A Journey with the Journal

The Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology (CJG) remains the strong and credible monthly voice of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG) and the Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver (CASL). Since the new editorial team took over in June 2010, a number of changes have taken place and there are more in the planning stages. The total number of citations over three years has increased, as have the number of citations per article. The Journal’s current acceptance rate is approximately 17% as the Editorial Board strives for improved quality. Manuscript submission is robust: from January 2012 to November 2012, more than 350 manuscripts were received. The number of cited articles now exceeds the number of uncited articles and our total citations (three years) continue to rise (Figure 1). The self-citation rate is low (7%) and we have received encouraging feedback. The geographical areas from where many of our submissions originate are shown in Table 1. The effect of these changes on the Journal’s impact factor will be apparent over 2013 and 2014. The percentage of manuscripts representing international collaborations has more than doubled since the beginning of 2000. We have a specific thematic focus on quality of clinical care and safety, and we have been publishing an increasing number of articles in this area. Figure 1) Total number of citations, citable articles and total number of manuscripts from 2007 to 2011 for the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology TABLE 1 Manuscript submissions to the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology according to country, January to November 2012 In 2013, the Journal will move to a hybrid model of print and online publishing. The table of contents (including ‘eTOC’) for each issue will include articles published in print and online. This will enable us to publish more articles and reduce the acceptance to publication time. Early in the new year, a new CJG website will be launched at www.pulsus.com. A significant element of this new website will be the establishment of an ‘In Press’ section, which will be gated to members of the CAG and CASL, and to subscribers. By the end of 2013, it is our objective to have all material accepted for publication edited and posted in this section until published. These papers will be tagged for PubMed and will, therefore, be citable. The new online presence of the Journal will also permit peer reviewed supplemental material to be available with the article online. This will allow more concise and reader friendly articles to be published in each issue, with detailed material available online. We are undertaking major efforts to significantly reduce our submission to decision time by recruiting more reviewers and setting stricter deadlines for review time. We will, therefore, approach more of you, especially younger gastroenterologists, to participate in the review process; a small incentive system for our reviewers is in place. Our review process will be the major focus in 2013. In closing, I would like to thank our Associate Editors and Editorial Board for their hard work and diligence, and express my appreciation to the Pulsus editorial team for partnering in these new initiatives and improvements. The next few years promise to be exciting and innovative.