State of the <i>Journal of Applied Physiology</i>: 2011 (2011)

EditorialState of the Journal of Applied Physiology: 2011Jerome A. DempseyJerome A. DempseyJohn Rankin Laboratory of Pulmonary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WisconsinPublished Online:01 Jun 2011https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00488.2011This is the final version - click for previous versionMoreSectionsPDF (43 KB)Download PDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesGet permissionsTrack citations Greetings to the Journal of Applied Physiology readership.This editorial will be the last report submitted by our current editorial team, which began their service on July 1st of 2005 and will terminate June 30, 2011. I will concentrate on the scope, quality, and impact of the Journal of Applied Physiology publications and the challenges facing scientific publications such as ours in the future.Scope of Journal of Applied Physiology PublicationsOver the past few years, a breakdown of our publications shows the following averages: 84% original research manuscripts, 8% reviews, 6% Editorial Focus, and 3% Viewpoints and Point:Counterpoint manuscripts. Our number of submissions has remained steady over the last 5 years, averaging between 1,200 and 1,300 per year. This trend contrasts with most other APS journals, for which the number of submissions has declined over the last two years.The journal continues to serve a broad constituency of physiological problems, including those traditional areas that have a relatively small number of investigators but who continue to contribute important science in such areas as temperature regulation, mathematical modeling, hyperbaric physiology, human neurophysiology, biomechanics, bone and connective tissue, and environmental physiology. We have also shown a significant increase in the number of journal manuscripts using molecular and cellular techniques—especially for studies dealing with skeletal muscle physiology. Organ system level physiology in the human in health and disease continues to be the main stay of the journal; however, the use of experimental animals with both in vivo and in vitro preparations, including the use of chronically instrumented animals, have increased, especially in areas such as cardiovascular and respiratory physiology. Translational physiology emphasizing clinical outcomes has also increased in the journal. So the scope of physiology in the Journal of Applied Physiology remains broad, but the steady increase in our manuscript rejection rate (see below) requires that an accepted manuscript goes beyond an acceptable description of a given phenomena and probes the reasons for its existence. For most of the Journal of Applied Physiology's manuscripts, one's definition of “underlying mechanisms” incorporates a broad spectrum of levels of investigation.Quality/Impact of Journal of Applied Physiology PublicationsAre the manuscripts published in the journal providing a significant advance in physiological understanding in their given field? How do the Journal of Applied Physiology publications compare in this regard with other physiology journals? These questions are not easy to evaluate, but some evidence is available. Citation rates have now become the “gold standard” for evaluating journal “impact”… (also see below). When citation rates, which are maintained over long periods of time, are considered (i.e., the “half-life” metric1) the Journal of Applied Physiology leads all physiology journals by a considerable margin—likely reflecting the considerable number of important, durable findings and phenomena published in this journal over long periods, as well as the broad applicability of these findings to a variety of biological disciplines. The short-term, 2- or 5-year Impact Factor (IF)2, is currently the most common metric used to judge overall journal quality. This metric is also widely applied by institutions and grant governing bodies throughout the world. Clearly, citations by other scientists are an important measure of a manuscript's impact and to some extent the quality of its findings. On the other hand, this single, narrowly focused snapshot approach to judge a journal and especially an individual manuscript's importance or impact fails to consider such critical determinants of citation rate as the relative number of investigators in the field, whether the manuscript is a review or original research article, the longevity of citations, and, of course, the “reasons” for citation (1, 3, 4). The most recent IF for the Journal of Applied Physiology for 2009 is 3.83, which ranks about the middle of most traditional “physiology” journals and represents a 25% increase since the time the current editorial team began in 2005. It is likely that this IF will rise above 4.0 by 2013, i.e., a time when all 6 years of manuscripts adjudicated under the current editorial team are considered. I suppose we should be encouraged by this progress in the journal's IF, although based on input from our readership, we do know that there are many among us (especially those outside North America) that would like to see this metric rise much higher and quickly. This is certainly doable if we increase our rejection rate to >80% of submitted manuscripts, if we greatly expand the number of review articles (vs. original research manuscripts), and if we eliminate research areas in which we currently publish that contain fewer numbers of investigators and therefore fewer potential citations. On the other hand, if we did instigate these changes, this would not be the Journal of Applied Physiology that Wallace Fenn and his colleagues envisaged when they founded the journal in 1948 and the one that has followed the APS ideal of “inclusion” of important physiological disciplines. Please allow me now to try and alleviate the fears of our readership: the Journal