Author Feedback Program Reveals Satisfaction with the Review Process at Molecular Therapy
Authors: Robert M. Frederickson, David A. Williams
Journal: Molecular Therapy (2005)

The key to the success of any journal is its perception by its authors. Authors use several criteria when selecting a journal to publish their work. First and foremost, authors prefer to publish in a journal they know is read by their peers and whose readership will appreciate the significance of their work. As the official journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy, authors can feel confident that studies of cell and gene therapy will be hitting their target audience with Molecular Therapy. Beyond this, there are a number of criteria that can impact an author's choice. These include the perception of journal quality, the editorial board, and the quality and speed of the review process. We have recently gained insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the review process at Molecular Therapy through Elsevier's Author Feedback Program. The program queries authors about their experiences publishing their work in Molecular Therapy, and about their experiences with other journals serving the gene therapy community. Several points stand out in the most recent author survey, completed in September 2004. Overall, responders to the survey indicated a satisfaction rate with the review and publishing processes at the journal of 78%, which is nearly identical to the satisfaction rate for the journal Blood, and significantly higher than the rate of satisfaction with Gene Therapy (65%). Authors indicated several factors that were key to their choice of journal. These included the quality and speed of review, reputation of the journal, and the speed and quality of the production process. Molecular Therapy received much higher marks than the average of competing journals for all of these factors. We were ranked higher than the major competing journals (Blood, Gene Therapy, Journal of Virology) in the overall standard of the refereeing, indicating a high degree of satisfaction with reviewer comments on submitted manuscripts. We were significantly ahead of these same titles with regard to satisfaction with the speed of the review, a factor that has received strong consistent emphasis by both the Editor and Editor-in-Chief. We also managed to edge out both Blood and Journal of Virology with regard to how our authors rank the editorial board of the journal, with Gene Therapy coming in a distant fourth. Finally, we were also the top-ranked journal in production speed and quality. Of course, not all the news was as good as we might wish. There is a clear dissatisfaction with the physical quality and layout of the journal. Our current layout was established when the journal was launched in 2000, and we are currently evaluating changes to this layout. Your comments would be much appreciated, and readers should feel free to email the editor ([email protected]) with their comments and suggestions. We will also be putting together a brief survey for authors that will encourage feedback and suggestions for improvement on this specific issue. The Impact Factor (IF) was another category where Molecular Therapy has done well relative to competing journals. Overall, the IF of gene therapy journals has declined over the past several years, which may reflect increased interest in the field by higher impact journals due to the higher profile of the field overall in the past decade or so. Nevertheless, Molecular Therapy publishes a significant fraction of the high impact original research papers in the field. We intend to continue to do so by maintaining both a positive perception of the journal amongst our authors, and a high scientific standard. We do envisage future increases in our IF with increasing progress and success of our review article coverage of the field. Our review program got underway in late 2003, and thus its effect upon our IF has not yet been felt by IF calculation, the latest of which (2004) monitors papers published in 2002-3. However, our review series is now hitting its stride. The focus is the publication of review articles of wide interest, high quality and timeliness, rather than exhaustive coverage of the field, as there are a host of review journals already serving the field. Suggestions for review coverage are always welcome and can be sent to the editor for an informal review. Overall, it is clear that author satisfaction with Molecular Therapy is very high, in fact ranking very favorably with the journal Blood. We hope to take the opportunity to address author suggestions for improvement of the journal layout, continue our emphasis on timely and fair review of submitted manuscripts, and to enhance the IF in the future. We appreciate the terrific support of the scientists in the field and look forward to working with you in the future. The development of insertional mutagenesis leading to leukemia in the gene therapy trial for children with X-linked Severe Combined Immunodeficiency has profoundly altered the landscape of the clinical use of viral vectors. The field has moved with amazing speed to study the molecular basis of these events and to develop new approaches to overcome serious side effects of integrating vector systems. The progress has been truly remarkable. In June, 2005, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy, a 2nd Stem Cell Clonality and Genotoxicity Retreat was held in St. Louis, Mo. The meeting was very well attended and remarkable for bringing together some of the leading scientists in the field to address the issues of hematopoiesis and gene mutation related to insertional vectors. In this issue, Rob Frederickson, Editor of Molecular Therapy, provides a summary of this important meeting.