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Editorial |
It is time to share with the readers of The Journal of Immunology (The JI) our perceptions of the state of the journal in 2001. To the extent possible, we also thought that it might be useful to make comparisons of the present state of The JI to its state 10 and 14 years ago (the earliest date from which we were able to obtain reasonably complete information.)
The acceptance rate of manuscripts is always a primary concern of authors. Authors can rest assured that the acceptance rate of The JI has been extremely consistent, hovering at about 40% for nearly two decades through successive terms of four Editors-in-Chief. In 1986, it was 41%; in 1990, 41%; and in 2000, 42%. We are confident that the high performance standards of the Deputy and Section Editors and reviewers were upheld over these years, also.
The JI has significantly increased in physical size over the last two decades. There were 8,800 text pages published in 1986; 9,400 in 1990; and 14,000 in 2000. The JI is approaching the maximum issue size for cost-effective mailing and reader-burden. The increase in size is related in part to an increase in submitted manuscripts coupled with a stable acceptance rate. The JI received over 4,000 manuscripts last year—1,000 more than it received 14 years ago!
A "fatter" journal is also related to an increase in the average number of pages per full-length article, which grew from 6.5 pages in 1986 to 7.9 in 2000. The Publications Committee has tried to discourage needlessly long articles by instituting graduated page charges, i.e., page charges double for pages above 8, and triple for pages above 12. In 2000, the first year this policy was implemented, the number of papers exceeding 8 pages had not decreased (in 2000, 36.5% exceeded 8 pages), but the extra page charges came closer to covering the actual publishing costs.
Authors have at least two other concerns in addition to acceptance rates: the length of time it takes to reach a decision, and the time interval between acceptance and publication. In 2000, it took an average of 45.6 days to reach the initial decision for a full-length manuscript. The editors and staff are trying hard to shorten this interval, but The JI receives about 10,000 reviews each year, and it is difficult to encourage every reviewer to be expeditious as well as thoughtful in providing a review. We greatly value the service of those of you who review manuscripts and we urge you to be as timely as possible without compromising the quality of the review.
The journal staff has reduced the amount of time between acceptance of a manuscript and the time it is published. This interval averaged nearly 4 months in 1998 but had shortened to less than 2 months in 2001. To further shorten the time to publication, author proofs are sent via the Internet. It is now taking authors 1 day to return proofs as opposed to 4 days via the hard-copy method. Rather than assigning a manuscript to an issue upon acceptance, manuscripts are now assigned to an issue based on when the author returns proofs. For example, this allows papers that would normally be scheduled for the July 15 issue to be scheduled for the July 1 issue if the proofs are returned by the internal due date.
Another experiment is underway in an attempt to reduce publication time. Our statistics show that 98% of manuscripts that have the decision "accept-with-minor-revision" are accepted when resubmitted. Therefore, when "accept-with-minor-revision" papers are received in the editorial office, they are sent to the printer for file conversion and figure scanning at the same time they are going through the final stage of review. These modifications to the process should reduce publication time by an additional two weeks.
How important is The JI to the immunology community? The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) provides several measures of a journal’s impact through its Journal Citation Reports. With the currently available information from ISI (through 1999), The JI ranked FIRST among the 115 immunology journals surveyed in terms of the total number of citations (96,900) and in the number of manuscripts published (1,800).
Another measure of a journal’s standing is something called an impact factor. This is derived by dividing the number of articles published in 1997 and 1998 and cited in 1999, by the total number of articles published in 1997 and 1998. The impact factor for The JI was 7.145 for 1999 compared with 6.318 for 1986. In 1999, The JI ranked 8th among the immunology review publications and journals. Of the publications ranking higher than The JI, five publish only invited non-peer-reviewed manuscripts. In a broader context, The JI ranked in the top 0.25% of the 5,600 scientific journals surveyed by ISI in terms of number of citations and in the top 2% in terms of its impact factor. We seem to be doing very well indeed.
There is a perception that the Cutting Edge (CE) section of The JI may have a higher impact factor than the full-length articles, so we did some calculations. The impact factor for CE papers for 1999 was 10.971, which would rank this section 6th among the immunology review publications and journals. The impact factor for the rest of The JI without the CE section was 6.922, moving the rest of The JI down only one place, behind the journal AIDS.
A few more bits of factual information may be of interest. The percentage of manuscripts published by authors from outside the United States was 41% in 2000, a sizeable increase over 29% in 1988. Also, usage of the online version of The JI is increasing. Although slightly less than half of the total subscribers have activated their online subscription that is included in the subscription fee, many more read the journal through institutional access.
Stanford University service provider, HighWire Press, hosts The JI online. One great benefit of HighWire is that they host hundreds of other journals—many important to immunologists. This partnership allows the start of something unimaginable a short while ago, the virtual library. This is accomplished by immediate online linking of references cited in The JI to other journals hosted by HighWire Press.
Although it seems that online journals have always been with us, it has been less than a decade since their introduction into the biological sciences. The American Association of Immunologists was one of the earliest online publishers. We published the CE section and abstracts beginning in 1995, and the full text of full-length articles in 1998. While we care about the future, we also care about the past. The issue of digital archiving is important, and we are about to make our first installment on the past by posting searchable issues of The JI back to 1980.
Improvements, enhancements, and upgrades in the technology backbone of a journal are facts of publishing life. The technology infrastructure that stores, tracks, archives, and drives The JI has been upgraded and improved to increasing sophistication over the years. New and increasingly complex software and database systems provide us with more accessible information about where a manuscript is within the system (and who is responsible for delays!), enabling us to track, fix errors, and—if necessary—nag delinquent reviewers and editors more efficiently. We are now poised for online submission of manuscripts, and for transmission of reviews and decisions electronically. These functions should further speed the processing of manuscripts.
A recently implemented feature for The JI is the ability to include supplementary material with the online version; reference to such supplementary material is included in the print version. The first such items appear in the May 1, 2001 issue and consist of several video preparations that document, in a dynamic way, the interactions among different cells. Future postings could include tables or comparisons among multiple nucleotide sequences of unusually large size. We want to emphasize that posting of supplementary information is dependent upon the judgment of the editors that the supplemental material truly enhances the textual presentation and is of a nature that is unduly large and not easily presented in print.
The JI is alive and well and read by many. There are hundreds of selfless and dedicated people that make The JI "happen." It takes a community. The senior editors spend countless hours upholding the policies and principles of The JI and seeing that authors receive a fair and helpful review. Reviewers carefully read manuscripts and constructively render an opinion at times when they are hard pressed for the extra hour but find the time because they are committed to the process of "giving back." Staff and service providers whose names you will not read in the credits take their jobs seriously and make the peer review process logistically possible. And authors believe in the process of verification by peers, offering their findings for the benefit of the scientific community. We are personally grateful to this entire community for their efforts that together create an outstanding journal.
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