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EDITORIAL |
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Year : 2019 | Volume
: 67
| Issue : 1 | Page : 1-2 |
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Indian Journal of Ophthalmology – On the right path
Santosh G Honavar
Editor, Indian Journal of Ophthalmology Editorial Office: Centre for Sight, Road No 2, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500 034, Telangana, India
Date of Web Publication | 21-Dec-2018 |
Correspondence Address: Dr. Santosh G Honavar Editor, Indian Journal of Ophthalmology Editorial Office: Centre for Sight, Road No 2, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500 034, Telangana India
Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/ijo.IJO_2074_18
How to cite this article: Honavar SG. Indian Journal of Ophthalmology – On the right path. Indian J Ophthalmol 2019;67:1-2 |
Wish you a happy, healthy and a productive New Year 2019! January is the beginning of a new volume of IJO – volume 67. It is also the time of the year to glance back for a moment and look at the path of progress that we have traversed on and then look ahead toward our goals for the new year with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Our dream was to make IJO bigger, brighter, and better, to represent the rising academic aspirations of Indian ophthalmologists and be an integral part of the beautifully unfolding growth story of Indian ophthalmology, all this, in synchrony with current global technologies and trends. The members of our editorial board have been incessantly working on the quality of the scientific content; timely, objective, and dispassionate review process; and punctuality in every aspect of the publication pipeline of the journal to bring about the desired changes.
At the outset, manuscript categories were redefined, and standardized checklists were introduced to help the authors to optimally format their manuscripts and the reviewers to be objective in their comments. The mix of manuscripts was engineered to hit the sweet spot – an optimal combination of deep expert reviews, clinically oriented original research articles, exciting translational concepts, well-illustrated case reports, eye-catching photo essays, and vivid images, encompassing each subspecialty of ophthalmology and something engaging for everyone. Special issues were designed to comprehensively cover recent advances. Cataract Special Issue in December 2017 and Retina Special Issue in December 2018 brought together well-curated articles by international authorities and were immensely liked by the readers. Encouraged by this response, we have special issues on “Pediatric Retina,” “Neuroophthalmology,” and “Ocular Surface” lined up for you. IJO publication timeline is on track now – table of contents and the soft copy of the journal are sent out by the third week of the previous month and the print version is shipped out by the first week of every month.
One of the new features is the “IJO Living Legends Series.” The objective of this series is to chronicle the highly inspiring lives and times of ophthalmologists who have brought about paradigm changes in the specialty, and share their life's message succinctly with the readers. We fondly hope that the restless young ophthalmologists may get duly inspired, imbibe some of the values that the legends were grounded to, get charged with their pervasive positive spirit and inexhaustible energy, and set their paths to follow the footsteps of the legends.
It appears that we were able to enthuse the authors to seriously consider IJO for their submissions. The total number of submissions (over the 2016 baseline) increased by about 50% to 1200 in 2017 and by 250% this year to touch 2000 in the first week of December 2018 already! Despite the rising numbers, we are keeping our heads cool and hands busy and are sticking to our promised timeline of first decision in about 6 weeks – thanks to energetic assistant editors, supportive section editors, workaholic associate editor, and highly committed and self-motivated reviewers. Team IJO is now well oiled and is gearing up to sail smoother and scale higher. We are in the process of revitalizing the editorial board by enlisting a few new assistant editors starting this month; you would be happy to see them in action soon.
IJO, we believe, is certainly making a positive impact on the way Indian ophthalmology is practiced. Apart from the print run of about 20,000 copies to reach every member of All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS), it is the free online access that opens the window to the world. Online hits of IJO have touched an unprecedented high of 140,000 this month – roughly 3.5 hits every minute! You may be proud to know that IJO is among the bouquet of journals that is offered by the American Academy of Ophthalmology on its global ONE network.
One of the objective assessments of a journal's academic relevance is the impact factor, which scaled up to 0.961 this year. Although we are bound by the needs of our authors and readership to include several case reports, photo essays, and ophthalmic images, which increase the denominator for the calculation of the impact factor and potentially drive it down, we are working hard to further improve the impact factor by concentrating on the quality and uniqueness of the articles to make IJO publications eminently citable.
AIOS leadership has been extremely supportive during the process of evolution of IJO – it is their collective wisdom that we thrive on, and it is their vision that team IJO translates into action month after month. On behalf of AIOS leadership and team IJO, I thank you all for your constant support and encouragement. As usual, we would love to receive your feedback at editorjournal@aios.org.
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