Marching ahead...

A year has elapsed since the status of Indian Journal of Ophthalmology (IJO) was presented in its editorial.[1] As I sit back again to take stock of the situation, I feel happy and satisfied with the progress of IJO.

The increase in frequency of publication from four to six issues per year, which was started in 2007, was comfortably maintained in 2008, as well. This proves beyond doubt that the publication of six issues of IJO in a year is easily sustainable. We could accommodate a total of 166 articles for publication in the year 2008. The percentage of accepted articles stands at 34% which has remained unchanged. This indicates that there is no extra pressure to increase the acceptance rate to fill in the extra space created by the increase in frequency of the publication. Fortunately, the extra cost of the same has been well absorbed by our sound financial standing.

Uploading the full text of old issues has made further progress. Only eight issues are yet to be uploaded on our website due to nonavailability of these issues (1985/Vol.33/Iss.6, 1986/Vol.34/Iss2/3/4/5/6, and 1987/Vol.35/Iss.5/6) in the editorial office. If any member/reader is in possession of these issues, please contact the editorial office and help us complete the archives of the IJO.

Many new features have been added on our website www.ijo.in. The most noticeable of these is the translation of the full text to more than 40 foreign languages at the press of a button. This has increased the reach of the articles published in IJO. The number of visitors to this site from all over the word has gone up to 2500 per day [Figure 1].

Figure 1

World map depicting places from where people are accessing the website

IJO has been included in the PubMed Central, which is the open access electronic National Medical Library, USA. This will further increase the already rising trend of citations of the articles published in the IJO [Figure 2].

Figure 2

Citations received for the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology over last eight years

The quality of any journal is dependent on the quality and involvement of its reviewers. The total number of reviewers has increased markedly with an increase in international reviewers as well [Figure 3]. The performance statistics of our reviewers show improvement on a year-to-year basis.

Figure 3

Year-wise break up of IJO reviewers

A total of 482 manuscripts were submitted in the year 2008 [Figure 4]. Up to the year 2008, we had 1419 researchers who registered themselves as authors in the IJO, and out of these, 334 have submitted their manuscripts with 30 of them having submitted more than one article. Out of the total submissions, 158 manuscripts have been submitted from out of India (33%). This figure was 27% in 2007. The percentage of original articles from out of India was 53% in 2008 as against 36% in 2007.

Figure 4

Yearwise submission of manuscripts to IJO

The manuscript submission and processing is being effectively managed online at www.journalonweb.com/ijo, which is clearly reflected in the constant improvement of the statistics related to the manuscript handling as shown in Table 1. The average time taken by a reviewer has come down to 18.45 days in 2008 from 40.01 days in 2005. Similarly, the time taken by the editor for decision/revision has been reduced to 7.20 days in 2008 from 48.25 days in 2005.

Table 1

Turnover time for manuscript processing

	2005	2006	2007	2008
Time to send to reviewers	12.93	10.12	2.01	2.34
Time taken by reviewers	40.01	41.83	31.80	18.40
Time taken by editor for decision revision	48.25	15.97	10.33	7.28
Days until paper is under review revision	101.35	67.92	44.14	28.02
Days from first decision until revision arrives	30.19	19.63	17.78	19.74
Days for editor to take decision	25.29	12.69	7.98	3.81
Articles re- reviewed	88	101	50	276
Days for re- review by reviewers	23.35	21.41	12.19	10.12
Days to send revision decision by editors	25.29	12.69	7.98	3.81
Days from revision receipt to revision decision	73.93	46.79	28.15	17.74
Accepted papers
Days from first submission to acceptance	253.82	174.05	85.08	108.09
Days from acceptance to publication	200.09	172.05	125.86	125.47

The initiative taken by the editorial office for conducting the Research Methodology Workshop has been continued in the year 2008 as well. The fourth workshop was successfully conducted at Bangalore in November 2008.

To facilitate research and scientific writing in the country, the editorial office of the IJO has started an innovative service. The editorial office has decided to provide the full text of any paid article to the All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS) members. Any needy researcher/author can write to the editorial office for further details. The full text obtained may be used only for personal research and study and not for any commercial purpose.

The overwhelming response of the authors and reviewers coupled with the smooth functioning of the editorial office, will see a steep rise in the impact factor of IJO which has been included in the “Science Citation Index Expanded” since January 2008.[2] Subsequent inclusion in the PubMed Central will help in the rapid increase in the value of the articles published in the IJO.[3]