bmc editor’s day 2013: malaria journal developing a successful journal: an editor’s perspective...
TRANSCRIPT
BMC Editor’s Day 2013:
MALARIA JOURNAL Developing a successful journal: an
Editor’s perspective
Marcel HommelEditor-in Chief, Malaria Journal
In 2001, creation of the OPEN ACCESS concept
= creation of Malaria Journal, online and open access journal
• Peer-review and copy-editing (= quality)
• No cost for the reader, but cost for authors who pay an ‘APC’ (£1,310/US$2,110/€1,630 in 2012)
• From the beginning, no APC or a reduced APC for authors from the poorest countries (World Bank list)
• Copyright belongs to author not the journal
In 2001, in which journal were malaria papers published ?
25% of the 1,660 articles published were in
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and HygieneTransactions of the Royal Society of Tropical
MedicineTropical Medicine and International HealthAnnals Tropical Medicine and ParasitologyTrends in Parasitology (ex Parasitology Today)Infection and Immunity
Disease-specific journals are not a new concept: Tubercle created in 1919AIDS created in 1988J Viral Hepatitis in 1994
Why a journal on Malaria?
In 2012,
Malaria papers (4,166) – adjusted number: 3,68829% were published in
Malaria Journal (439)(12%)PLoS ONE (322)Am J Trop Med Hyg (92)Trop Med Int Health (90)Parasites & Vectors (66)Acta Tropica (66)
..a major shift towards Open Access journals
Careful : bibliometric tools are not very accurate tools !
For example : Web of Science - keyword ‘malaria’01 Jan 2012 to 01 Jan 2013 - Result : 4,166 papersActual (corrected results): 3,688 – 9 to 11 % not relevant
Errors detected:• some 2013 and 2011 papers• some records not papers but meetings abstracts• papers with no relevance or only trivial malaria content
- Wild cervids are host for tick vectors of Babesia species with zoonotic capability in Belgium. VECTOR-BORNE AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES Volume: 12 Issue: 4 Pages: 275-280
-Spinal bombesin-recognized neurones mediate more nonhistaminergic than histaminergic sensation of itch in mice. CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL DERMATOLOGY Volume: 37 Issue: 3 Pages: 290-295
Number of malaria papers published(from Hommel M. Malar J 2010, 9:284)
In 2012, Malaria Journal published over 12% of papers on malaria, but is it a quality journal ?
What makes quality ?
• Editorial Board• Peer-review process• Quality output – copy-editing papers• Influence in the discipline• Metrics : Impact factor, Eigenfactor, etc• Quality publisher
A strong Editorial board, with about 50 top names in the field, involved in peer-reviewing. Final decision made by Editor-in-chief
Unique feature: 20% of Editorial board are changed every year (randomly !)
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Submissions Publications
Submissions and publications for the journal in the last 5 years
Average submissions per month in 2012 = 57.5Average publications per month in 2012 = 36.5
• 2011 Impact Factor - 3.19• Journal is ranked 2nd in Tropical Medicine (behind PLoS NTD) and 7th in Parasitology
Impact in the field
• Quality of anti-malarials collected in the private and informal sectors in Guyana and Suriname
•Implementation of basic quality control tests for malaria medicines in Amazon Basin countries: results for the 2005–2010 period
•Malaria resurgence: a systematic review and assessment of its causes (Press Released on World Malaria Day)
• Artemether resistance in vitro is linked to mutations in PfATP6 that also interact with mutations in PfMDR1 in travellers returning with
Plasmodium falciparum infections
• Estimates of child deaths prevented from malaria prevention scale-up in Africa 2001-2010• A new world malaria map: Plasmodium falciparum endemicity in 2010
• A framework for assessing the risk of resistance for anti-malarials in development
Malaria Journal publishes excellent high quality research, which is of interest to a wider audience. It is therefore, important to make sure that articles are disseminated to the general public as well as to the scientific community. In the past 12 months, Press Releases have been sent out for the following articles. Where possible, we have coordinated Press Releases with the authors’ institutes.
Press releases
WHO decides to publish its malaria policy recommendations in Malaria Journal
* These are based on accesses from the journal website and do not include accesses from repositories such as PubMed Central
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Article accesses to Malaria Journal
The articles most read in 2011
Overall, for all BMC journals, the submission pattern is:
In 2011, Malaria Journal published 388 papers of which• 105 had African scientists as first author (27%)• 52 had African scientists as co-author (13%)• 14 concerned African issues, without African co-author
Based on 2010 published papers
MALARIACONFERENCES
The next one:Challenges in Malaria Research: Core Science and Innovationwill be held in Oxford, 22-24 September 2014(organizers: Simon Hay and Marcel Hommel) 9
Editorial issues
• Finding peer-reviewers
• Editing and production issues – mathematical formulae and tex
• Legal issues – libelous statements (how to spot them ?)
• Ethical issues – trial registration
• Authorship issues
• Managing quantity and speed of publication