of Applied Physiology has and will continue to publish important advances in our discipline without sacrificing its soul.In 2005, feedback from many scientists and a meeting with the new editorial team convinced us that the quality of scientific publications in the journal needed significant improvement. We decided on several approaches: 1) expand the associate editorial team using several half-time appointments and increase the number of consulting editors to better ensure expertise supervising peer review across the broad range of science that the journal attracts; 2) appoint three expert reviewers on the great majority of manuscripts; 3) adopt a pre-review assessment in which the unanimous opinion of three or four editors was required for manuscript triage; and 4) change the manuscript rating by reviewers to emphasize not only acceptable methods and experimental design but also require that findings must represent a “significant advance in physiological understanding” as judged by the associate editors' analysis of the consensus of expert referee input. Over several months the average acceptance rate for our journal's original research manuscripts was reduced from 50% to 30–34% of submitted manuscripts (with significant variability among the various fields of study), and this acceptance rate has been maintained over the past 5 years. To determine if these changes have improved the quality of our accepted manuscripts, we annually asked our editors to evaluate published manuscripts. This year we formalized this exercise, concentrating on already published manuscripts in 2010 and 2011 and asking associate editors and editorial consultants to reevaluate each of these manuscripts, specifically in their own field of scientific expertise. A total of 240 published manuscripts were evaluated by 23 editors. This international team of experts in these various fields judged that 65% of the recently published manuscripts in the journal had findings that were ranked in the top 10–25% in terms of physiological significance. Three percent of the published manuscripts were judged to be below acceptable criteria for publication. The remaining 32% of published manuscripts were judged to contain a “significant advance” in understanding, but were not rated in the top 25% of findings in their specific field of enquiry. This is a substantial improvement over our judgment of the journal's quality 6 years ago and we submit that this is a judgment of improvement that is not susceptible to many of the biases contained in the journal's IF metric. Our evaluation also shows that there is some room for further improvement in the quality of our journal's manuscripts, and we pass on this evaluation to the incoming editorial team for them to decide on new initiatives. At the same time, we are also comforted that there is no apparent reason to make wholesale changes in the journal that would take it away from its mission and its loyalty to current readership and authors. It is not imperative that our mission change from publishing quality science to chasing the IF!A Word to Members of Institutional Promotion Committees and Grant Governing Agencies on Judging Individual Scientist ContributionsJournal IFs are commonly used throughout the world to judge the value of an individual scientist's research for purposes of academic promotion and research grant evaluation. There are also several instances where monetary remuneration to investigators is judged by institutions based solely on the journal IF in which their candidates publish. We implore leaders of these important committees to recognize the fallacy of this approach. As summarized in an editorial endorsed by a panel of 13 editors of international journals (2), a journal's IF does not judge the importance of an individual scientist's research for many reasons—principally because a journal's IF is decided by only a minority of its published manuscripts, which may or may not include the candidate's manuscripts (3, 4).Certainly, judging the quality of an individual's scientific contributions and especially their potential for future scientific success is extremely difficult and imperfect, but two alternative suggestions come to mind. First, if citation numbers are important to you, then use one of many internet search engines available to determine the number of citations for the individual candidate. Secondly, if judging the quality and significance of the candidates research in a given field is important to you, try putting more rigor into the time-honored practice of soliciting evaluations from scientific peers who are carefully selected to be both highly qualified as well as clearly “arms length” from the candidate and who are instructed to speak specifically to the quality and significance to the field of the candidate's research findings. Clearly this approach is more time consuming and it does not have a single “number” to hang your hat on, but we suggest that they come substantially closer to addressing the primary purpose of an individual candidate's evaluation! It is especially heartening to learn that some national research granting bodies and a few institutional promotion committees have recently adopted these suggested policies rather than the use of the simple IF metric in judging an applicant's success. However, some academic institutions have also recently adopted a requirement for a certain level of journal IF to even consider an applicant's publications as acceptable for promotion purposes. These actions may well push some journals to markedly alter their policies in sole pursuit of a higher IF. As argued above, we would hope that cooler heads prevail in appreciating the bigger, more relevant picture.Controversy and Communication in the Journal of Applied PhysiologyThe concept behind the Point:Counterpoints and Viewpoints manuscripts in the Journal of Applied