I Publish in I Edit? - Do Editorial Board Members of Urologic Journals Preferentially Publish Their Own Scientific Work?

Scientists who are members of an editorial board have been accused of preferentially publishing their scientific work in the journal where they serve as editor. Reputation and academic standing do depend on an uninterrupted flow of published scientific work and the question does arise as to whether publication mainly occurs in the self-edited journal. This investigation was designed to determine whether editorial board members of five urological journals were more likely to publish their research reports in their own rather than in other journals. A retrospective analysis was conducted for all original reports published from 2001–2010 by 65 editorial board members nominated to the boards of five impact leading urologic journals in 2006. Publications before editorial board membership, 2001–2005, and publications within the period of time as an editorial board member, 2006–2010, were identified. The impact factors of the journals were also recorded over the time period 2001–2010 to see whether a change in impact factor correlated with publication locality. In the five journals as a whole, scientific work was not preferentially published in the journal in which the scientists served as editor. However, significant heterogeneity among the journals was evident. One journal showed a significant increase in the amount of published papers in the ‘own’ journal after assumption of editorship, three journals showed no change and one journal showed a highly significant decrease in publishing in the ‘own’ journal after assumption of editorship.     

Under-Representation of Women on Dental Journal Editorial Boards

Introduction

Each journal’s editorial and advisory board plays a critical role in resolving gender bias in the peer-review and publication process. Thus, this study aimed to quantify women’s participation in editorial and advisory boards of major dental journals. Gender data on editorial and advisory boards were extracted from major dental journals, which were then categorized by journal specialty focus. The gender of the editor-in-chief and associate editor-in-chief was noted to assess the effect of journal leadership on women’s participation in journal boards. For comparison purposes, data were also obtained regarding the percentage of women faculty for each dental specialty.

Results

Overall, in the major 69 dental journals, 14.8% of editorial board members were women. An one-way ANOVA analysis revealed statistically significant gender differences between journal specialty categories (p = 0.003) with some dental specialties’ journals demonstrating a relatively high participation of women as editorial board members. There was a significant positive correlation for various dental specialties between women’s representation in editorial and advisory boards and women in similar dental academic specialties (p = 0.02, r² = 0.55). Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between the presence of women in journal editorial leadership and the percentage of women serving as advisory board members (p = 0.03). Our results confirmed that the under-representation of women on dental journal editorial boards was significantly different between dental science specialties. When there were more women in journal editorial leadership positions, there was a higher participation of women as editorial and advisory board members. Journals should increase the numbers of women on editorial boards in order to secure diversity, improve publication quality and recognize women’s contribution to dental science.     

Universality of Citation Distributions for Academic Institutions and Journals

Citations measure the importance of a publication, and may serve as a proxy for its popularity and quality of its contents. Here we study the distributions of citations to publications from individual academic institutions for a single year. The average number of citations have large variations between different institutions across the world, but the probability distributions of citations for individual institutions can be rescaled to a common form by scaling the citations by the average number of citations for that institution. We find this feature seems to be universal for a broad selection of institutions irrespective of the average number of citations per article. A similar analysis for citations to publications in a particular journal in a single year reveals similar results. We find high absolute inequality for both these sets, Gini coefficients being around 0.66 and 0.58 for institutions and journals respectively. We also find that the top 25% of the articles hold about 75% of the total citations for institutions and the top 29% of the articles hold about 71% of the total citations for journals.     

Problems in the Psychology of Development (Reading O. Mandel'shtam)

In August of this year, our regular author V.P. Zinchenko celebrated his sixtieth birthday. The editorial board asked him to give an interview about his view of the contemporary science of psychology. Vladimir Petrovich preferred a series of articles on the eternal problems of developmental psychology. We publish the first of these articles, written in the genre of an essay on scientific themes, in this journal issue. But the editorial board did not abandon its request, and hopes that his interview on the science of psychology will be published in the journal. The editorial board congratulates V.P. Zinchenko on his birthday and wishes him success in his scientific work.     

