eFirst-SBS Articles Published Ahead of Print

We are pleased to announce a new service for our authors and readers. Fast publication times are becoming more and more important in research. We therefore have introduced eFirst to publish articles well in advance of their publication in a print issue. As of February 2005, shortly after receiving the authors' corrections, articles of Skull Base: An Interdisciplinary Approach (SBS) will be available under eFirst in the digital journals database.

eFirst articles of SBS are accessible online via the page with the Journal's table of contents at www.thieme-connect.com, by clicking on the eFirst icon (this page is also readily accessible through the Journal's homepage at www.thieme.com/sbs, by clicking on “View this journal in Thieme-connect”).

Of course, all articles that are electronically published first undergo the entire peer-review and assessment procedure. And, all articles published in eFirst are published later in the printed version of SBS, according to the regular print schedule. The date of online publication is now the definite publication date for each paper. The version of an article published in eFirst is, therefore, considered the final version and is fully citable. Thus, we will not be publishing “updated” or “corrected” versions of articles. Any errors found subsequently after online publication may only be corrected by publishing errata.

How can eFirst articles be cited? Since they are not assigned yet to a specific issue, bibliographic information, such as page ranges and issue numbers, are unknown. The articles can be cited, however, by way of their DOI (Digital Object Identifier). This is simply a unique code that specially identifies an online article. The DOI is included in both the print and electronic versions. By using the DOI, it is also possible to search directly for that article on the internet. In addition, a DOI enables us to find the article in databases. For detailed information, consult www.doi.org. It should also be mentioned that articles published in eFirst are already included in the Medline database.

eFirst articles that have not yet been published in a print issue should be cited in this format:

Sarkar A, Link MJ. Distal anterior inferior cerebellar artery aneurysm masquerading as a cerebellopontine angle tumor: case report and review of literature. Skull Base. Published online October 27, 2004; DOI: 10.1055/s-2004-823772

After the paper has been published in print it should be cited as follows:

Sarkar A, Link MJ. Distal anterior inferior cerebellar artery aneurysm masquerading as a cerebellopontine angle tumor: case report and review of literature. Skull Base 2004:14:101-108. Published online October 27, 2004; DOI: 10.1055/s-2004-823772

As soon as the print version of the article is available, the statement “Now Published in Print” is added to the eFirst table of contents. At the same time, the article appears in the online version of the new issue. In eFirst, it will disappear 30 days after release of the print version.

The abstracts of articles are open to all visitors of eFirst. Subscribers to SBS additionally have access to the full text version, with the option to either read the searchable article in html, with active links, or to use the pdf format for download if this is preferred. Finally, we strongly encourage all our readers to register for receiving the table of contents of eFirst articles via e-mail immediately after publication. For a free registration please go to “Table of contents via e-mail” at www.thieme-connect.com/ejournals/toc/sbs.

We are confident that eFirst will be received very well by our authors and readers. Thank you for your continued interest in SBS!

The editors and the publisher