A tripling of readers: Acta Physiologica takes off

What can be the best surrogate endpoint for the quality of a Journal? Markers for the quality and prestige of a Journal are widely debated (Andersen et al., 2006; Walker et al. 2010), and new measuring methods appear regularly (Falagas et al. 2008; Ketcham 2008). To many of our readers, it is probably the amount of articles that are read by our peers, which indicates the quality of our Journal, and studies support that this is indeed a valid marker for Journal performance (Coats, 2005; Ozonoff & Grandjean 2010). Over the last 10 years, the download of articles from Acta Physiologica has more than tripled (Fig. 1). There have been two episodes showing a strong increase in downloading numbers. The first increase took place between 2002 and 2005, which may in part be owing to the advances in technology, and the transition from reading printed material to downloading articles online. It is a particular pleasure to point out the second time interval, in which downloads have increased rapidly: from 2009 till today. Obviously, we are reaching more and more readers worldwide. Since the downloaded material is an early marker for the performance of our Journal, this trend bodes well for the future of our Impact Factor. The Impact Factor can be expected to lag 2–3 years behind download trends. Another commonly used measure for the performance of a Journal is the number of submitted material (Persson 2005). Acta Physiologica counted almost 500 submitted items in the year 2011, which is very impressive and once more demonstrates the upward trend of the Journal. Which articles are most popular? Naturally, reviews are very much appreciated (Ketcham and Crawford, 2007; Sillet et al. 2012) and are most often downloaded, as they provide useful reference sources to our readers. A review article in Acta Physiologica can be downloaded far more than 1000 times within 1 or 2 years. Our top ten reviews (Apro & Blomstrand 2010, Daniels et al. 2010, Hakim et al. 2010, Hall 2010, Lanza & Sreekumaran 2010, Nishino et al. 2010, Pourova et al. 2010, Schiaffino 2010, Teske et al. 2010, Tsuneki et al. 2010), when ranked by downloads, originate from very different fields. It is evident that Acta Physiologica is remarkably strong in cardiovascular physiology, muscle physiology, exercise physiology and metabolism. The particular strength of Acta Physiologica in these fields is underscored by the most often downloaded original articles. When ranked by the number of downloads, it becomes apparent that many of the top nine articles are actually crossing the borders between the disciplines of cardiovascular physiology, metabolism, exercise and muscle physiology (Norrbom et al., 2010, Baar 2010, Crandall & GonzalezAlonso 2010, Dreyer et al. 2010, Frayn 2010, Liu et al. 2010, Martini et al. 2010, Matos et al. 2010, Merry et al. 2010). Which people from which countries read our articles? This is becoming an increasingly important issue. The future of the world will be knowledge-based, and therefore, it is important to see where the online visits to Acta Physiologica come from. In an effort to share our knowledge with the people from less-favoured regions of this world, Acta Physiologica and Wiley make enormous efforts and grant generous support to the developing countries. The online visits to Acta Physiologica are depicted in Figure 2. A large chunk