From the Publisher and the Editor of Demographic Research
a free, expedited, open access, online journal of peer-reviewed research and commentary in the population sciences

With the launch of Demographic Research in July 1999, our aim was to complement established journals by providing a different kind of publishing opportunity. Demographic Research is an online journal with path-breaking characteristics that distinguish it not only from traditional journals but also from other current online journals as well. We invite the population science community to send us their submissions.

We see Demographic Research as offering the fastest publication opportunity for research and reflexions, while additionally giving researchers a unique forum for material, such as descriptive findings and research replications and materials that conventional journals are unable or reluctant to publish.

Demographic Research will utilize an innovative, Internet review process. Because Demographic Research will rely on a large Scientific Review Board of prominent referees able to give prompt yes-no decisions, most papers will be accepted or rejected for publication within four weeks of submission. We aim to ensure strict and confidential review and to maintain high standards of quality, while cutting delay.

We will strive for minimal rules and restrictions, minimal turn-around time, minimal costs, and minimal hassle. Demographic Research will be free via the Internet, with no paid subscription necessary. Reflexions will be published on published articles and earlier reflexions, with hypertext links to relevant material in the journal. We will also include reflexions on currently-discussed or "hot-topic" Demographic Research findings, data, theory, tools, methods, or publications which have not been previously discussed in the journal. Responses, corrections and addenda are welcome and will be linked to earlier material to make the journal a "living" source of current knowledge. In this manner we expect to provide an active forum for scientific discourse with a speedy exchange of points-of-view, retorts, and rejoinders.

While we encourage authors to adhere to the established standards of publishing format and length, we have set no upper or lower limits for the total length of articles or reflexions. Items published in Demographic Research may include data files, computer programs, detailed technical documentation, and lengthy appendices, sometimes also in languages other than English. There is no restriction on the number or form of tables, maps, or figures. Graphic material can fully exploit the colors and other visual opportunities of the electronic medium.

We encourage submission of descriptive findings, speculative items, biographic essays, bibliographic compilations, and systematic descriptions of available software or data sources, particularly when accompanied by quality assessments. We will maintain demography's traditions of valuing careful description of demographic behavior and interesting empirical findings even before their generality has been established and before they have been grounded in scientific theory. Demographic Research will also regularly publish contributions where posited effects or patterns turn out not to be present; it is hard to get such material accepted elsewhere. We further encourage submission of replications when they contribute to an improvement of one's knowledge of demographic behavior. Our prime criteria for accepting material for publication are those of discovery, innovation, usefulness, and quality in equal measure.

In sum, Demographic Research is an open journal in various senses of the word "open": "affording unobstructed entrance or view", "accessible to all", "unhampered by unnecessary restrictions", "inviting", "available for use", "active", "free of prejudice", and "receptive to new ideas and arguments".

Joshua R. Goldstein		Nico Keilman