Updates from the Journal—Word Limits, Open Access and Publication Metrics

Abstract

After 6 months of Open Access/On‐line Only publication of the Journal, it is timely to report on our experience and a number of changes to some of the Journal's publication practices. The move to Open Access/On‐line Only has resulted in a marked increase in electronic readership of the Journal. Full‐text downloads increased 59% Jan–Apr 2015 compared to the same period in 2014 (214,815 to 342,140) and 85% compared to the last 4 months of 2014. Although some of this increase is likely attributable to the absence of a paper copy of the Journal, the overall increase is too large to be accounted for solely by this change. We believe that the increased number of downloads reflects wider readership of the Journal now that it is Open Access. We look forward to reporting further on readership of the Journal, including both geographic and regional readership, at the end of the year. To achieve our mission, we must publish high quality articles for our readers, and we are pleased that the Journal's submission rate for the first 6 months of 2015, if continued in the second half of the year, will result in the highest number of manuscripts ever submitted to the Journal in a calendar year. We continue to receive high quality manuscripts on a variety of topics from around the world (32 countries in 2014). The 2014 journal ranking metrics from ISI and Scopus provide insight into who in the scientific community cites the Journal whereas the number of downloads (mentioned above) is a reflection of who reads the journal. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) provides simple metrics on the number of citations in 2014 to articles published in the Journal in 2012 and 2013, whereas SCOPUS provides a more nuanced and refined series of metrics around Journal impact. The Journal continues its strong position among veterinary journals, ranking 17 of 133 journals in the veterinary sciences category with an ISI impact factor of 1.879 in 2014 and third among journals in Scopus Journal Rankings with a score of 1.126. Notably, ISI metrics show the Journal to be the top‐ranked journal published by a specialty college, the third‐ranked clinical journal, and 10th‐ranked large (ie, publishing > 100 articles per year) veterinary journal. We are grateful for the advice and continuing hard work of members of the editorial board including continuing Associate Editors Drs. Joe Bartges (small animal medicine—nephrology), Andy Durham (large animal medicine—equine), Tim Fan (oncology), Kate Hill (small animal medicine and endocrinology), Helio de Morais (small animal medicine), Geof Smith (large animal medicine—food and fiber), Colin Schwarzwald (large animal medicine—equine and cardiology), Simon Swift (cardiology and ECVIM‐CA representative), Andrea Tipold (neurology), and Mike Willard (small animal medicine—gastrointestinal). Drs. Peter Constable and George Moore are the consulting editors for experimental design and statistics. Drs. Ray Geor (large animal medicine—equine), Amy Grooters (small animal medicine—infectious disease), and Stephanie Smith (hematology, coagulation and experimental design) completed their terms in June, 2015. Dr Julia Felippe (Cornell University) replaced Dr Geor and Dr Jane Sykes (University of California‐Davis) replaced Dr Grooters as Associate Editors. We currently have four editors who are based in Europe (Drs Durham, Schwarzwald, and Tipold) or who represent the ECVIM‐CA (Swift). Prospective authors should take note that the Journal has changed its limits on word counts for articles such that all word limits now include only the body of the article (introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion) and exclude references, tables, and figure legends. The Journal continues to provide for publication of supplementary material. These changes in word count are effective immediately and are as follows: Review Article—7,500 words, Standard Article—5,000 words, Brief Communication—2,500 words, and letter to the editor—1,200 words. Note that Brief Communications still are published, but not identified as such in the Journal.