- Email: [email protected]
Changing Times in Cardiovascular Publications: A Commentary
COMMENTARY
Changing Times in Cardiovascular Publications: A Commentary In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the co-authors of this manuscript were in the early stages of their medical residency and cardiology fellowship training and there were only 4 US-based cardiovascular journals published in that era (Circulation, Circulation Research, American Heart Journal, and American Journal of Cardiology), and 6 high-quality US-based general medical/scientific journals that frequently published cardiovascular-related articles (New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Science, American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and American Journal of Medicine) (Table). At that time it was feasible to read and keep up with the important cardiovascular literature. During the subsequent 60 years there has been a rapid advance in diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular medicine, including antihypertensive therapy, thrombolytic therapy, echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, antilipid medications, percutaneous dilatation and stenting of acute and chronic obstructive coronary lesions, coronary bypass graft surgery, implantable cardiac defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, ablation of arrhythmogenic substrate, and human geneticseto highlight some of the important contributions to patient care. During this same period of time there was augmented National Institutes of Health and corporate funding for basic and clinical research. Currently, there are 25 cardiovascular-related journals, mostly published on a monthly basis (Table), plus many hundreds of online, Web-based, open-access journals and articles. It is now impossible to keep abreast of the published literature even in one’s area of special interest and expertise. There are several ways of evaluating the quality of currently published cardiovascular journals and articles. The journals published by a recognized professional society (eg, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Physiological Society, and Heart Rhythm Society) bear a stamp of approval from each society Funding: None. Conflict of Interest: None for both authors. Authorship: Both authors had access to the data and a role in writing the manuscript. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Arthur J. Moss, MD, Heart Research Follow-up Program, Box 653, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642. E-mail address: [email protected] 0002-9343/$ -see front matter Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2016.06.052
with multiple expert peer reviewers of each submitted article. Several of these journals have been expanded by the recent addition of cardiovascular sub-journals: 5 by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and 6 by Circulation (Table). These ancillary sub-journals were introduced because the parent journals reviewed more quality manuscripts than they could publish. Some non-societysponsored journals are of high quality. The question is how does one evaluate the quality of the cardiovascular journals and the published articles in these journals? A relatively quantitative, well-appreciated measure of journal quality was developed by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute of Scientific Information, with his introduction of the Impact Factor beginning in 1972.1 As one can see in the Table, journals range from the highest impact factor value of 55.873 to journals with impact factors < 2.0. The impact factor of a journal is the average number of citations received per paper published in that journal during a 2-year period. The impact factor has its limitations, and it has been misused, with some journals publishing a large number of review articles that are frequently cited more than research reports. Editorials that reference published articles in the same journal can also increase the impact factor of a journal. In 2007 the European Association of Science Editors issued an official statement recommending “that journal impact factors are used only—and cautiously—for measuring and comparing the influence of entire journals, but not for the assessment of single papers, and certainly not for the assessment of researchers or research programs either directly or as a surrogate.”2 Overall, the impact factor has been helpful in roughly prioritizing the relative quality of the spectrum of published medical journals. There is a large number of online, low-quality, openaccess cardiovascular-related journals, and the sources of these publications have been referred to as “predatory sites.”3 Many of these journals do not have an impact factor, and in those that do, the impact factor is usually in the very low range. As of March 2015, the Directory of Open Access Journals database contained records for 10,000 online, open-access journals.4 Approximately 4 new online, openaccess journals were added to the database each day in 2012, with larger daily numbers added in subsequent years.
