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Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Vol. 55, No. 3, July-September, 2009, pp. 157-158 Editorial JPGM 2007-09: Report card Bavdekar S.B. Editor, Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, India Correspondence Address: Editor, Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, India Code Number: jp09048 PMID: 19884735 DOI: 10.4103/0022-3859.57384 The Journal of Postgraduate Medicine (JPGM) was established over 55 years ago to provide a forum for the scientists to share their ideas, observations and opinions. [1] The journal has remained devoted to this notion, while increasing its reach. It is heartening to note that JPGM and the Staff Society of Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital have remained committed to open access providing immediate access to anyone and everyone to the entire content of the journal, despite financial constraints. This editorial team had made some commitments to its readers, at the beginning of its term. [2] The editorial team is pleased to report that the Journal is on the right track. During the last two years the journal received 800 manuscripts annually from authors spread all over the globe [Table - 1]. The journal's 4000-strong army of reviewers spread over all the continents helped in ensuring that only quality articles were published in the Journal [Table - 2]. With overseas authors contributing 40% of all manuscripts received, experts from various countries assisting in quality assessment and readers from all over the globe accessing the journal's scientific content through its open-access website, JPGM has become a truly international journal. Number of citations received is one of the ways of judging the quality of a journal. The SCImago Research Group has ranked JPGM first amongst all Indian journals, listed under the Subject Category Medicine, for the last four years (2004-07) consistently in terms of a composite SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SJR) and for cites per document in the last two years. [3] Impact Factor (IF), originally devised by the Institute for Science Information (ISI), is now a part of Thomson Reuters. Readers may be aware that the IF of a journal is calculated as a ratio of cites received by journal manuscripts in the last two years and the number of citable articles published in the last two calendar years in the journal. IF has been criticized on several counts: Negotiability of the denominator, non-reproducibility, subject to manipulation through editorial policy, bias against non-English journals, etc. [4],[5] It, however, remains one of the most well-known and commonly used parameter for comparing journals across disciplines. I am happy to announce that JPGM, which was included in the Journal Citation Reports in the year 2006, received the IF for the year 2008 stands at 1.538. With this, the Journal has entered the select list of journals that are assessed for IF. It is noteworthy that the Journal has straightaway claimed second position amongst Indian journals, in the first year of assessment, itself. Analysis of citations received by manuscripts published in JPGM in 2005-07 throws up some interesting facts [Table - 3]. Three hundred and thirty-four published articles received 562 citations. This indicates that the journal is widely read and quoted. Original, symposium and review articles had high cites per article ratio. However, the number of citations received by viewpoints and case reports were also noteworthy. Some journals shy away from publishing certain types of articles that do not have high citation rates. The editorial board is not over-obsessed with IF and will continue to publish quality articles that are interesting to the readers. The editorial team has worked on other commitments as well. In the last two years, special sections like Ethics Forum have been revived. New sections such as ADR section and Students' Forum continue to attract interesting contributions. The JPGM is committed to ensuring greater availability of information about clinical trials in the public domain. As an important step towards fulfilling this objective, JPGM has collaborated with other important Indian journals in drafting and signing a Statement that encourages scientists to register their trials. [7] During the last two years, the JPGM has uploaded full texts of its issues published in 1976-79 on its website. With this, JPGM's issues published since 1976 are available on the net. The editorial team wishes to make the treasure of articles published in JPGM right from its first issue available to our readers. Through this communication, we would like to appeal to our readers to help us in this regard by allowing us to use journal issues available with them. Detailed revised instructions regarding manuscript preparation and submission have now been posted on the journal website. [8] This has been done to enhance the 'author-friendly' character of the Journal. These instructions now clearly elucidate the nature of each section or article type published in the Journal. Our publisher, Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd. has taken several innovative steps to update and enhance the journal website. The innovations include provision for mapping author and reviewer institution. The Journal articles are now linked with the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system. This system ensures persistent identification. [9] In a bid to avoid delay, JPGM now provides alerts and reminders to authors and reviewers by sending messages via the Short Message Service (SMS) on mobiles. Over the last one year, many readers have been submitting their comments and criticisms for articles published in the Journal. This, in our opinion, is a welcome trend, as it ensures a post-publication review of published material and this would be encouraged by the Journal. The Journal organized a workshop on literature search last year as a part of its efforts towards training young researchers in scientific writing. I am also pleased to inform readers that the journal is now on a firmer financial base. All this would not have been possible without the active guidance and encouragement provided by Dr. Sanjay Oak, President of the Staff Society and the unstinting support given by the Staff Society. Where do we go from here? We would like to preserve the true international character of our journal while encouraging publication of quality research from India and other resource-poor countries. We are committed to Open Access and to enhancing transparency in the field of biomedical research. As in the past, we would like to continue with our efforts in training prospective authors, referees and editors by organizing a conference and workshops. [10] I am happy to announce that JPGM will organize a conference 'JPGM Writecon 2009' in November-December this year for young researchers. The authors can continue to send their best research work to JPGM and we promise a time-bound, efficient, fair and balanced peer-review for authors and a responsible journal providing relevant scientific communications to our readers. Ultimately, the Journal belongs to its readers. We would like to know if the Journal is meeting their expectations. References
Copyright 2009 - Journal of Postgraduate Medicine The following images related to this document are available:Photo images[jp09048t2.jpg] [jp09048t3.jpg] [jp09048t1.jpg] |
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