Beyond Bar and Line Graphs: Time for a New Data Presentation Paradigm

Figures in scientific publications are critically important because they often show the data supporting key findings. Our systematic review of research articles published in top physiology journals (n = 703) suggests that, as scientists, we urgently need to change our practices for presenting continuous data in small sample size studies. Papers rarely included scatterplots, box plots, and histograms that allow readers to critically evaluate continuous data. Most papers presented continuous data in bar and line graphs. This is problematic, as many different data distributions can lead to the same bar or line graph. The full data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. We recommend training investigators in data presentation, encouraging a more complete presentation of data, and changing journal editorial policies. Investigators can quickly make univariate scatterplots for small sample size studies using our Excel templates.     

关注学科前沿，促进学术交流——站在新起点的2009年Science China: Life Sciences

《中国科学》杂志英文版生命科学辑Science China: Life Sciences在2009年进行了全面的改革,贯彻“关注学科前沿,促进学术交流”的编辑出版方针,刊发了5个前沿学科专题,包括基因组学研究,非编码RNA与RNA组学,高致病性禽流感病毒,表观遗传学,干细胞——从分子病理到临床应用,发表了近200篇学术论文,使刊物从形式到内容都展现了一个新的水平．以此为标志,刊物正站在一个前进的新起点,以全新的态势开始其发展的新里程．就此对已发表的一些重要学术论文作一简要回顾和评述．     

Three Journal Similarity Metrics and Their Application to Biomedical Journals

In the present paper, we have created several novel journal similarity metrics. The MeSH odds ratio measures the topical similarity of any pair of journals, based on the major MeSH headings assigned to articles in MEDLINE. The second metric employed the 2009 Author-ity author name disambiguation dataset as a gold standard for estimating the author odds ratio. This gives a straightforward, intuitive answer to the question: Given two articles in PubMed that share the same author name (lastname, first initial), how does knowing only the identity of the journals (in which the articles were published) predict the relative likelihood that they are written by the same person vs. different persons? The article pair odds ratio detects the tendency of authors to publish repeatedly in the same journal, as well as in specific pairs of journals. The metrics can be applied not only to estimate the similarity of a pair of journals, but to provide novel profiles of individual journals as well. For example, for each journal, one can define the MeSH cloud as the number of other journals that are topically more similar to it than expected by chance, and the author cloud as the number of other journals that share more authors than expected by chance. These metrics for journal pairs and individual journals have been provided in the form of public datasets that can be readily studied and utilized by others.     

Emerging journals. The benefits of and challenges for publishing scientific journals in and by emerging countries

