The Brazilian radiological community is quite pleased with the indexing of our journal,
Radiologia Brasileira, at PubMed Central. Finally, the journal articles are
listed in the PubMed databank, the greatest worldwide reference source in medical
literature, thus gaining international visibility. Researchers in the field of Radiology,
especially those participating in stricto sensu post-graduation programs
evaluated by the Brazilian Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES), will
benefit greatly from such indexing, not only with the evaluation of the programs which they
belong to, but also with their personal evaluation as they apply for research scholarships
to funding bodies(. This progressive
evolution of the journal has been discussed in several editorials over the last
years(.However, there is a price to be paid for this. The greater the acquired visibility and
relevance, the greater is the researchers' interest in publishing in this journal, the
greater is the submission of articles to be evaluated and the greater is the significance
of a qualified reviewers board as well as their willingness to do this job.The reviewers' work is inglorious, anonymous and is done for free; it goes unnoticed,
except by the journal management board, but it is fundamental for maintaining the integrity
and exemption in the decision making by both the Editorial Board and the Editor. Despite
the considerable number of members in our reviewers' board, most of them generously
collaborating whenever requested to do so, the journal secretariat frequently faces serious
difficulties in maintaining an appropriate and timely review workflow, particularly because
of a constant and systematic refusal by some of our colleagues to do this task.This is not a problem unique to our journal. Great international journals have been facing
the same difficulties and are currently discussing possible ways to reward the
participation of qualified reviewers. Financial compensation - particularly in the case of
paid publications -, free access period to scientific databases such as Elsevier, Sage,
etc., and even radical changes in the current articles review system, have been discussed
as possible ways to encourage reviewers participation(. However, so far no
satisfactory solution was found.Another problem observed in our new data management platform for articles review
(ScholarOne) is that the whole system is written in English which eventually may represent
a problem for some reviewers. The journal suggests that the review process be developed in
Portuguese, except in cases of foreign articles (which constitute exceptions, and reviewers
would be noticed about that), so the process would become easier for reviewers, authors and
also the editors themselves.Finally, I appeal to all those who wish to see the development of our journal: whenever
possible, accept doing article reviews, and do it timely, on the requested term. This would
be an effective way to collaborate with the growth of our journal.