2
The American Journal of Medicine, Vol -, No -,
Table
-
2016
United States-Based Journals That Publish Cardiovascular Articles
Journal (Society Sponsor) A. Established, high-quality general medical/scientific journals that frequently publish cardiovascular articles New England Journal of Medicine (Massachusetts Medical Society) Journal of the American Medical Association (American Medical Association [AMA]) JAMA-Cardiology Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS]) American Journal of Physiology (American Physiological Society [APS] AJP- Heart and Circulatory Physiology Journal of Clinical Investigation (American Society for Clinical Investigation [ASCI]) American Journal of Medicine (Alliance of Academic Internal Medicine) B. Cardiovascular journals sponsored by a society Journal of the American College of Cardiology [JACC] (America College of Cardiology [ACC]) JACC: Basic to Translational Science (open access) JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions JACC: Heart Failure Circulation (American Heart Association [AHA]) Circulation: Heart Failure Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcome Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging Circulation Research (AHA and Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences) Heart Rhythm (Heart Rhythm Society and the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society) Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention (American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation) Journal of Electrocardiology (International Society for Computerized Electrocardiology and the Society of Electrocardiology) Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology (International Society of Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology) C. Cardiovascular journals not sponsored by a society American Heart Journal American Journal of Cardiology Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology Current Opinion in Cardiology Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology Blood Pressure Monitoring Clinical Pathways In Cardiology D. Online, open-access cardiovascular journals*
Journal Publisher
First Published
Publication Frequency
Impact Factor in 2014
NEJM Group
1812
Weekly
55.873
AMA
1883
Weekly
35.289
AMA AAAS
2016 1880
Monthly Weekly
na 33.611
APS
1898
Monthly
4.857
APS ASCI
1977 1924
2/mo Monthly
3.881 13.261
Elsevier
1946
Monthly
5.610
ACC
1983
Monthly
16.503
ACC ACC ACC ACC ACC Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LW&W) LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W
2016 2015 2008 2008 2013 1950
Monthly 6/y Monthly 2/month Monthly Monthly
na na 7.188 7.345 na 15.013
2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 1953
Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly 2x/month
6.567 6.324 5.906 4.678 4.631 5.555 11.091
Elsevier
2004
Monthly
5.076
Wolters Kluwer
1980
6/y
1.583
Elsevier
1968
6/y
1.363
Wiley
1996
6/y
1.131
Elsevier Elsevier Wiley Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer LW&W Wolters Kluwer
1926 1958 1983 1985 1979 1998 2002
Monthly 24/y Monthly 6/y Monthly 6/y Every third month
4.464 3.154 3.475 2.696 2.111 1.531 None
AHA ¼ American Heart Association; AMA ¼ American Medical Association; NEJM ¼ New England Journal of Medicine; na ¼ not available. *See text for commentary, because there are innumerable online open-access cardiovascular journals.
Moss and Marcus
Commentary
Currently, it is estimated that there are about 700 online, open-access cardiovascular publications on the Web. Cardiovascular clinicians and researchers receive many e-mails per day requesting submission of an article for one of the online, open-access, Web-based journals. The typical e-mail request indicates a broad array of topics for submission, including research articles, reviews, short communication, case reports, surveys, commentaries, essays, and editorials, with 2-week “reviews” and quick, online open-access publication on the Internet for a charge. It is estimated that 25% of open-access journals are predators.5,6 One open-access, Web-based journal that is not a predator is the Public Library of Science (PLOS), a nonprofit group publishing reviewed scientific articles since 2003 (impact factor of 3.234) for a charge of $1325. PLOS is not a cardiovascular journal, but it is an example of quality publishing that can be done on the Web with proper organization, structure, and leadership. Almost all of the published journals listed in the Table require a subscription to have access to printed articles. Most libraries at hospitals, medical schools, and universities provide free, open access to the major published journals for staff. Not all clinicians and researchers have institutional access to the journals, and new journal procedures have recently been introduced. For example, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) sub-journal JACC: Basic to Translational Science, first published in 2016 (Table), is an online, open-access journal with highlevel, peer-reviewed articles. For Web publication, there is a $4000 to $4200 publication charge to the primary author; but no costs to individual readers. Many of the standard cardiovascular journals offer the author of a published, printed article the option of also publishing it as an openaccess article on the Internet for a significant charge, as high as $3000. Why would one choose to publish in an open-access, Web-based journal without the journal having a publishing history? Most of the predatory, open-access, Web-based, nonestablished journals are funded by financial charges to authors. In addition, the peer review process is frequently
3 nonexistent, with articles that would not be accepted by standard journals. These are changing times in cardiovascular publications. We predict that the established cardiovascular journals and other specialty journals will move progressively to online publications with increased open access for interested clinicians and investigators. The charge to the author for on-line publication in the established journals is likely to be reduced over time because additional funding should be available through Web-based advertisements. The quality of the Web-based articles published by the established societies and those with a historical background should remain high in view of the peer-review process that will surely continue. We believe that more of the established journals will be progressively placed on the Web in the future. Arthur J. Moss, MDa Frank I. Marcus, MDb a
Department of Medicine and Department of Cardiology University of Rochester Medical Center NY b Department of Medicine and Department of Cardiology University of Arizona Health Sciences Center Tucson
References 1. Garfield E. Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation. Science. 1972;178:471-479. 2. European Association of Science Editors (EASE). Available at: http:// www.ease.org.uk/sites/default/files/ease_statement_ifs_final.pdf. 2007. Accessed March 4, 2016. 3. Beall J. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature. 2012;489:179. 4. Adams C. (5 March 2015). SPARC* Directory of Open Access Journals introduces new standards to help community address quality concerns. Available at: http://sparcopen.org/news/2015/directory-of-open-accessjournals-introduces-new-standards-to-help-community-address-qualityconcerns/. Accessed April 14, 2015. 5. Caplan AL. The problem of publication-pollution denialism. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015;90:565-566. 6. Moher D, Moher E. Stop predatory publishers now: act collaboratively. Ann Intern Med. 2016;164:616-617.