Emerging countries have established national scientific journals as an alternative publication route for their researchers. However, these journals eventually need to catch up to international standards.Since the first scientific journal was founded—The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665—the number of journals dedicated to publishing academic research has literally exploded. The Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge database alone—which represents far less than the total number of academic journals—includes more than 11,000 journals from non-profit, society and commercial publishers, published in numerous languages and with content ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities. Notwithstanding the sheer scale and diversity of academic publishing, however, there is a difference between the publishing enterprise in developed countries and emerging countries in terms of the commercial rationale behind the journals.…‘national'' or even ‘local'' journals are published and supported because they report important, practical information that would be declined by international journals…Although all academic journals seek to serve their readership by publishing the highest quality and most interesting advances, a growing trend in the twentieth century has also seen publishers in developed countries viewing academic publishing as a way of generating profit, and the desire of journal editors to publish the best and most interesting science thereby serves the commercial interest of publishers who want people to buy the publication.In emerging countries, however, there are few commercial reasons to publish a journal. Instead, ‘national'' or even ‘local'' journals are published and supported because they report important, practical information that would be declined by international journals, either because the topic is of only local or marginal interest, or because the research does not meet the high standards for publication at an international level. Consequently, most ‘national'' journals are not able to finance themselves and depend on public funding. In Brazil, for instance, the national journals account for one-third of the publications of all scientific articles from Brazil and are mostly funded by the government. Other emerging countries that invest in research—notably China, India and Russia—also have a sizable number of national journals, most of which are published in their native language.There is little competition between developed countries to publish the most or the best scientific journals. There is clear competition between the top-flight journals—Nature and Science, for example—but this competition is academically and/or commercially, rather than nationally, based. In fact, countries with similar scientific calibres in terms of the research they generate, differ greatly in terms of the number of journals published within their borders. According to the Thomson Reuters database, for example, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden published 847, 202 and 30 scientific journal, respectively, in 2010—the Netherlands has been a traditional haven for publishers. However, the number of articles published by researchers in these countries in journals indexed by Thomson Reuters—a rough measurement of scientific productivity—does not differ significantly.To overcome the perceived dominance of international journals […] some emerging countries have increased the number of national journalsScientists who edit directly or serve on the editorial boards of high-quality, international journals have a major responsibility because they guide the direction and set the standards of scientific research. In deciding what to publish, they define the quality of research, promote emerging research areas and set the criteria by which research is judged to be new and exciting; they are the gatekeepers of science. The distribution of these scientists also reflects the division between developed and emerging countries in scientific publishing. Using the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden as examples, they respectively contributed 235, 256 and 160 scientists to the editorial teams or boards of 220 high-impact, selected journals in 2005 (Braun & Diospatonyi, 2005). These numbers are comparable with the scientific production of these countries in terms of publications. On the other hand, Brazil, South Korea and Russia, countries as scientifically productive in terms of total number of articles as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden, contributed only 28, 29 and 55 ‘gatekeepers'', respectively. A principal reason for this difference is, of course, the more variable quality of the science produced in emerging countries, but it is nevertheless clear that their scientists are under-represented on the teams that define the course and standards of scientific research.To overcome the perceived dominance of international journals, and to address the significant barriers to getting published that their scientists face, some emerging countries have increased the number of national journals (Sumathipala et al, 2004). Such barriers have been well documented and include poor written English and the generally lower or more variable quality of the science produced in emerging countries. However, although English, which is the lingua franca of modern science (Meneghini & Packer, 2007), is not as great a barrier as some would claim, there is some evidence of a conscious or subconscious bias among reviewers and editors in judging articles from emerging countries. (Meneghini et al, 2008; Sumathipala et al, 2004).A third pressure has also forced some emerging countries to introduce more national journals in which to publish academic research from within their borders: greater scientific output. During the past two or three decades, several of these countries have made huge investments into research—notably China, India and Brazil, among others—which has enormously increased their scientific productivity. Initially, the new national journals aspired to adopt the rigid rules of peer review and the quality standards of international journals, but this approach did not produce satisfactory results in terms of the quality of papers published. On the one hand, it is hard for national journals to secure the expertise of scientists competent to review their submissions; on the other, the reviewers who do agree tend to be more lenient, ostensibly believing that peer review as rigorous as that of international journals would run counter to the purpose of making scientific results publicly available, at least on the national level.The establishment of national journals has, in effect, created two parallel communication streams for scientists in emerging countries: publication in international journals—the selective route—and publication in national journals—the regional route. On the basis of their perceived chances to be accepted by an international journal, authors can choose the route that gives them the best opportunity to make their results public. Economic conditions are also important as the resources to produce national journals come from government, so national journals can face budget cuts in times of austerity. In the worst case, this can lead to the demise of national journals to the disadvantage of authors who have built their careers by publishing in them.