Physiology over the past 5 years was that a scientific journal would provide an ideal forum for debate, especially if the input in these debates can be spread over many participants. Since 2005, the Journal of Applied Physiology will have peer reviewed and published 49 Point:Counterpoints and 26 Viewpoints and over 500 commentaries. The early topics for these debates were generated by editors; however, over the past few years individual investigators in our readership have initiated most of these controversial topics. I believe these publications have mostly met their purpose. Feedback I have received suggest that the great majority of these—especially the Point:Counterpoints—have formed a basis for many seminars and journal club discussions. Beginning investigators especially have been exposed to the controversy and uncertainty that is the very essence of progress in science. I doubt very much that these debates elicited a unanimous decision on which argument was clearly “correct.” To the contrary, it is more certain that several “sides” to the controversy were unmasked by these debates and especially by the brief commentaries. Thus, hopefully, a major outcome was more likely the newer ideas generated for further research and then more debate. Based on other negative feedback it is also likely that a few of our published debates might have been misguided and for this we apologize and hope that at least some of the readership benefited. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the primary debaters who exposed their innermost opinions to our readers and who dealt with a myriad of critical feedback with admirable restraint and scholarship.It Takes a VillageAs editor in chief of the journal I am especially indebted to the following team of associate editors: Per Aspenberg, Jason Bates, Vincent Caiozzo, Jay Dean, André De Troyer, Christopher DeSouza, Karyn Esser, Ralph Fregosi, Simon Gandevia, Robb Glenny, James Hagberg, Kevin Kregel, Harold Laughlin, Russell Moore, Christopher O'Donnell, David Pendergast, Erik Richter, Doug Seals, Gail Thomas, David Wasserman, Jørgen Wojtaszewski, and Matt White. Associate editors work very hard, taking away many hours per week of their time they would normally devote to their science in the name of ensuring excellent peer review for your submitted manuscripts. Our consulting editors have also played critical roles in recruiting and evaluating manuscripts and deciding journal policy and I recognize their efforts: Roger Enoka, Mike Joyner, Prem Kumar, Mark Hargreaves, Wayne Mitzner, Mike Reid, Larry Rowell, Kent Sahlin, and Bengt Saltin. Our belabored reviewers on and off the editorial board are essential to our peer review mission. Please hang in there, even in the face of the grant writing frenzy. At the APS office, Virginia Million has served as the journal's Editorial Supervisor and Iliana Torres served as the journal's Peer Review Coordinator, both with great patience and professionalism. Many thanks to Virginia and Iliana and to their supervisors, Margaret Reich, Rita Scheman, and Mark Goodwin. Finally, my special thanks are extended to our central Journal of Applied Physiology office staff, including Tony Jacques, Christa Tober, and Theresa Bergholz whose day to day attention to detail has assured a smooth, readership friendly operation and has made this past 6 years a unique and interesting adventure. I wish Peter Wagner and his new editorial team much success in guiding the future of our special journal.FOOTNOTES1The journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two years have been cited in a given year. The Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations in a given year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years. An Impact Factor of 1.0 means that, on average, the articles published one or two years ago have been cited one time. An Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two years ago have been cited two and a half times. Cited articles may be from the same journal; most cited articles are from different journals (1).2Cited half-life: the median age of the articles that were cited in a given year. Half of a journal's cited articles were published more recently than the cited half-life (2).REFERENCES1. Chew M , Villanueva EV , Van Der Weyden MB. Life and times of the impact factor: retrospective analysis of trends for seven medical journals (1994–2005) and their Editors' views. J R Soc Med 100: 142–150, 2007.ISI | Google Scholar2. Dempsey JA. Impact factor and its role in academic promotion: a statement adopted by the International Respiratory Journal Editors Roundtable. J Appl Physiol 107: 1005, 2009.Link | ISI | Google Scholar3. Ogden TL , Bartley DL. The ups and downs of journal impact factors. Ann Occup Hyg 52: 73–82, 2008.Google Scholar4. Szklo M. Impact factor: good reasons for concern. Epidemiology 19: 369, 2008.Crossref | ISI | Google Scholar5. Thomson Reuters. Journal citation reports (Online). http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com/JCR/help/h_impfact.htm [April 25, 2010].Google Scholar6. Thomson Reuters. Journal citation reports (Online). http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com/JCR/help/h_ctdhl.htm [April 25, 2010].Google ScholarAUTHOR NOTESAddress for reprint requests and other correspondence: J. A. Dempsey, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Applied Physiology, 1300 Univ. Ave., Rm. 4245 MSC, Madison, WI 53706-1532 (e-mail: [email protected]edu). Download PDF Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation More from this issue > Volume 110Issue 6June 2011Pages 1503-1505 Copyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2011 the American Physiological Societyhttps://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00488.2011PubMed21512149History Published online 1 June 2011 Published in print 1 June 2011 Metrics