The next generation of SAGE Journals Online

SAGE journals to migrate to HighWire’s new H2O platform in 2010

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (November 18, 2009) – SAGE today announced a major upgrade to its award-winning SAGE Journals Online (SJO) platform. All 560+ SAGE journals will be available on the next generation platform, supported by HighWire Press’ “2.0” technology (H2O), by the end of 2010.

With most readers now accessing content directly at the article level, this advanced technology brings SJO new functionality designed to keep readers in context as they conduct their research. All journal pages will offer a flexible three-column design that makes features available without taking attention away from the substantive article content. The changes include:

• Journal and society branding – home page designs will include greater prominence of journal titles and association logos, names and links to society sites.
• Browse, advanced search and alerting features – expanded discipline functionality across 40+ categories.
• Abstract preview – mouse-over entries available from tables of contents and search results provide instant pop-up previews of abstracts, without leaving the page.
• Tag-along navigation – content feature options follow alongside as you scroll down the article page.
• Feature hideaway – author affiliations, related links, and other optional functions can be expanded or hidden from view; these preferences are retained throughout a session.
• Popular-articles list – Most Viewed and Most Cited articles lists are readily available from all pages within a journal site.
• Agile, robust content architecture, hosted in industry-standard, NLM metadata format.
• Redesigned SJO portal– provides targeted options and improved navigation for all types of users.

“As the world’s fifth largest journals publisher, SAGE is constantly working to maintain cutting edge technology and maximum functionality for the delivery of our online content,” said Jayne Marks, SAGE Vice President and Editorial Director, Journals. “With this next generation of SAGE Journals Online, we gain the ability to adapt quickly in the rapidly-changing online world and greater opportunities to leverage the power of our content. And our users will see improvement in their ability to search and browse in context.”

SAGE journal sites have already begun the move to SJO’s next generation technology. The first sites to incorporate the new functionality were launched in early 2009: The American Journal of Sports Medicine (http://ajsm.sagepub.com), and Sports Health: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (http://sph.sagepub.com), both published on behalf of the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine (AOSSM). Additional titles will be migrated over during the next year, with the completion of all 560+ sites estimated for late 2010.

“Electronic publishing is becoming more collaborative,” said John Sack, Director of HighWire Press. “HighWire’s H2O platform enables SAGE and other scholarly publishers to experiment with cutting-edge publishing models, and engage readers on a more personalized level.”

“The H2O interface is the visible face of a bottom-up rebuild of HighWire's electronic publishing platform, which was developed to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving internet environment. The platform infrastructure is highly permeable, meaning that it will interact with many other systems. It is flexible and modular so that it can easily be built upon using Web 2.0 applications, feeds, widgets, and web services.”

Further details for SAGE Journals Online customers will be announced over the coming months. 

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SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com

HighWire facilitates the digital dissemination of high-impact, peer-reviewed content. Working in partnership with independent scholarly publishers, societies, associations, and university presses, HighWire’s premier ePublishing platform hosts the definitive electronic versions of leading journals, reference works, books, conference proceedings and more. Not only do publishers benefit from HighWire’s outstanding technical expertise, work ethos and hands-on support services, they also gain the economies of scale of working in a unique collegial networking environment.  As a not-for-profit division of Stanford University libraries, HighWire plays a multi-faceted role in the online publishing world, providing services to librarians and readers, as well as to its community of scholarly publishers. http://highwire.stanford.edu

Press Release Contact:
Jim Gilden
media.inquiries@sagepub.com
805-410-7335