…to not publish, for any reason, is to break the process of science and potentially inhibit progressThere is some anecdotal evidence that authors who often or almost exclusively publish in international journals hold national journals in some contempt—they regard them as a way of avoiding the effort and hassle of publishing internationally. Moreover, although the way in which governments regard and support the divergent routes varies between countries, in general, scientists who endure and succeed through the selective route often receive more prestige and have more influence in shaping national science policies. Conversely, authors who choose the regional publication route regard their efforts as an important contribution to the dissemination of information generated by the national scientific community, which might otherwise remain locked away—by either language or access policies. Either way, it is worth mentioning that publication is obviously not the end point of a scientific discovery: the results should feed into the pool of knowledge and might inspire other researchers to pursue new avenues or devise new experiments. Hence, to not publish, for any reason, is to break the process of science and potentially inhibit progress.The choice of pursuing publication in regional or international journals also has direct consequences for the research being published. The selective, international route ensures greater visibility, especially if the paper is published in a high-impact journal. The regional route also makes the results and experiments public, but it fails to attract international visibility, in particular if the research is not published in English.It seems that, for the foreseeable future, this scenario will not change. If it is to change, however, then the revolution must be driven by the national journals. In fact, a change that raises the quality and value of national journals would be prudent because it would give scientists from emerging countries the opportunity to sit on the editorial boards of, or referee for, the resulting high-quality national journals. In this way, the importance of national journals would be enhanced and scientists from emerging countries would invest effort and gain experience in serving as editors or referees.The regional route has various weaknesses, however, the most important of which is the peer-review process. Peer-review at national journals is simply of a lower standard owing to several factors that include a lack of training in objective research assessment, greater leniency and tolerance of poor-quality science, and an unwillingness by top researchers to participate because they prefer to give their time to the selective journals. This creates an awkward situation: on the one hand, the inability to properly assess submissions, and on the other hand, a lack of motivation to do so.Notwithstanding these difficulties, most editors and authors of national journals hope that their publications will ultimately be recognized as visible, reliable sources of information, and not only as instruments to communicate national research to the public. In other words, their aspiration is not only to publish good science—albeit of lesser interest to international journals—but also to attain the second or third quartiles of impact factors in their areas. These journals should eventually be good enough to compete with the international ones, mitigating their national character and attracting authors from other countries.The key is to raise the assessment procedures at national journals to international standards, and to professionalize their operations. Both goals are interdependent. The vast majority of national journals are published by societies and research organizations and their editorial structures are often limited to local researchers. As a result, they are shoestring operations that lack proper administrative support and international input, and can come across as amateurish. The SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), which indexes national journals and measures their quality, can require certain changes when it indexes a journal, including the requirement to internationalize the editorial body or board.…experienced international editors should be brought in to strengthen national journals, raise their quality and educate local editors…In terms of improving this status quo, a range of other changes could be introduced. First, more decision-making authority should be given to publishers to decide how to structure the editorial body. The choice of ad hoc assistants—that is, professional scientists who can lend expertise at the editorial level should be selected by the editors—who should also assess journal performance. Moreover, publishers should try to attract international scientists with editorial experience to join a core group of two or three chief or senior editors. Their English skills, their experience in their research field and their influence in the community would catalyse a rapid improvement of the journals and their quality. In other words, experienced international editors should be brought in to strengthen national journals, raise their quality and educate local editors with the long-term objective to join the international scientific editing community. It would eventually merge the national and the selective routes of publishing into a single international route of scientific communication.Of course, there is a long way to go. The problem is that many societies and organizations do not have sufficient resources—money or experience—to attract international scientists as editors. However, new publishing and financial models could provide incentives to attract this kind of expertise. Ultimately, relying on government money alone is neither a reliable nor sufficient source of income to make national journals successful. One way of enhancing revenue streams might be to switch to an open-access model that would charge author fees that could be reinvested to improve the journals. In Brazil, for instance, almost all journals have adopted the open access model (Hedlund et al, 2004). The author fees—around US$1,250—if adopted, would provide financial support for increasing the quality and performance of the journals. Moreover, increased competition between journals at a national level should create a more dynamic and competitive situation among journals, raising the general quality of the science they publish. This would also feed back to the scientific community and help to raise the general standards of science in emerging countries.     