Changing Times in Cardiovascular Publications: A Commentary In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the co-authors of this manuscript were in the early stages of their medical residency and cardiology fellowship training and there were only 4 US-based cardiovascular journals published in that era (Circulation, Circulation Research, American Heart Journal, and American Journal of Cardiology), and 6 high-quality US-based general medical/scientific journals that frequently published cardiovascular-related articles (New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Science, American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and American Journal of Medicine) (Table). At that time it was feasible to read and keep up with the important cardiovascular literature. During the subsequent 60 years there has been a rapid advance in diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular medicine, including antihypertensive therapy, thrombolytic therapy, echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, antilipid medications, percutaneous dilatation and stenting of acute and chronic obstructive coronary lesions, coronary bypass graft surgery, implantable cardiac defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, ablation of arrhythmogenic substrate, and human geneticseto highlight some of the important contributions to patient care. During this same period of time there was augmented National Institutes of Health and corporate funding for basic and clinical research. Currently, there are 25 cardiovascular-related journals, mostly published on a monthly basis (Table), plus many hundreds of online, Web-based, open-access journals and articles. It is now impossible to keep abreast of the published literature even in one’s area of special interest and expertise. There are several ways of evaluating the quality of currently published cardiovascular journals and articles. The journals published by a recognized professional society (eg, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Physiological Society, and Heart Rhythm Society) bear a stamp of approval from each society Funding: None. Conflict of Interest: None for both authors. Authorship: Both authors had access to the data and a role in writing the manuscript. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Arthur J. Moss, MD, Heart Research Follow-up Program, Box 653, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642. E-mail address: [email protected] 0002-9343/$ -see front matter Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2016.06.052
with multiple expert peer reviewers of each submitted article. Several of these journals have been expanded by the recent addition of cardiovascular sub-journals: 5 by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and 6 by Circulation (Table). These ancillary sub-journals were introduced because the parent journals reviewed more quality manuscripts than they could publish. Some non-societysponsored journals are of high quality. The question is how does one evaluate the quality of the cardiovascular journals and the published articles in these journals? A relatively quantitative, well-appreciated measure of journal quality was developed by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute of Scientific Information, with his introduction of the Impact Factor beginning in 1972.1 As one can see in the Table, journals range from the highest impact factor value of 55.873 to journals with impact factors < 2.0. The impact factor of a journal is the average number of citations received per paper published in that journal during a 2-year period. The impact factor has its limitations, and it has been misused, with some journals publishing a large number of review articles that are frequently cited more than research reports. Editorials that reference published articles in the same journal can also increase the impact factor of a journal. In 2007 the European Association of Science Editors issued an official statement recommending “that journal impact factors are used only—and cautiously—for measuring and comparing the influence of entire journals, but not for the assessment of single papers, and certainly not for the assessment of researchers or research programs either directly or as a surrogate.”2 Overall, the impact factor has been helpful in roughly prioritizing the relative quality of the spectrum of published medical journals. There is a large number of online, low-quality, openaccess cardiovascular-related journals, and the sources of these publications have been referred to as “predatory sites.”3 Many of these journals do not have an impact factor, and in those that do, the impact factor is usually in the very low range. As of March 2015, the Directory of Open Access Journals database contained records for 10,000 online, open-access journals.4 Approximately 4 new online, openaccess journals were added to the database each day in 2012, with larger daily numbers added in subsequent years.
