likely that paper mills need to balance product quantity and quality, such that they produce or contribute to large numbers of manuscripts that will be accepted for publication. Producing manuscripts at scale may be facilitated by the use of manuscript templates, which could give rise to shared features such as textual and organizational similarities, the description of highly generic study hypotheses and experimental approaches, digital images that show evidence of manipulation and/or reuse, and/or errors affecting verifiable experimental reagents. Based on these features, we propose practical steps that editors, journal staff, and peer reviewers can take to recognize and respond to research manuscripts and publications that may have been produced with undeclared assistance from paper mills.

A JRSM reader recently told me that she was switching back to the print publication because visiting the website (jrsm.rsmjournals.com) to read JRSM wasn't part of her routine and was never likely to be. The only way to read JRSM, then, was to pick up the print edition. We know visitors to journal websites are usually seeking specific information, a particular article that they have discovered via a web search. They may not necessarily be regular readers of your journal, and have no particular loyalty to it. Reading one article is unlikely to convert them into regular readers. The first challenge for journals, therefore, is to develop online services that will be valuable to readers and are not possible in print. Despite radio, television, the Internet, and now Kindle, people still enjoy reading a book or a journal in print. Will print journals ever disappear entirely? Many will die – eventually – but plenty will survive to satisfy our desire for touching words on a page. The journals that endure will publish much else besides research. They will major on editorials, essays and reviews. They will synthesize knowledge for a community instead of publishing random bites of information. They will also need to entertain. The second challenge for journals, therefore, is to develop a print version that will be valuable to readers without publishing research. None of this is new, these prophecies have been written for more than a decade, but the challenge is more immediate. Online-only journals, many with an author-pays model like JRSM Short Reports (shortreports.rsmjournals.com), are attracting a larger number of submissions. Their value is in publishing research quickly and being less selective about their publication policies. JRSM Short Reports is now on PubMed Central and we have applied for full indexing. The online world is moving rapidly in terms of publication of research. Meanwhile, the print world is more sedate but it needs to quicken its speed of change. Bigger, richer, weekly journals have sufficient resources to adapt and have an in built inertia that can weather the winds of change. The predicament is more acute for smaller journals, and their battle for survival, because of the laws of economics, will become more acute. These are dangerous times. JRSM floats somewhere between the big beasts of the publishing ocean and the minnows battling for survival, although our aspiration is to swim with big beasts rather than be consumed like minnows. As such, we are considering the next stage in the evolution of both print and online versions of JRSM. We have many ideas for development but we welcome suggestions from JRSM readers about how the journal might better serve their needs in print and online while positioning itself cleverly for the future of medical journals.