More topics from the tropics: additional thoughts to Mammides et al.

Most studies on tropical conservation questions are conducted by researchers of developed countries from the north. This geographic disconnection was recently criticised by Mammides et al. Here, we reflect on their findings and add further views from scientist’s and journal editor’s perspectives. We argue that journals are, a priori, most strongly interested in research questions and approaches that will likely increase their scientific impact and prestige. This is rarely compatible with publishing articles on questions with restricted global impact or based on single taxa. We question whether small changes in the editorial policy of international conservation journals will considerably improve the geographic diversity in key conservation publications. Rather, thematic scopes of the leading conservation journals should be modified, preferably in close collaboration with leading conservationists from the south. We are convinced that long-term investments in the tropics will create a stronger local scientific community, thus bolstering academic morale, and finally may lead to an increase in the submission and acceptance rate of articles written from scientists from these regions.     

Questionable papers in citation databases as an issue for literature review

In recent years, the academic world has been faced with much academic misconduct. Examples involve plagiarizing papers, manipulating data, and launching predatory or hijacked journals. The literature exposing these activities is growing exponentially, and so is the presentation of criteria or guidelines for counteracting the problem. Most of the research is focused on predatory or hijacked journal detection and providing suitable warnings. Overlooked in all this is the fact that papers published in these journals are questionable, but nevertheless show up in standard citation databases. We need some way to flag them so future researchers will be aware of their questionable nature and prevent their use in literature review.     

A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature

Background

The number of retracted scholarly articles has risen precipitously in recent years. Past surveys of the retracted literature each limited their scope to articles in PubMed, though many retracted articles are not indexed in PubMed. To understand the scope and characteristics of retracted articles across the full spectrum of scholarly disciplines, we surveyed 42 of the largest bibliographic databases for major scholarly fields and publisher websites to identify retracted articles. This study examines various trends among them.

Results

We found, 4,449 scholarly publications retracted from 1928–2011. Unlike Math, Physics, Engineering and Social Sciences, the percentages of retractions in Medicine, Life Science and Chemistry exceeded their percentages among Web of Science (WoS) records. Retractions due to alleged publishing misconduct (47%) outnumbered those due to alleged research misconduct (20%) or questionable data/interpretations (42%). This total exceeds 100% since multiple justifications were listed in some retraction notices. Retraction/WoS record ratios vary among author affiliation countries. Though widespread, only miniscule percentages of publications for individual years, countries, journals, or disciplines have been retracted. Fifteen prolific individuals accounted for more than half of all retractions due to alleged research misconduct, and strongly influenced all retraction characteristics. The number of articles retracted per year increased by a factor of 19.06 from 2001 to 2010, though excluding repeat offenders and adjusting for growth of the published literature decreases it to a factor of 11.36.

Conclusions

Retracted articles occur across the full spectrum of scholarly disciplines. Most retracted articles do not contain flawed data; and the authors of most retracted articles have not been accused of research misconduct. Despite recent increases, the proportion of published scholarly literature affected by retraction remains very small. Articles and editorials discussing retractions, or their relation to research integrity, should always consider individual cases in these broad contexts. However, better mechanisms are still needed for raising researchers’ awareness of the retracted literature in their field.     

GPB at 10

The arrival of 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics - GPB. According to our outline [1], we have been improving GPB with visible benchmarks and events. First, the numbers of submissions and published articles have both reached the highest in the history of GPB. Second, a special issue on microRNAs was successfully edited by our board members Tongbin Li and William Cho     

Recruitment Notice

Senior Managing Editor, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (JIPB) is a monthly plant biological journal that reports scientific iscoveries by using integrative genetic, chemical, cell and molecular biological approaches. As one of iley-Blackwell's leadingjournals, JIPB is available in over 7,800 libraries worldwide and indexed by 45 abases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, SCI, CA, BA and BIOSIS (www.jipb.net). We are looking for a nior Managing Editor to be fully in-charge of the Editorial Office, to work under the supervision of the hief ditor and the board members to promote the journal in the plant science community, to bridge the munication between the editorial board, the reviewers, the authors and the publisher. he ideal candidate hould be creative in increasing the journal’s visibility through organizing special issues, setting up a ser riendly public access system, and ensuring an efficient publication cycle. The annual salary range will be 100,000 RMB to 180,000 RMB, depending on the qualification. This position opens opens for pplication from 1 September, 2009, till the position is filled. Qualifications: 1. PhD degree in plant molecular biology-related area; 2. Over three-year-working experience in scientific publishing or three or more years research xperience in an English-speaking laboratory, with good publication record; 3. Experienced in writing, editing and marketing scientific journals. To apply, please send your application, including your CV and the names of three referee, to cmliu@ibcas.ac.cn.     

