EDITORIAL

AJO-DO rings in the new year . . .with changesDavid L. Turpin, Editor-in-Chief

Seattle, Wash

The world of scientific and professional publish-ing is in the midst of revolutionary change, and2006 brings many changes for the AJO-DO. In

1915, Dr C. V. Mosby provided the vision that gaverise to the International Journal of Orthodontia. Head-quartered in St. Louis, Mosby, Inc., has been a drivingforce in journal and book publishing in the UnitedStates for nearly a century. We will forever be indebtedto this great company and its employees for its years ofdedication to dentistry and our specialty. In 2000,Elsevier Inc., an international multiple-media publisherof scientific, technical, and health information productsand services with 7000 employees in 73 locationsaround the globe, acquired Mosby and, with it, theAJO-DO. Elsevier has introduced many improvementsto the AJODO, including online submission and reviewvia the Elsevier Editorial System. To consolidate itsjournal production activities, Elsevier has moved produc-tion of the Mosby journals from St. Louis to Philadel-phia. Although the company will continue publishingbooks and other products under the Mosby insignia inSt. Louis, the journal production department there isnow silent.

Most readers have probably noticed an obviouschange: size. The January 2006 issue contains moreprinted pages than ever, and it represents an evengreater increase in pages published. This year, we willincrease our monthly printed page count by 16 pages ofscientific material, and we will publish up to 36additional pages of research findings in a new OnlineOnly section. These progressive moves are necessarybecause new submissions have doubled in the past 3years. Online Only articles, which will be put throughthe same vigorous peer-review process as other Origi-nal Articles, will be posted online quickly once they areaccepted. Articles in this section might include volu-minous data or information of immediate interest tosome of our readers. They will be fully referenced,indexed, and searchable in Medline. I encourage au-

Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 2006;129:1-20889-5406/$32.00Copyright © 2006 by the American Association of Orthodontists.

doi:10.1016/j.ajodo.2005.11.015

thors of new (and accepted) articles to take advantageof this new option.

With increased attention to evidence-based practiceinitiatives, there is greater need to make it easier forpractitioners and researchers to conduct periodic searchesof the literature. In response to this need, the AJO-DOwill require CONSORT and QUOROM forms to besubmitted with all randomized controlled trials andsystematic reviews (December 2005 editorial). Ourjournal is the first high-ranking, large-circulation orth-odontic journal to officially endorse the CONSORT andQUOROM statements. Adoption of these guidelineswill lead to standardization and improvement in thereporting of randomized controlled trails and system-atic reviews. This change will enhance the AJO-DO foryears to come, to the benefit of authors, people carryingout systematic reviews, and readers.

The ever-changing impact factor is another way tomeasure progresss for the AJO-DO. A look into thisjournal’s value for the various groups we serve oftencomes down to a single number: the impact factor.However, according to Richard Monastersky,1 the im-pact factor might be “devouring science.” Questionsarise periodically about how the impact factor isused—or misused. A brief description of how thisnumber is determined might help explain the problem.During the late 1950s, an idea popped into the head ofEugene Garfield, a Philadelphia researcher and self-described documentation consultant. As a means ofevaluating the relative importance of scientific journals,he proposed tallying up the number of citations anaverage article in each journal received over a 2-yearperiod. To figure the AJO-DO’s impact factor for 2004,count the number of times articles published in theAJO-DO in 2002 and 2003 were mentioned in anyjournal in 2004, and then divide by the total number ofarticles in the AJO-DO during that 2-year period. Theresult is the impact factor, and for the AJO-DO it was0.884. Although this might not seem significant whencompared with major journals such as Cell, Nature, orScience, it is the highest rating we have ever received

and slightly higher than the other 2 ranked orthodontic

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American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial OrthopedicsJanuary 2006

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publications. More than half of all scientific publica-tions have impact factors less than 1.0.

Overall, impact factors provide an objective mea-sure for quick evaluation. For the AJO-DO, it is a wayto chart progress relative to other publications. Scien-tists can examine the numbers to determine where theirresearch findings are likely to get the most attention.The impact factor can also be used indirectly to evaluatethe effectiveness of changes in journal format. For exam-ple, our decision to require a structured format forarticle abstracts was inspired by an article submitted forpublication by Sharma and Harrison.2 They compared 2groups of journals to prove that the structured abstractwas more effective in conveying information.

However, Monastersky1 identified some concernsof educators and researchers with the impact factor andhow its use is beginning to influence hiring, tenuredecisions, and the awarding of grants. All uses are notpositive. Over the years, impact factors have become soattractive to some educators that they have startedapplying them not only to journals, but also to research-ers. By using the impact factor as a shortcut, evaluatorsrate an article more highly if it appears in a high-impactjournal, regardless of what findings it actually reports.This use is inappropriate for several reasons. Popularareas of research always have an advantage. Some topjournals in science have well-funded public relationsoffices that send timely alerts to hundreds of reporterseach week about the articles slated for their next issues.This generates news items, which have been shown toincrease citations to the original scientific articles, thusraising impact factors. A highly publicized pilot studyreporting a possible cure for cancer will significantlyboost a journal’s impact factor, but a systematic reviewreporting “no significant increase of mandibular length”will stir little attention outside orthodontics.

Approximately half of all orthodontic citations areof articles that were published over 10 years ago. Thisfact punishes our specialty and is a reason that peri-odontal journals are ranked higher than orthodonticjournals. Before concluding this discussion, it is fair toask whether the pressures of a powerful impact factor

influence the editor of your journal, the AJO-DO. My

short answer is “no,” unless it is a change that is in thereader’s best interest. Examples are almost too numer-ous to mention, but a few will suffice.

We have changed the abstracts of all articles to astructured format, and this will benefit both the readerand the impact factor. We no longer accept “tradi-tional” review articles, and this will hurt the impactfactor; instead, we are placing greater emphasis onsystematic reviews of randomized trials, believed to beof greater benefit to our clinical readers. The publica-tion of case reports is considered harmful to the impactfactor, yet we have spent much time and energy overthe past 5 years to improve them. This change, underthe leadership of Vince Kokich, has been of benefit toall practitioners. The goal of placing more of ourarchives online for electronic searches obviously ben-efits both the impact factor and our readers. With 25years of AJO-DO articles now online, this project isongoing.

Which journals have the highest impact factors andhow did they get them? The Annual Review of Immu-nology is number 1 based on the publication of only 51articles during 2002-03. It is most interesting that 7 ofthe top 15 journals are review publications, and weknow that review articles tend to be cited more oftenthan original research articles. The New England Jour-nal of Medicine is number 3 based on 28,696 citationsto 744 articles over the same 2 years. The list alsoshows that most top journals cover biology or medi-cine, which have many active researchers seekingpublication of their findings. For this reason, journalsshould be compared with others in the same category;being compared with all ranked dentistry journals isfine with us. Just don’t expect your editor to short-change our clinical readers in the process.

REFERENCES

1. Monastersky R. The number that’s devouring science. Chronicleof Higher Education 2005;52(8):A12. Available from: http://chronicle.com. Section: Research & Publishing.

2. Sharma S, Harrison JE. Structured abstracts: do they improve thequality of information provided in abstracts? Am J Orthod

Dentofacial Orthop 2006 (in press).