Looking back over 2001: news on <i>JAN</i>’s development

The past year has seen the publication twice monthly of 24 issues of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Volumes since January 2001 are now quarterly with six issues in each. The aim has been to present a more ‘reader friendly’ version of JAN with less density of papers in each issue and a changed style and format. The cover design for 2001 was modernized, the Aims and Scope redefined, and the Guidelines for Contributors re-written. Guidelines for Referees were re-written in line with the new Aims and Scope, and a policy for Author Care has been prepared. Structured abstracts for articles are now requested from authors as a matter of routine. All of these changes are now functional. During 2001 we have received more feedback and commentary, with correspondence and longer pieces appearing in JAN Forum. Waiting times for authors have been reduced, with an average of 12 months from submission to publication, and just four months from our acceptance of a paper to its appearance in print. As we have emphasized before, the waiting time is heavily dependent on authors returning their manuscripts promptly in response to referees’ and editors’ comments. The JAN acceptance rate remains between 38 and 40% of submitted manuscripts. The geographical distribution of submitted and accepted papers shows JAN’s increasingly international profile. Although it is too early to judge the total 2001 figures, from 1999 to July 2001 papers submitted from the United Kingdom (UK) represent a smaller proportion of the whole, whilst those from the Americas, Australasia, Scandinavia, and the rest of the world represent an increased proportion. In terms of JAN’s international distribution, the journal now goes into 85 countries worldwide. The impact of the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) on the number of articles submitted by British authors over a four- or five-year cycle can now be quantified. It is clear that authors with an interest in inclusion in their university’s RAE returns [see Editorial 35(5), 635–637] plan their timing of submissions very carefully in order to ensure publication well before the due date. As a result, manuscript submissions in the actual RAE submission years 1996 and 2000 fell by 11%, and 15%, respectively, compared with a much higher rate for the two preceding years. At the end of March 2001 the editorial functions were centralized at Blackwell Science in Oxford, when Dr Beverly Henry moved to Japan and Professor Andrea Baumann of McMaster University, Canada, became Editor for the Americas. Professor Christine Webb also became Editor at the same time. Claire Simmons, Editorial Assistant in Oxford maintains an oversight of manuscript reception and despatch to respective editors, referees and authors. The database of referees was integrated during May to include reviewers from the Americas. This extensive resource is now truly global and manuscripts are sent for review to referees in a range of different countries. Specialist health services research statisticians also see all papers with statistical content. We have continued to use the nine-category system for classifying papers introduced in the July issue 1998. Feedback from readers indicates that this is useful in finding one’s way around such an eclectic journal. Forty-three per cent of articles were published during 2001 under the category heading Issues and innovations in nursing practice. In terms of quality assurance indicators, we are pleased to report an improvement in the Impact Factor for the year 2000 (Table 1), although Drs Traynor and Rafferty’s editorial [‘Bibliometrics and the culture of measurement’, 36(2), 167–168] should be borne in mind when interpreting this figure. For the future, the editorial and production teams will continue in conjunction with members of the Editorial Board to assess JAN’s impact and contribution to advanced nursing and health care, and to make adjustments to the journal as necessary. Following decisions at this year’s Editorial Board meetings in June and September, the following editorial changes will be introduced during 2002. Case studies of potentially identifiable patients will not be accepted unless written consent to publication has been obtained. This will result in many authors having to anonymize substantially the reporting of their research findings with individuals. Authors will also be asked to state the contribution that they have made to a particular paper; and, apart from qualifications entered onto a professional register database, diploma and certificate level qualifications will not be published following an author’s name. We continue to work to make JAN more accessible, meaningful, scholarly, and applicable to practice. Feedback on this, or any other aspect of the journal is always welcomed, and acted upon.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.