Recruitment Notice

Senior Managing Editor, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (JIPB) is a monthly plant biological journal that reports scientific discoveries by using integrative genetic, chemical, cell and molecular biological approaches. As one of Wiley-Blackwell's leadingjournals, JIPB is available in over 7,800 libraries worldwide and indexed by 45 databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, SCI, CA, BA and BIOSIS (www.jipb.net). We are looking for a Senior Managing Editor to be fully in-charge of the Editorial Office, to work under the supervision of the chief editor and the board members to promote the journal in the plant science community, to bridge the communication between the editorial board, the reviewers, the authors and the publisher. The ideal candidate should be creative in increasing the journal’s visibility through organizing special issues, setting up a user-friendly public access system, and ensuring an efficient publication cycle. The annual salary range will be 100,000 RMB to 180,000 RMB, depending on the qualification. This position opens opens for application from 1 September, 2009, till the position is filled. Qualifications: 1. PhD degree in plant molecular biology-related area; 2. Over three-year-working experience in scientific publishing or three or more years research experience in an English-speaking laboratory, with good publication record; 3. Experienced in writing, editing and marketing scientific journals. To apply, please send your application, including your CV and the names of three referee, to cmliu@ibcas.ac.cn.     

On Some Prospects of Research on Sense-Based Formations of the Personality

The editorial board of the journal Voprosy psikhologii [Problems of Psychology] organized a round-table discussion, in April 1988, on all the problems in restructuring [perestroika] psychological science.

The present issue publishes articles submitted to the editorial board on problems of perestroika in educational psychology, a discussion of problems in the methodology of psychological science, materials analyzing progressive pedagogical experience, and a selection of short talks given at sessions of the round-table organizing committee.     

Worldwide melatonin research: a bibliometric analysis of the published literature between 2015 and 2019

ABSTRACT

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the publications on melatonin research from the Scopus database during the period 2015–2019. Based on the keywords used, which are related to melatonin in the article title, the study retrieved 4411 documents for further analysis using various tools. We used Microsoft Excel to conduct the frequency analysis, VOSviewer for data visualization, and Harzing’s Publish or Perish for citation metrics and analysis. This study reports the results using standard bibliometric indicators such as the growth of publications, authorship patterns, collaboration, and prolific authors, country contribution, most active institutions, preferred journals, and top-cited articles. Based on our findings, there is a continuous growth of publications on melatonin research for 5 years since 2015. China was the largest contributor to melatonin research, followed by the United States. The Journal of Pineal Research published the most number of publications related to melatonin research. Our findings suggest that the role of melatonin in plant and food sciences, as well as in cancer, may in later years take over the clusters that earlier dominated melatonin research.     

Trends in HSPB5 research: a 36-year bibliometric analysis

HSPB5 (heat shock protein B5), also known as αB-crystallin, is one of the most widespread and populous of the ten human small heat shock proteins (sHsps). Over the past decades, extensive research has been conducted on HSPB5. However, few studies have statistically analyzed these publications. Herein, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to track the global research trend and current development status of HSPB5 research from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database between 1985 and 2020. Our results demonstrate that 1220 original articles cited 54,778 times in 391 scholarly journals were published. Visualization analyses reveal that the Journal of Biological Chemistry was the most influential journal with 85 articles. The USA dominated this field with 520 publications (42.62%), followed by Japan with 149 publications (12.21%), and Kato contributed the largest number of publications. Most related publications were published in journals focusing on biochemistry molecular biology, cell biology, neurosciences neurology, and ophthalmology. In addition, keyword co-occurrence analyses identify three predominant research topics: expression of HSPB5, chaperone studies for HSPB5, and pathological studies of HSPB5. This study provides valuable guidance for researchers and leads to collaborative opportunities between diverse research interests to be integrated for HSPB5 research.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12192-021-01220-6.     

