- Email: [email protected]
Year-End Potpourri
Editorials
Year-End Potpourri Lucy Bradley-Springer, PhD, RN, ACRN, FAAN Key words: epidemic, HIV infection, nursing Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall together. Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
I don’t know about you, but for me, things always seem to get chaotic toward the end of the year. Not only is there a lot to do to finish up projects and get ready for the holidays, there are also reports and events for ongoing projects. And for me, the busyness of the season always seems to get jumbled up with memories from the year drawing to a close. There are memories of things that were sad and sweet, memories of things that were and that might have been, memories of love and loss, and memories of life passing as I get older and try to figure out the essence of life. My greatest memory of 2014 will always be the loss of my friend and colleague, Dr. Carol A. ‘‘Pat’’ Patsdaughter. You may have noticed that we have not yet removed her name from the editorial board listing at the front of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC). To be honest, I just couldn’t. But now it is time. It is time to publicly acknowledge her many contributions and my (our) loss one more time. She will always be in the memories of her family and friends, but it is time to move on, as I know she would have wanted. As Robin Williams, whose death was another sad loss in 2014, said, ‘‘If Heaven exists, to know that there’s laughter. That’d be a great thing’’ (ET News, 2014, { 6). I’m sure that Pat is up there laughing at me for being so sentimental. Having addressed that important issue, I need to let you know about the rest of my year-end JANAC jumble. It all has to do with looking forward.
The November-December Issue If you are holding this issue of JANAC in your hands, you have no doubt already noticed a difference. For one thing, this issue is heavy. It has more than twice as many content pages as usual, and it is downright fat! This is an unusual occurrence, so I want you to know how it came to be. Elsevier, which publishes JANAC, gave us a yearend gift. They presented us with enough pages to get rid of our entire backlog of accepted and undesignated papers. We obviously had quite a few. If you read my editorial from last month, you may remember that I talked about simplifying submission in order to get papers into print as soon as possible (Bradley-Springer, 2014). This issue of JANAC is just another step in Elsevier’s campaign to get information out to readers quickly. It helps our authors, it helps our readers, and it contributes to the science in a timely manner. And, in the world of publishing, all of those extra pages are an extremely generous gift.
The New Look In addition to the added heft to this issue, you will surely have noticed our new look. As you saw, our new cover and logo are based on the new logo for the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC). The first time I saw the new ANAC logo, I knew that JANAC had to follow suit. I wanted JANAC to Lucy Bradley-Springer, PhD, RN, ACRN, FAAN, is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA; Principal Investigator of the Mountain Plains AIDS Education and Training Center; and Editor of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.
JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NURSES IN AIDS CARE, Vol. 25, No. 6, November/December 2014, 469-470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2014.08.004 Copyright Ó 2014 Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
470 JANAC Vol. 25, No. 6, November/December 2014
reflect our organization and it didn’t make sense to keep the old look. Elsevier gave us the support we needed, and here we are! I hope you like it.
and it feels like a winning season for the editorial board, the publisher, and me. It indicates that we are publishing worthy content.
Impact Factor
And, As Always .
And finally, we received word of the 2013 Impact Factor (IF) in August. I wrote an editorial about the IF in 2012 (Bradley-Springer, 2012), but just in case you don’t remember, the IF is a formula that provides one way to rate professional journals. The metric is calculated by tabulating how often a journal’s articles are cited in the Web of Science database of literature during a specific timeframe. As with all metrics, it is not perfect. The database is exclusive; it doesn’t take other factors into consideration, such as downloads, social media, and press mentions, or the appropriate term of immediacy based upon the discipline; and large, well-known journals have an advantage. But it is what we have for now and it is hard work to even get to the point where a journal is eligible to get an IF. As you can see (Figure 1), after a slight dip for 2012, the IF for JANAC increased in 2013. So we have good evidence that JANAC was cited more in 2013 than in previous years. In addition, when ranked with all other nursing journals that received an IF in 2013, JANAC is now 29 out of 105, which puts us in the top 30%. This is an excellent ranking for a specialty-nursing journal, which means it is good for our authors. I hope that our higher ranking also makes our reviewers proud that they have contributed to the quality of the journal,
As I write this editorial for the last issue of 2014, I am reminded that JANAC is a very special journal. First and foremost, JANAC addresses the specific issue of HIV infection and, through its publication, we contribute to prevention, treatment, and advocacy for people living with HIV infection. We share our experiences with clinicians and scholars in health care so that they can learn from our authors to make a difference for people as we all live in this epidemic. The other reason that I think this journal is important is because it celebrates and advocates for nursing. We share information from, about, and for nurses. We know the importance of nursing in health care and I want to remember how important nursing efforts have been in the HIV epidemic. I want to remember what we have learned that can help stem the tide of other epidemics. As we wrap up 2014, I wish you a new year filled with success, so that you know your value; a year that includes failure, so that you will learn and grow; and a year of exciting new discoveries, that you will share with your colleagues. 2015 is just another year. What counts is what we do with it.
Disclosures The author reports no real or perceived vested interests that relate to this article that could be construed as a conflict of interest.
References
Figure 1. Impact factor changes, 2006–2013, for the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC).
