The new era of journal of neurogastroenterology and motility: what should be prepared to be a top journal in the category of gastroenterology and hepatology.

Congratulations on Becoming a Science Citation Index Expanded Journal

When I received an email from Dr. Nayoung Kim, the Deputy Editor on September 14, 2013 that Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (JNM) was selected as SCIE journal and the citation and reference data would be included in the Web of Science from volume 17, number 1, 2011, I was very delighted. It was 2009 when I began to consult her on the editing and publishing of JNM. During 4 years, Dr. Kim has always been an attentive listener. When JNM's language was changed into English from the January issue of 2010, the first task was to add JNM into the PubMed Central (PMC). Participation to PMC meant to be indexed in PubMed since citation data is transferred from PMC to PubMed according to publisher's request. The starting point of JNM to be an international journal was when it was indexed in PubMed through PMC in June 9, 2010.

I also applaud the publisher, The Korean Society of Neurogastroenterology and motility since it has published the journal in cooperation with other academic societies of the same field from Thai, Japan, India, China, SEAGMA (Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) and ANMA (Asian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association). It is the JNM publisher's leadership to work together with neighbor countries' societies. The publisher hired full time manuscript editor from 2010 so that JNM could be published without an error. Number of total citation has soared dramatically: 17 in 2010, 74 in 2011, 181 in 2012 and 164 from January to September 2013. The 2012 impact factor manually calculated from Web of Science was 2.078 that corresponded to 2012 JCR ranking 44/74 (59.5%) in the category of gastroenterology and hepatology. I believe that these all were possible due to the clinical and research competence of members of participating societies, open access policy by the publisher and editorial board members' devotion.

What Should Be Prepared After Being Indexed in Web of Science?

Market of scholarly journals has been prevailed by journals published by commercial international printing companies: 52.2% of scholarly journals are produced by top 5 commercial printing companies; 45.6% of all papers, by top 5 commercial companies; and 41.8% of all citations are received by top 5 commercial companies from Web of Science.1 To survive and compete with commercial journals, editor of the society journal should study more laboriously. He or she should be able to understand and to improve all process of editing and publishing as follows: invitation and arrangement of editorial board members, masthead description including aims and scope, instructions to authors, publication ethics, cover page design, lay-out style of text, manuscript management system, review process, training of reviewers, budget including article processing charge, eISSN, PMC XML or Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) XML, PubReader, CrossRef XML for digital object identifier (DOI), CrossCheck, CrossMark, FundRef, Open Researcher & Contributor ID (ORCID), QR code, journal homepage, journal app for smart phone and smart pad, multimedia data including audio recording or video presentation, and epub ahead of print. Commercial printing companies have competitiveness especially in advanced information technology and international standards as they are leading those standards. Nowadays, CrossRef's projects such as CrossMark and FunRef are new standard of scholarly journals. ORCID is also another standard for uniqueness of researcher. Editor should be able to realize all new standards and information technologies for the better exposure of the journal. Of course, more important task is to select the best quality manuscripts; however, it requires long period to upgrade the journal brand to receive those manuscripts. I believe that high quality style and format of journal can get high quality manuscripts in short period.

ORCID, CrossMark and FundRef

ORCID was launched in October 16, 2012. Up to September 3, 2013, 250,000 researchers have registered to ORCID. It is the permanent digital identifier to differentiate individual researcher form other researchers. From ORCID, it is possible to know specific researcher's activities including publications. ORCID is governed by 14 members of Board of Directors, from the scholarly societies or companies.2 A journal from Korea began to provide the ORCID service from June 20, 2013.3 To apply ORCID to journal, the authors' ORCID should be provided during online submission process or in the text.

CrossMark has been managed by CrossRef and it was launched in April 27, 2012. It is for the mark of the most recent version of paper. Since there are corrigendum, erratum and retraction in online version of the paper, it is necessary to verify the last version. It also provides invaluable publishing information such as publication history, location of supplement, access policy, information of funding agencies and peer review process.4 Out of scholarly journals from Korea, one journal began to provide CrossMark first from August 14, 2013 (Fig. 1).5

Figure 1

Screenshot of CrossMark Status describing title of document, title of publication, published date, CrossRef digital object identifier (DOI) and CrossMark Policy published in Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions. Adapted from Newton et al.5

FundRef is a funder identification service that identified funding agencies managed by CrossRef. FundRef provides the unique ID for each funding agencies. The publisher should deposit FundRef information to CrossRef. This service was launched May 2013. Publishers that deposit FundRef information can be seen in the FundRef deposit statistics.6 In Korea, one journal began to provide FundRef information first from August 14, 2013 (Fig. 2).7 The major funding agencies from Korea are going to be registered to FundRef registry on early October. After that, editor is able to request FundRef ID of funding agencies to authors.

Figure 2

Screenshot of CrossMark Record describing FundRef information and publication history published in Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions. Adapted from Nagle et al.7

ePub Ahead of Print

A term "epub ahead of print" is used when citation XML is dispatched to PubMed without determining volume, issue and page, after exposing accepted article to journal homepage.8 Its use is for the rapid circulation after review to satisfy authors' request and to provide invaluable information for patient care. Therefore, "epub ahead of print" is not optional but mandatory policy. PMC journal in open access subset can be candidate of "epub ahead of print." After final publication of paper, replacement file should be submitted again. DOI should not be changed in replacement file.

Multimedia Data Including Audio Recording or Video Presentation and App for Smart Device

Recently, the audio recording or video presentation is a new trend of scholarly journal. It can get more attention for a short time. Also, much amount of clinical data is in multimedia form; therefore, the video presentation of the image cases or case reports should be more stressed. Audio recording of the abstract or full text is another choice of journal exposure.9 Journal app for smart phone and smart pad app can be made easily if editor wants it. Example can be seen from: http://jeehp.org./

Scholarly Journal 10 Years After

It can be estimated as followings: increased number of online only journal, audio or video journals, open access journal and standards suggested by CrossRef; journal app as common tool; increased needs of manuscript editing; promotion of journals from East Asia; and more common use of device-independent viewer program such as PubReader. Although it is very difficult to guess the future of scholarly journal, editor should be able to adapt to authors and readers of digital era.