State of the Journal: CMGH ’s Progress, Prospects, and Impact Factor (2017)

Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CMGH) was established to create a forum for high-quality, mechanistic studies of the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and pancreas. CMGH has now completed its third full year of publication and has developed a reputation as a rigorous and highly regarded platform for basic and translational research. CMGH has also become known for a prompt, fair, and transparent review process in which authors are treated with respect and have access to editors. These statements are supported by the results of our recent readership survey, which will be the topic of a future commentary. One can therefore conclude that CMGH is well on its way to becoming the high-impact, open-access forum that our field needs. The question authors and readers ask most often is when will CMGH have an impact factor? There are a number of steps in the process of getting an impact factor. The first step is for Clarivate Analytics (Philadelphia, PA) to include the journal in the Emerging Sciences Citation Index, part of Web of Science. CMGH has recently been accepted into the Emerging Sciences Citation Index and for indexing in the Web of Science. Clarivate will now monitor the citation behavior of CMGH before making a decision regarding inclusion of CMGH in the Science Citation Index Expanded database. Once included in the Science Citation Index Expanded database the journal will receive an impact factor. We are hopeful that this second part of the process will occur rapidly. Because CMGH indexing in Web of Science is not yet complete, we have used the Scopus database to track citations (Scopus is maintained by Elsevier). Although the details of which items beyond original articles are counted differ between Web of Science and Scopus, the trends are similar. We have compiled 2017 citations to date of the Journal's 2016 articles (Table 1) along with comparable data from several other journals. Notably, these data differ from the impact factor, which assesses citations over the previous 2 years (eg, 2017 citations of 2016 and 2015 articles). Nevertheless, these citations provide an early indicator of the visibility of CMGH publications and suggest that publishing in CMGH is impactful.Table 1Comparative Journal Citation DataJournal2016 impact factorNumber of original articles and reviews in Scopus in 2016Number of citations of 2016 articles in 2017aData current as of December 19, 2017.Average citations per 2016 source item received in 2017Cancer Research9.168740695.9Mucosal Immunology7.51317085.4Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CMGH)492615.3Journal of Pathology6.91567865.0Journal of Cell Science4.438613933.6Laboratory Investigation4.91163783.2American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology3.52195292.4a Data current as of December 19, 2017. Open table in a new tab Another measure of a Journal’s reputation and perceived impact is the number of submissions it can attract. In 2015, there were 111 research article (including original articles and brief reports) submissions to CMGH. This increased to 171 in 2016. As of this writing, 2017 submissions have increased by an additional 20% compared with 2016 submissions. For these articles, first decisions were communicated to authors in less than 3 weeks over the life of CMGH as well as for 2017. The overall acceptance rate for research articles has been 25%. CMGH accepts submissions by several routes. Regardless of submission route, it is not necessary to format an article for CMGH during initial review. This policy removes unnecessary burdens and simplifies the process for authors. The most common submission vehicle is the CMGH website. In addition, submissions rejected by our sister journal, Gastroenterology, can be transferred by a fast-track process if they were externally reviewed or by a non–fast-track process if rejected with internal review only. In either case, transfer is simple and requires minimal effort on the part of authors. Decisions on fast-track submissions take advantage of, but are not dependent on, reviews obtained by Gastroenterology and are generally communicated to authors within 3 days. A similar fast-track process is available for authors whose articles have been rejected elsewhere. This requires submission of all correspondence, including reviews, with the previous journal, and also typically results in a decision being made within 3 days. CMGH introduced special issues, article collections, and other features to help readers find articles of interest over 2017. The latter include a CMGH Twitter feed (@AGA_CMGH) and graphical abstracts, which have been well received. Authors are now routinely providing high-quality graphical abstracts and frequently use the CMGH template that includes useful elements (available at CMGHjournal.org). Finally, review of acceptance rates in early 2017 showed that the acceptance rate for Brief Report submissions was well below that of full articles. This appeared to reflect a misconception of the purpose of Brief Reports, which were intended to be short descriptions of landmark observations. We therefore have replaced Brief Reports with Research Letters, a format that better fits the articles previously submitted as Brief Reports. Similar to all CMGH articles, Research Letters provide significant new knowledge. They do not, however, typically include the depth of analysis that characterizes full-length CMGH original articles. Research Letters will therefore allow authors to rapidly publish work with significant or intriguing novel observations, and several are now in press. CMGH is on a rising trajectory. This success reflects the efforts of the AGA staff, most notably Managing Editor Lindsey Brounstein; the Editorial Board; our Elsevier Publisher George Woodward; authors who have supported the Journal; and, of course, the readers. Change, however, is ahead, as the term of the current Board of Editors will end in June 2019. We look forward to the selection of a team that will carry CMGH into the next phases of successful growth.