Bradley-Springer, L. (2012). Impact (editorial). Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 23(6), 471-472. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2012.08.004 Bradley-Springer, L. (2014). Simplified submission (editorial). Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 25(4), 281-284. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2014.04.004 ET News. (2014). Robin Williams’ chilling quotes about death. Retrieved from http://www.etonline.com/news/149728_ robin_williams_chilling_quotes_about_death/
Year-End Potpourri Lucy Bradley-Springer, PhD, RN, ACRN, FAAN Key words: epidemic, HIV infection, nursing Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall together. Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
I don’t know about you, but for me, things always seem to get chaotic toward the end of the year. Not only is there a lot to do to finish up projects and get ready for the holidays, there are also reports and events for ongoing projects. And for me, the busyness of the season always seems to get jumbled up with memories from the year drawing to a close. There are memories of things that were sad and sweet, memories of things that were and that might have been, memories of love and loss, and memories of life passing as I get older and try to figure out the essence of life. My greatest memory of 2014 will always be the loss of my friend and colleague, Dr. Carol A. ‘‘Pat’’ Patsdaughter. You may have noticed that we have not yet removed her name from the editorial board listing at the front of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC). To be honest, I just couldn’t. But now it is time. It is time to publicly acknowledge her many contributions and my (our) loss one more time. She will always be in the memories of her family and friends, but it is time to move on, as I know she would have wanted. As Robin Williams, whose death was another sad loss in 2014, said, ‘‘If Heaven exists, to know that there’s laughter. That’d be a great thing’’ (ET News, 2014, { 6). I’m sure that Pat is up there laughing at me for being so sentimental. Having addressed that important issue, I need to let you know about the rest of my year-end JANAC jumble. It all has to do with looking forward.
The November-December Issue If you are holding this issue of JANAC in your hands, you have no doubt already noticed a difference. For one thing, this issue is heavy. It has more than twice as many content pages as usual, and it is downright fat! This is an unusual occurrence, so I want you to know how it came to be. Elsevier, which publishes JANAC, gave us a yearend gift. They presented us with enough pages to get rid of our entire backlog of accepted and undesignated papers. We obviously had quite a few. If you read my editorial from last month, you may remember that I talked about simplifying submission in order to get papers into print as soon as possible (Bradley-Springer, 2014). This issue of JANAC is just another step in Elsevier’s campaign to get information out to readers quickly. It helps our authors, it helps our readers, and it contributes to the science in a timely manner. And, in the world of publishing, all of those extra pages are an extremely generous gift.
The New Look In addition to the added heft to this issue, you will surely have noticed our new look. As you saw, our new cover and logo are based on the new logo for the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC). The first time I saw the new ANAC logo, I knew that JANAC had to follow suit. I wanted JANAC to Lucy Bradley-Springer, PhD, RN, ACRN, FAAN, is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA; Principal Investigator of the Mountain Plains AIDS Education and Training Center; and Editor of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.
JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NURSES IN AIDS CARE, Vol. 25, No. 6, November/December 2014, 469-470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2014.08.004 Copyright Ó 2014 Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
470 JANAC Vol. 25, No. 6, November/December 2014
reflect our organization and it didn’t make sense to keep the old look. Elsevier gave us the support we needed, and here we are! I hope you like it.
and it feels like a winning season for the editorial board, the publisher, and me. It indicates that we are publishing worthy content.
Impact Factor
And, As Always .
And finally, we received word of the 2013 Impact Factor (IF) in August. I wrote an editorial about the IF in 2012 (Bradley-Springer, 2012), but just in case you don’t remember, the IF is a formula that provides one way to rate professional journals. The metric is calculated by tabulating how often a journal’s articles are cited in the Web of Science database of literature during a specific timeframe. As with all metrics, it is not perfect. The database is exclusive; it doesn’t take other factors into consideration, such as downloads, social media, and press mentions, or the appropriate term of immediacy based upon the discipline; and large, well-known journals have an advantage. But it is what we have for now and it is hard work to even get to the point where a journal is eligible to get an IF. As you can see (Figure 1), after a slight dip for 2012, the IF for JANAC increased in 2013. So we have good evidence that JANAC was cited more in 2013 than in previous years. In addition, when ranked with all other nursing journals that received an IF in 2013, JANAC is now 29 out of 105, which puts us in the top 30%. This is an excellent ranking for a specialty-nursing journal, which means it is good for our authors. I hope that our higher ranking also makes our reviewers proud that they have contributed to the quality of the journal,
As I write this editorial for the last issue of 2014, I am reminded that JANAC is a very special journal. First and foremost, JANAC addresses the specific issue of HIV infection and, through its publication, we contribute to prevention, treatment, and advocacy for people living with HIV infection. We share our experiences with clinicians and scholars in health care so that they can learn from our authors to make a difference for people as we all live in this epidemic. The other reason that I think this journal is important is because it celebrates and advocates for nursing. We share information from, about, and for nurses. We know the importance of nursing in health care and I want to remember how important nursing efforts have been in the HIV epidemic. I want to remember what we have learned that can help stem the tide of other epidemics. As we wrap up 2014, I wish you a new year filled with success, so that you know your value; a year that includes failure, so that you will learn and grow; and a year of exciting new discoveries, that you will share with your colleagues. 2015 is just another year. What counts is what we do with it.
Disclosures The author reports no real or perceived vested interests that relate to this article that could be construed as a conflict of interest.
References
Figure 1. Impact factor changes, 2006–2013, for the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC).
Bradley-Springer, L. (2012). Impact (editorial). Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 23(6), 471-472. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2012.08.004 Bradley-Springer, L. (2014). Simplified submission (editorial). Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 25(4), 281-284. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jana.2014.04.004 ET News. (2014). Robin Williams’ chilling quotes about death. Retrieved from http://www.etonline.com/news/149728_ robin_williams_chilling_quotes_about_death/