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Editorial |
Nineteen ninety-seven was my fourth year as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, and one of great transition. I moved to Miami Children’s Hospital to take on the role of Chief of Staff and with it the Journal made its move South to a warmer climate. The move has been uneventful for the Journal and we have continued to publish it in a timely manner without interruption.
The managment staff of the Journal also experienced a transformation. The Editorial Assistant, Ms. Gladys Greenberg, also moved to Miami as the Director of Operations for the Chief of Staff. She provided stability for the move of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition to Miami Children’s Hospital. Ms. Melanie Smith’s role as Managing Editor concluded, as she was not able to relocate her family. She remained as Technical Editor, a position she held when she first joined our staff four years ago, until the end of 1997, which provided continuity to the Journal. The Journal owes her a great deal of thanks for the many years of service. Fortunately for the JACN, Miami Children’s Hospital has had an Editorial Office for the publication of International Pediatrics. Ms. Sandy Allen, who has been working for the Miami Children’s Hospital Editorial Office, assumed the responsibilities as Managing Editor for the JACN in April 1997.
Since the move of the Editorial Office to Miami, the Journal’s average turnaround time from submission of a paper to a decision letter has decreased significantly. The average turnaround time from submission to decision since April 1997 has been 7.1 ± 1.2 weeks compared to 8.8 ± 2.1 weeks from October 1996 through March 1997 when the editorial office was located in Brooklyn, New York. As before, the great majority of turnaround time is spent in a thorough review process with our Editorial Board and other reviewers.
During the last year, the Journal experienced a large increase in the number of papers received. One hundred thirty-nine scientific manuscripts were submitted compared to 127 submitted during the same period a year ago. This has allowed us to select the highest quality of papers for publication and reject a greater number of manuscripts, 48 compared to 40 last year.
The August 1997 issue contained a supplement entitled, "Diet and Gene Interactions" edited by Dr. Gregory Miller and Ms. Susan Groziak. The December issue of the journal contained exclusively a series of papers dealing with the subject of dietary guidelines with emphasis on the nutritional intake of fat and cholesterol. The JACN also initiated a series of review papers on insulin resistance. The first two papers on this subject were published in the October 1997 issue of the Journal. The current February 1998 issue contains two more reviews on this subject and more will be forthcoming, which reflect the rapid growth of this field.
The Journal also saw the fruition of an idea brought forth at the 1996 ACN meeting in San Francisco. Richardson Labs established a $5,000 prize for the best paper published in the Journal. With criteria established by a Richardson Labs Award Committee, composed of Drs. John Anderson, Margaret Flynn, Bernard Hennig, Winston Koo, Fima Lifshitz, Ananda Prasad, and H.G. Preuss, the paper "Evaluation of Different Effects of Carbohydrate and Fat Intake on Weight Gain, Serum IGF-1 and Erythrocyte NA+K+ATPase Activity in Suboptimal Nutrition in Rats," by O. Tarim, et al (Volume 16(2), 1997) received the first place award. Two other papers, "Effect of a Two Year Supplementation with Low Doses of Antioxidant Vitamins and Minerals in Elderly Subjects on Levels of Nutrients and on Antioxidant Defense Parameters," by F. Girodon, et al (Volume 16(4), 1997) and "Lack of Toxicity of Chromium Chloride and Chromium Picolinate in Rats," by R.A. Anderson, et al (Volume 16(3), 1997), received honorable mention. The support of the Richardson Labs will continue to foster and stimulate submission of original papers to the Journal.
We should all be very proud that the recognition and impact of the JACN has greatly improved in the last 5 years. When I took over the editorship, the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) credited the journal with 486 citations with an impact factor of 0.85. Since then, we have had constant improvement with an increase in performance every year. The latest ISI report in December 1997 credits JACN with 844 citations and an impact factor of 1.226. We are now among the top nutrition journals in the world.
As I look at the future of the Journal, I am optimistic. We provide a valuable service to the nutrition community and we are an important source of scientific clinical nutrition information. Having something to publish is always more important than wanting to be published. Please continue to send your best scientific contributions to JACN so we can continue to further the science of nutrition for the benefit of patients.
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