New app gives readers access across entire JAMA Network

The JAMA Network is offering its first mobile application to provide access to content of The Journal of the American Medical Association and the network's nine specialty journals.

The browser-based app, known as the JAMA Network Reader, was announced in an editorial in the March 6 issue of JAMA. The app is intended for use on computer tablets, smartphones and other devices, and it is free for about the next four to six months (link).

“By leveraging HTML5 technology, the Web app will provide mobile and desktop readers with a user experience optimized for online and offline mobile reading, whether via desktop, tablet or smartphone; in the office; on rounds; in the laboratory; on the train or plane; or in any comfortable reading chair,” said JAMA Network Publisher Thomas J. Easley.

The app is accessible online (http://mobile.jamanetwork.com). The JAMA Network Reader expands the visibility of articles beyond the readership of one journal, said JAMA Editor-in-Chief Howard Bauchner, MD.

“It extends the content of JAMA and the nine specialty journals to all digital devices and delivers relevant articles to our many readers,” he said.

Users can download full issues for offline access, bookmark articles and search the network's content back to January 2012.

“It's a use of another technology that re-acknowledges this concept of a network of journals,” Dr. Bauchner said.

In the JAMA editorial, Dr. Bauchner and others said the app is a step toward creating a digital portfolio based on the needs of readers.

The app is the latest development of the JAMA Network, which was created in early 2012. In May 2012, new websites for the journals were launched to make it easier for readers to access content for JAMA and the specialty journals.

In January, the specialty journals were renamed to have the JAMA name integrated into the titles. In late spring or early summer, there will be the first major print redesign of the journals as a collection in nearly 30 years, Dr. Bauchner said.

The JAMA Network will launch other applications to allow audio and video display and personalization of the network's journal content, the editorial said.

“The best is yet to come,” Dr. Bauchner said.