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The editorship of the Journal will change hands effective July 1. The past 6 years have been exciting and fast moving, yet very rewarding times for all of us at the Journal. We have had the privilege of working at the forefront of science and innovations in technology. Throughout this time, we have published the best work in gastrointestinal and liver physiology, maintained the Journal's focus on areas of greatest interest and importance to our readership, and improved the Journal for authors and readers by drawing on state of the art technologies. It is clear that AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology has achieved new vigor, drawing on tools of molecular and cell biology and genomics/proteomics to attain a greater understanding of cellular function and of organ and mammalian physiology. Important for the Journal, this revolution in science and the growth of physiology is still in its early stages. The greatest opportunities lie ahead.
Technology is often viewed as cold and impersonal. Nonetheless, the Journal has used technology in an "author- and reader-friendly" way. With the advent of web-based manuscript submissions, journal submissions from anywhere in the world are easily uploaded and submitted to APS Central and arrive in Bethesda in a matter of minutes. Manuscripts are rapidly logged in, distributed on the web to the editor and associate editors in widely disparate locations, and assigned to referees. All of this can be accomplished in ~24 h. Referees review the paper and figures in digital format online and complete their reviews online. Decision letters are generated online and, once accepted, the paper can be published online within a week and at that point in time is immediately available to the scientific community. This sequence of events has significantly sped up the review process and the time from acceptance of a manuscript to its publication. Thus a process that used to routinely take 7-9 mo at the start of our term as Editors can now readily be completed in less than 1 mo in the case of papers that do not require revisions. For those manuscripts requiring minor revisions, the process is dependent to a significant extent on the time it takes an author to complete and resubmit those revisions.
What has online access to articles accomplished? It is clearly providing greater and easier access to the Journal's papers, and this access is now provided to a worldwide audience. During 2002, web "hits" (i.e., downloads of AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology articles) increased by ~20% over 2001. In 2002, the AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology received over 1,350,000 hits, encompassing a total of 4,937 online articles. Each article, on average, was accessed 275 times. In the future, all articles going back to the founding of the Journal will be online as the "legacy project" of the American Physiological Society continues.
As editors, we have been particularly gratified with the series of concise themes articles the Journal has published over the past several years. The input from the readership has been uniformly positive. We are especially grateful to the authors of those more than 130 articles for their valuable contributions to the Journal. Each of these authors has provided important insights and perspectives into the past, present, and future of research in gastrointestinal and liver physiology. As a fitting conclusion to those articles, several of the associate editors have provided their own perspective on the "future of GI and liver research" from an editor's viewpoint.
Annual submissions of original reports to the Journal have slowly increased (~5%) over the past few years, with the editors handling 525 original articles in 2002 (excluding themes articles). However, in the first quarter of 2003 alone, the Journal has witnessed a 28% increase in submissions over the first quarter of 2002. If this trend continues, we can rest assured that AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology is entering a renewed period of substantial growth.
AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology has truly become an international journal. In the year 2002, 51% of submissions were from outside the United States. Although we have long considered the Journal an integral component of the international scientific community, the Editors are very pleased that the international community also considers the Journal a "home" for their best work. Papers are submitted from practically every country in Europe, especially our colleagues in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Great Britain as well as the Scandinavian countries. The second largest constellation of submissions comes from Japan and other Asian countries, with Canada and Australia also being important and highly valued contributors. The Journal publishes original research in many disciples encompassing gastrointestinal and liver physiology. Moreover, the quality of the papers has been excellent in each of these areas, and each area has maintained an acceptance rate of ~50%. This rate of acceptance has, in general, been relatively constant among the various Associate Editors.
One measure of the true worth of a paper is reflected by its importance to the scientific community over a substantial time frame (e.g. 5-10 years or more). All too often in this fast-moving world, a major focus is placed on "the flavor of the month," whose taste may or may not be long lasting. Stated another way, one can ask whether what seems true today will also hold true 10 years from now. Thus enters onto the stage the often-quoted "impact factor," a short-term (2 year) measure of timeliness and perceived importance of a journal's papers over a relatively brief glimpse in time-a measure that simply reflects how often papers in journal "x" are quoted over the most recent 2 years. In fact, journals that publish review papers, popular articles with broad mass appeal, timely clinical articles, and non-peer-reviewed abstracts often achieve the highest impact factors. Conversely, journals that focus on science in more defined areas and do not "pump up" the impact factor by using varying "tricks of the trade" (e.g. lots of reviews, abstracts) often carry impact factors that are significantly lower, although the papers may be of substantially higher quality and have a longer "shelf-life." Young scientists frequently are told by their mentors to focus on the impact factor, when better advice would be to focus on the quality of the journals in which they publish. After all, the "impact factor" of their publications may have significant ramifications for their future career and promotions. Unfortunately, that is a great misuse of a parameter never intended for such purposes and one often perpetrated by our own community of scholars. "We have met the enemy, and it is us." As the Editor of the AJP Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, I have avoided embarking on a "slippery slope" designed simply to increase the Journal's "impact factor." However, there occasionally are small rewards for taking the high road! Thus the Journal's impact factor, that magic little number, increased from 3.12 to 3.66 between the years 2000 and 2001.
As the Journal continues its voyage into the 21st century, the new Editor, Marshall Montrose, from the University of Indiana will provide steady and innovative stewardship, having served as an Associate Editor of the Journal for the past six years. We welcome the new Editor and editorial team and have full confidence they will bring new ideas to the Journal and imprint it with their own vision of the future.
Finally, I personally would like to express my grateful appreciation to my Associate Editors for the outstanding job they have done and to the gastrointestinal and liver physiology community for the support we have received. I would particularly like to thank the authors for submitting such excellent papers, the leadership of the American Physiological Society for providing superb support staff and advice, the APS Publications Committee for being so helpful and providing the Editor the freedom to innovate, and of key importance, the reviewers and editorial board members who gave so freely of their time, expertise and wisdom.
Martin F. Kagnoff, Editor |
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FOOTNOTES |
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10.1152/ajpgi.00134.2003
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