2
The American Journal of Medicine, Vol -, No -,
Table
-
2016
United States-Based Journals That Publish Cardiovascular Articles
Journal (Society Sponsor) A. Established, high-quality general medical/scientific journals that frequently publish cardiovascular articles New England Journal of Medicine (Massachusetts Medical Society) Journal of the American Medical Association (American Medical Association [AMA]) JAMA-Cardiology Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS]) American Journal of Physiology (American Physiological Society [APS] AJP- Heart and Circulatory Physiology Journal of Clinical Investigation (American Society for Clinical Investigation [ASCI]) American Journal of Medicine (Alliance of Academic Internal Medicine) B. Cardiovascular journals sponsored by a society Journal of the American College of Cardiology [JACC] (America College of Cardiology [ACC]) JACC: Basic to Translational Science (open access) JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions JACC: Heart Failure Circulation (American Heart Association [AHA]) Circulation: Heart Failure Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcome Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging Circulation Research (AHA and Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences) Heart Rhythm (Heart Rhythm Society and the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society) Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention (American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation) Journal of Electrocardiology (International Society for Computerized Electrocardiology and the Society of Electrocardiology) Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology (International Society of Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology) C. Cardiovascular journals not sponsored by a society American Heart Journal American Journal of Cardiology Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology Current Opinion in Cardiology Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology Blood Pressure Monitoring Clinical Pathways In Cardiology D. Online, open-access cardiovascular journals*
Journal Publisher
First Published
Publication Frequency
Impact Factor in 2014
NEJM Group
1812
Weekly
55.873
AMA
1883
Weekly
35.289
AMA AAAS
2016 1880
Monthly Weekly
na 33.611
APS
1898
Monthly
4.857
APS ASCI
1977 1924
2/mo Monthly
3.881 13.261
Elsevier
1946
Monthly
5.610
ACC
1983
Monthly
16.503
ACC ACC ACC ACC ACC Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LW&W) LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W LW&W
2016 2015 2008 2008 2013 1950
Monthly 6/y Monthly 2/month Monthly Monthly
na na 7.188 7.345 na 15.013
2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 1953
Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly Monthly 2x/month
6.567 6.324 5.906 4.678 4.631 5.555 11.091
Elsevier
2004
Monthly
5.076
Wolters Kluwer
1980
6/y
1.583
Elsevier
1968
6/y
1.363
Wiley
1996
6/y
1.131
Elsevier Elsevier Wiley Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer LW&W Wolters Kluwer
1926 1958 1983 1985 1979 1998 2002
Monthly 24/y Monthly 6/y Monthly 6/y Every third month
4.464 3.154 3.475 2.696 2.111 1.531 None
AHA ¼ American Heart Association; AMA ¼ American Medical Association; NEJM ¼ New England Journal of Medicine; na ¼ not available. *See text for commentary, because there are innumerable online open-access cardiovascular journals.
Moss and Marcus
Commentary
Currently, it is estimated that there are about 700 online, open-access cardiovascular publications on the Web. Cardiovascular clinicians and researchers receive many e-mails per day requesting submission of an article for one of the online, open-access, Web-based journals. The typical e-mail request indicates a broad array of topics for submission, including research articles, reviews, short communication, case reports, surveys, commentaries, essays, and editorials, with 2-week “reviews” and quick, online open-access publication on the Internet for a charge. It is estimated that 25% of open-access journals are predators.5,6 One open-access, Web-based journal that is not a predator is the Public Library of Science (PLOS), a nonprofit group publishing reviewed scientific articles since 2003 (impact factor of 3.234) for a charge of $1325. PLOS is not a cardiovascular journal, but it is an example of quality publishing that can be done on the Web with proper organization, structure, and leadership. Almost all of the published journals listed in the Table require a subscription to have access to printed articles. Most libraries at hospitals, medical schools, and universities provide free, open access to the major published journals for staff. Not all clinicians and researchers have institutional access to the journals, and new journal procedures have recently been introduced. For example, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) sub-journal JACC: Basic to Translational Science, first published in 2016 (Table), is an online, open-access journal with highlevel, peer-reviewed articles. For Web publication, there is a $4000 to $4200 publication charge to the primary author; but no costs to individual readers. Many of the standard cardiovascular journals offer the author of a published, printed article the option of also publishing it as an openaccess article on the Internet for a significant charge, as high as $3000. Why would one choose to publish in an open-access, Web-based journal without the journal having a publishing history? Most of the predatory, open-access, Web-based, nonestablished journals are funded by financial charges to authors. In addition, the peer review process is frequently
3 nonexistent, with articles that would not be accepted by standard journals. These are changing times in cardiovascular publications. We predict that the established cardiovascular journals and other specialty journals will move progressively to online publications with increased open access for interested clinicians and investigators. The charge to the author for on-line publication in the established journals is likely to be reduced over time because additional funding should be available through Web-based advertisements. The quality of the Web-based articles published by the established societies and those with a historical background should remain high in view of the peer-review process that will surely continue. We believe that more of the established journals will be progressively placed on the Web in the future. Arthur J. Moss, MDa Frank I. Marcus, MDb a
Department of Medicine and Department of Cardiology University of Rochester Medical Center NY b Department of Medicine and Department of Cardiology University of Arizona Health Sciences Center Tucson
References 1. Garfield E. Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation. Science. 1972;178:471-479. 2. European Association of Science Editors (EASE). Available at: http:// www.ease.org.uk/sites/default/files/ease_statement_ifs_final.pdf. 2007. Accessed March 4, 2016. 3. Beall J. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature. 2012;489:179. 4. Adams C. (5 March 2015). SPARC* Directory of Open Access Journals introduces new standards to help community address quality concerns. Available at: http://sparcopen.org/news/2015/directory-of-open-accessjournals-introduces-new-standards-to-help-community-address-qualityconcerns/. Accessed April 14, 2015. 5. Caplan AL. The problem of publication-pollution denialism. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015;90:565-566. 6. Moher D, Moher E. Stop predatory publishers now: act collaboratively. Ann Intern Med. 2016;164:616-617.