It is good to perform self-assessments periodically to determine whether our efforts are yielding desired results. For journals, there are a number of very important metrics that one can use to determine if we are servicing our community effectively. After reviewing our year-end statistics, I can say that Applied Optics had a very good year as we continue to expand globally.

Submissions to Applied Optics have increased 23% over the past five year. A good bit of this growth has been in Asia, and in particular China, where submissions have increased 36%. As an Editor, I can tell you that the submissions from China continue to improve in quality and the research capacity there is growing to be formidable. I look forward to receiving the best research papers in the areas of Applied Optics from China and the rest of Asia in 2016 as well as the rest of the world. It is one of my goals this year to increase the number of Topical Editors from Asia.

Similarly, there has been a 48% increase in published papers since 2011. Our editors are now responding to these trends by tightening the acceptance criteria for Applied Optics. While this is only one lever that we use to ensure the quality of the papers that are being published, other metrics such as Impact Factor and paper citation half-life are affected by the presence of lower quality papers in our journal. We want to continue to provide a journal where authors want to publish their best applied optics work and where readers turn to for the latest and most relevant applied optics papers.

A metric that I am extremely proud of is the time to publication. This metric is comprised of submission processing and Editor assignment time, Topical Editor processing time, reviewing time, manuscript revisions time, Topical Editor decision time, and paper production time. Authors are most interested in experiencing efficient overall time to publication, especially when their careers depend on paper acceptance. I am very pleased that the time to publication has been reducing steadily over the past five years and we ended 2015 at 97 days. The majority of this progress has been by Journal Staff in the production side. However, the guidance I give Topical Editors is that I would like papers reviewed and initial decisions performed within 40 days of submission and we will continue to work on reducing the number of papers that get held up in the tail end of the statistics.

Applied Optics published six successful feature issues in 2015. I encourage our readers to browse through these collections. We hope they will be useful resources for the community,

In addition to these feature issues, Applied Optics launched Engineering & Laboratory Notes as a new article type in the journal with Brian Monacelli as the section editor. Some readers may remember when Optics & Photonics News provided E&L Notes in the 1990s. We are pleased to bring this feature back to OSA and that 33 E&L Notes were published in 2015. These articles are meant to share tips, techniques and observations that would typically be captured in an engineering notebook.

Applied Optics is successful due to the dedication and high standards of its respected roster of Topical Editors. I am happy to announce the following individuals were appointed as new editors in 2015: Geoffrey Cranch, Naval Research Lab, USA (promoted to Division Editor of Optical Technology Division); Mohammad R.N. Avanaki, Wayne State University, USA; Taegeun Kim, Sejong University, S. Korea;

Silvia Diaz Lucas, Public University of Navarra, Spain; Pascal Picart, ENSIM, Université du Maine, France; Michael C. Roggemann, Michigan Technological University, USA; and Mohammad Sabaeian, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran.

Finally, I would like to extend sincere thanks to those editors who finished their terms with Applied Optics last year: Division Editor Eugenio Mendez, CICESE, USA; Partha Banerjee, University of Dayton, USA; Francois Goudail, Institut d’Optique, France; Ricardo Letelier, Oregon State University, USA; Tariq Manzur, NAVSEA Naval Undersea Warfare Center, USA; Daniel Marks, Duke University, USA; Joseph Rosen, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Wei Shi, Tianjin University, China; Feng Song, Nankai University, China; and Catherine Towers, University of Leeds, UK.

As always, we have work to do. Indeed 2015 was a very good year for Applied Optics, but we are committed to an improved 2016!