This Editorial is a complementary part of the one published in the previous number of Journal of Optometry (2010;Vol.3: Issue 4).1 In that document, we have shown the wide current international audience of Journal of Optometry in terms of country of origin of readers visiting the webpage and authors submitting manuscripts. In the present editorial we present a more in depth analysis of the outcomes of manuscripts submitted to the Journal as well as the index of citation achieved during the first 2 years since first publication.
Previous data showed us that United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong or the Netherlands and Spain were some of the 20 countries with more intensive activity in terms of submissions to Journal of Optometry.1 This supports the numbers reported in Figure 1 for the 20 countries presenting the highest publication rates for articles accepted in the Journal of Optometry over the first two years of life. It is remarkable that between 70 to 80% of the manuscripts submitted between 2008 and 2010 are Original Articles (Figure 2) showing a trend to increase in this number from 2009 to 2010. This is somewhat representative of the leading nature of Journal of Optometry as a vehicle to widespread state-of-the-art knowledge in the fields covered by the scope of the Journal.
Regarding rejection rates, a measure of the Journal selectivity, this number has increased from about 30 to 40% by 2008 and 2009 to 64% by 2010 as shown in Figure 3. This value is in good agreement with those reported for other well recognized leading journals in the field of Optometry, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.
Again, most of the articles published in Journal of Optometry are Original Articles accounting for 75% of all published papers. Reviews represent 15% and Case Reports represent the remaining 10%. This is in good agreement with the distribution of manuscripts submitted by type of submission as previously stated (Figure 4).
With no doubt the peer-review process is the most important element in the success of a scientific journal. This is the case also for Journal of Optometry. Since the journal has been established, over 400 invitations have been done to almost 300 reviewers in 30 different countries. Figure 5 shows the distribution of reviewers by country of origin. This information is an anonymous tribute to their support, which along with members of the Editorial Board represent the widespread of the peer-review process across the World.
Finally, a good measure of the international impact of the Journal of Optometry is the number of citations made by other journals to articles published. This has been estimated using Scopus database (www.scopus.com). Of the 58 articles published in the first 2 years since first publication (8 issues), over 75 citations have been done by articles published in other journals (this excludes self-citations made in Journal of Optometry to own articles); these numbers report only citations to Case Reports, Reviews and Original Articles. These metrics are usually considered to measure and rank the impact factor of scientific publications world-wide.2Figure 6 displays the number of citations to articles published during 2008, 2009 and 2010 (only first two issues). Obviously, the older the publication the higher rate of citations obtained and this is the reason why 2010 articles have collected such a few number of citations so far. However, overall the number of citations done by other journals to articles published in Journal of Optometry are significantly high considering the brief period of time since first published and is well above the number of articles published which means an accumulated index of citation during first 2 years over 1 citation received per each article published. If we account also for self-citations and citations to Editorials and Letters to Editors, the numbers exceed those presented here. However, the authors acknowledge that present calculations do not pretend to extrapolate any impact factor or related metric that could be used by other institutions.2,3 The reader must should not understand this information in the sense of a ranking but to measure the impact the journal has in the community.
We can conclude that the first two years of life of Journal of Optometry have been somewhat atypical considering the global impact achieved in such a short period of time. Despite we are aware that these are just the first steps in a long way to the consolidation of the journal, there is strong evidence that the Journal of Optometry will become in the next few years as a leading member of the quite reduced group of peer-reviewed journals in the field of Optometry and Visual Science. This won’t be possible without the confidence of the Authors that submit their high-quality manuscripts, Reviewers and Editorial Board Members that offers us the gift of their expertise in the wide variety of fields within the scope of the journal and the strong support of the Spanish General Council of Optometry and its members.