Bibliometric analysis of global scientific research on carbapenem resistance (1986–2015)

Background

Antimicrobial resistance is a global public health challenge and carbapenem resistance, in particular, is considered an urgent global health threat. This study was carried out to give a bibliometric overview of literature on carbapenem resistance. In specific, number of publications, top productive countries and institutes, highly cited articles, citation analysis, co-authorships, international collaboration, top active authors, and journals publishing articles on carbapenem resistance were analyzed and discussed.

Methods

Specific keywords pertaining to carbapenem resistance were used in Scopus database. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of retrieved data were presented using appropriate bibliometric indicators and visualization maps.

Results

A total of 2617 journal articles were retrieved. The average number of citations per article was of 21.47. The growth of publications showed a dramatic increase from 2008 to 2015. Approximately 9 % of retrieved articles on carbapenem resistance were published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal. Retrieved articles were published by 102 different countries. The United States of America (USA) contributed most with 437 (16.70 %) articles followed by China with 257 (9.82 %) articles. When productivity was stratified by population size, Greece ranked first followed by France. Greece also ranked first when data were stratified by gross domestic product (GDP). Asian countries have lesser international collaboration compared with other countries in the top ten list. Five of top ten productive institutes were Europeans (France, the UK, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland) and two were Asians (China and South Korea). Other active institutes included an Israeli and a Brazilian institute. Four of the top ten cited articles were published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal and two were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Conclusion

There was a dramatic increase in number of publications on carbapenem resistance in the past few years. These publications were produced from different world regions including Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. International collaboration needs to be encouraged particularly for researchers in Asia. Molecular biology and epidemiology dominated the theme of the top ten cited articles on carbapenem resistance. This bibliometric study will hopefully help health policy makers in planning future research and allocating funds pertaining to carbapenem resistance.

     

Impact beyond the impact factor

The journal impact factor is an annually calculated number for each scientific journal, based on the average number of times its articles published in the two preceding years have been cited. It was originally devised as a tool for librarians and publishers to provide information about the citation performance of a journal as a whole, but over the last few decades it has increasingly been used to assess the quality of specific articles and the research performance of individual investigators, institutions, and countries. In addition to this clear abuse of the journal impact factor, several conceptual and technical issues limit its usability as a measure of journal reputation, especially when journals are compared across different fields. An author’s decision regarding the suitability of a scholarly journal for publication should, therefore, be based on the impact that this journal makes in the field of research, rather than on the journal impact factor.     

El duro peregrinaje de las revistas biomédicas españolas hacia la excelencia: ¿quién nos ayuda? Calidad,impacto y méritos de la investigación

Biomedical journals must adhere to strict standards of editorial quality. In a globalized academic scenario, biomedical journals must compete firstly to publish the most relevant original research and secondly to obtain the broadest possible visibility and the widest dissemination of their scientific contents. The cornerstone of the scientific process is still the peer-review system but additional quality criteria should be met. Recently access to medical information has been revolutionized by electronic editions.Bibliometric databases such as MEDLINE, the ISI Web of Science and Scopus offer comprehensive online information on medical literature. Classically, the prestige of biomedical journals has been measured by their impact factor but, recently, other indicators such as SCImago SJR or the Eigenfactor are emerging as alternative indices of a journal's quality. Assessing the scholarly impact of research and the merits of individual scientists remains a major challenge. Allocation of authorship credit also remains controversial.Furthermore, in our Kafkaesque world, we prefer to count rather than read the articles we judge. Quantitative publication metrics (research output) and citations analyses (scientific influence) are key determinants of the scientific success of individual investigators. However, academia is embracing new objective indicators (such as the “h” index) to evaluate scholarly merit. The present review discusses some editorial issues affecting biomedical journals, currently available bibliometric databases, bibliometric indices of journal quality and, finally, indicators of research performance and scientific success.