© 2006 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
Editorial |
Message from the Editor-in-Chief
At the start of the year 2006, I am pleased to have this opportunity to recognize the Editorial Board, Reviewers, Associate Editors, Editors and JJCO Publication Staff for their diligence and dedication to the journal. As we start this new year, I would like to reflect on our achievements over the past year, and introduce some changes in the new year.
THE yEAR 2005
The year 2005 was a year of growth for JJCO. The journal received 353 submissions in 2005 as of November 11 and expects a total number of 380–400 submissions at the end of December. This number represents an increase of 15% over the number of submissions received in 2004. Not only were the number of submissions increased, manuscripts were submitted from a variety of countries, mainly from Japan, Korea and Taiwan, indicating the growth of JJCO as a major journal of oncology in Asia.
The journal has also started the ‘Advance Access’ program where author proofs are published before formal issue publication. This has resulted in a significant decrease in article publication time, and authors may now expect accepted papers to be published online in approximately 4–6 weeks. I encourage authors to submit papers they would like to see quickly published, and our audience to visit our Advance Access articles on the web.
In addition, to increase the recognition of the journal to oncology-related researchers in Japan and to widely disseminate the publishing activities of the journal to the lay person, we published a special issue including summaries of all the papers published in 2004 with Japanese translation. I would like to thank Dr Yoichi Takaue who was in charge of this project and has contributed much to its launch. We envisage that this project will become an annual series.
We also encountered several cases which lead us to review our Editorial policies concerning author's responsibilities. One paper was found to be a duplicate publication where the exact article was published in another journal as well as JJCO (1). In another case, a copyrighted scale was found to be edited and used without permission (2). To ensure the quality and integrity of the journal, the Editors have continued discussion on these policies, and will introduce some changes in the year 2006.
THE YEAR 2006
JJCO saw a growth in size in 2005, and in order to achieve further growth in quality, JJCO will introduce several new policies this year. First, authors will need to complete the JJCO Authors' Responsibility and Conflict of Interest Form upon submission. In the form, authors will be asked to confirm that they have not published previously or have not submitted the same material elsewhere, confirm whether they have complied with ethical standards and several other items. The authors should also report any competing interests. I ask that not only the corresponding author, but all authors to sign the document. This is something that has been implicitly expected but by making this a formal step in submission, I hope that it will remind authors and editors of the importance of integrity in scientific research. The new instructions to authors (http://jjco.org/HowtoSubmitYourPaper/onlineinstruction.html) will give details on this form.
Second, change in Editorial structure will be introduced in order to smoothly manage the increasing number of submissions, and diversity of research fields. Dr Takeshi Sano, Executive Editor, will be relieved from his heavy burden by inviting Dr Hideo Kunitoh and Dr Teruhiko Yoshida to share some of his responsibilities in checking the quality of submitted papers. The three of them are appointed as Editors. Dr Kunitoh will be in charge of papers in the field of medical oncology, Dr Yoshida in basic research, and Dr Sano will continue to check papers submitted in the field of surgical oncology and case reports. Furthermore, the number of Editorial Board members is increased from 140 to 345 in order to cover the increasing diversity of research fields. I also hope that the increase of board members will mitigate the growing work load on the members who have diligently worked for the journal. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the three new Editors and the 345 board members for their contribution to improving the journal.
At the same time, Manuscript Central, our online submission and reviewing system will be upgraded starting January 2006. JJCO first launched its online submission and review system in 2003. This system allows authors to submit their manuscripts electronically from any computer with Internet access. The electronic manuscript system reduces the time from submission to first decision and eliminates costs of copying and mailing manuscripts for both the authors and the journal. As a result, the number of submissions has dramatically increased by >50%, and as mentioned above, resulted in the increase of international authors. The upgrade will introduce a more user-friendly interface which will reduce the number of unnecessary steps, but increase automatic checks which will help reduce errors. I hope that this new enhancement will now increase usability for authors and reviewers.
I am especially grateful to Oxford University Press as our publisher and I would like to express deep appreciation to the Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research for their contributions and continuous support to publish the journal. Without their support for the journal, we could not have achieved these goals. Last but not least, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the authors and audience of this journal for their continuous support.
References
1 Kakizoe T. Duplicate submission and publication must be avoided. Jpn J Clin Oncol 35:495.
2 Kakizoe T. Message from the Editor: intellectual property rights in scientific publication. Jpn J Clin Oncol 35:571.
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