ULTRASONOGRAPHY: changes in submission and publication patterns 1 year after being listed in SCIE.

One year has passed since Ultrasonography was listed in SCIE [1]. The patterns of submissions to Ultrasonography have changed significantly since the announcement in September 2019 that the journal had been indexed in SCIE. When comparing the 12-month period from October 2018 to September 2019 to the 12-month period from October 2019 to September 2020, the total number of submissions has tripled. International submissions have doubled and domestic submissions have quintupled, with a particularly notable increase in submissions of domestic original articles (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Changes in the number and pattern of annual submissions to Ultrasonography after being indexed in SCIE.

International submissions doubled (from 52 to 107) and domestic submissions quintupled (from 18 to 99); the increase in submissions of domestic original articles was particularly noteworthy (from 15 to 78).

In 2014, the editorial system was changed to English-only and global-standard open access was introduced; since then, Ultrasonography has been listed in PubMed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science, all of which furnish evidence of the success of the journal's internationalization [2]. In this situation, the remarkable increase in domestic submissions may seem ironic. However, this trend can be interpreted as indicating that excellent domestic research that had been published overseas when our journal was limited to the status of a domestic journal is now returning, in line with the advanced international status of the journal. Of course, international submissions have also increased, but the rate of increase has been relatively low, and it is questionable whether the quality of submitted papers has improved. In addition, as the total number of submitted papers has increased, the review process has become stricter to resolve the gap between the number of submissions and the number of accepted papers. Naturally, the final acceptance rate has decreased by about 50% compared to the period 1 year earlier. Nevertheless, in order to process the gradually increasing list of "ahead-of-print" articles on the journal homepage (https://e-ultrasonography.org), we will need to increase the number of articles in upcoming issues. Starting in 2021, each issue will contain at least 15 reviews and original articles.

The first issue of 2021 contains a total of six reviews and nine original articles. As has been noted, increasing the total number of publications tends to reduce the journal’s impact factor in the short term [2,3]. In this regard, we will need to keep an eye on current hot topics so that our journal will have a wider readership and receive more citations [3]. To this end, Professor Seong Ho Park, an expert in artificial intelligence, was invited to serve as a guest editor, and a special feature on artificial intelligence in the field of clinical ultrasonography, which is currently a highly relevant topic, was prepared for the first and second issues of 2021 [4]. I believe that this special feature will provide a comprehensive overview of the technical aspects of the introduction of artificial intelligence for ultrasonography, the status and directions of development of the clinical applications of artificial intelligence, and its limitations and difficulties. I hope readers will enjoy this informative content.