I am pleased to introduce OSA Continuum, OSA’s new open-access, rapid-publishing journal! A “continuum” originates from an ultra-broadband light source, but the Journal aims to publish scientific and technical research within the entire spectrum concerning optics and photonics and across the continuum of research development.

Many researchers in optics and photonics may feel that it is difficult to publish some of their work that could be regarded as having insufficient “novelty and impact” by traditional journals. OSA Continuum (OSAC) provides a publishing opportunity for research that satisfies high standards for technical accuracy, scientific rigor, and presentation quality, without a judgment of its impact or significance. This sets OSAC apart from other OSA journals, and we believe that such articles can provide inspiration for the optics and photonics community. OSAC also welcomes negative results and reproducibility studies to help the community build upon the work of its peers. Therefore, I hope that OSAC will provide a new OSA outlet for those involved in industry, young researchers, and researchers from developing counties, who have traditionally had results that were more difficult to publish in OSA’s other journals.

Another distinguishing feature of OSAC is the opportunity for authors and reviewers to publish peer review correspondence (decision letters, reviewer comments, and author response to reviews) associated with an article. This transparent peer review option, a first attempt for OSA Publishing, will encourage constructive communications between authors and reviewers and help demystify the peer review process for new authors and reviewers. See an example of published peer review correspondence with the article from Wang et al. [1] in the first issue.

Another feature of OSAC is that OSA authors will benefit from the ability to easily transfer a submission from another OSA journal to OSAC without any reformatting. OSA Publishing recently activated a universal manuscript template that is used by OSAC and most OSA journals that will simplify the submission transfer process. The manuscript template and submission instructions are located in the Author and Reviewer Resource Center, https://www.osapublishing.org/submit/templates.

Once a submission is received, OSAC editors will consider the review comments that are already in OSA’s Prism system, if applicable, and they have the option to make a new manuscript decision without undergoing additional peer review. This option also helps set OSAC apart from similar journals by other publishers. The goal of OSAC is to maintain the same high-quality standards that readers expect from OSA while recognizing that quality does not also require novelty and impact. I do encourage authors to revise their manuscripts before completing the transfer process when they have already received useful peer review comments. Doing so will expedite the decision by OSAC because our editors often prefer to see a revised manuscript before taking action.

The OSAC scope covers all aspects of optics and photonics. The submission categories are listed below, but this list is by no means exclusive.

Another benefit of this new journal is that authors who publish in OSAC during 2018 will enjoy a full waiver of the article processing charges. After the introductory period, OSAC will offer publication charge discounts or waivers to authors from 100 qualifying low- and middle-income countries.

Dr. Erik Vartiainen (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland), the OSAC Deputy Editor, and I are doing our best to make OSAC successful, working together with an excellent and diverse board of Associate Editors and the professional OSA publishing staff:

Additionally, many outstanding optical scientists and engineers voluntarily spend their time as reviewers to maintain the quality expected of an OSA Publishing journal and help us bring the concept of OSAC to life. I am honored to be the Editor-in-Chief of OSA Continuum, and I am proud to work with such dedicated and talented volunteers and staff.

We are looking forward to your contributions, including negative results and reproducibility studies, to OSAC as authors. We also welcome your suggestions and comments, which can be sent to osacmss@osa.org at any time.