Abstract
On February 9th 2007 the European Paediatric Orthopaedic Society (EPOS) launched its official scientific journal, the Journal of Children's Orthopaedics (JCO), as a much necessary global educational platform. 1 It rapidly became the sine-qua-non source of information and an authority in providing scientific and clinical data to the Paediatric Orthopaedic community worldwide.
We have then undertaken to abide by the goals we have committed to, to meet the challenge of maintaining high standards and to keep up with ongoing progress. Now after ten years, we admit we had some very demanding times but the achievements have surpassed our hopes:
JCO had undertaken to publish high quality peer-reviewed articles focusing on clinical practical diagnosis and treatment of disorders unique to paediatric orthopaedics, giving emphasis to principles that led to better understanding of the complexities of children's and adolescents’ musculoskeletal system. True to our word, we have indeed maintained the highest standards by improving the quality of the publications and keeping abreast with the ever-increasing demands. During the years we have moved rapidly and grown substantially. Ten volumes, 70 issues, 787 articles have been published during the past decade, of them 270 articles were published open access. There is an ongoing expansion process into more and more countries in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Further expansion took place in 2014 when JCO underwent a publication revolution by changing to an open access model which increased our global visibility and worldwide dissemination of the scientific information. Since the open access period, the number of submissions increased by 58. 5%, acceptance/rejection ratio increased to 30%/70% and most importantly the number of downloads increased by over 3 folds! Almost 100, 000 free of charge, full text articles were downloaded by paediatric orthopaedic surgeons from all over the world in 2016. These increased the value and the dissemination of the scientific information published as reflected by the significant increase in citation of JCO articles. JCO has been selected for coverage in Thomson Reuter's products and services. Beginning with 2016, the journal is indexed and abstracted in the Emerging Sources Citation Index. Journals in ESCI remain eligible for further indexing in the Impact Factor databases (SCIE and SSCI) and other Web of Science datasets.
We, the paediatric orthopaedics community, are devoted to providing comprehensive care to the child as a whole throughout the critical years of their growth and development. We do not favour fragmentation of knowledge but require synthesis of information from all fields of medicine which influence the musculoskeletal and locomotion system. The first purpose of the then new journal was to make sense of the overwhelming quantity of incoming data. By carefully selecting the material, we covered all the specialties of paediatric orthopaedics and welcomed papers that included evidence-based and outcome studies on subjects that have direct impact on them. Thus, our purpose to “get what you need to know to as many of you as possible in a manner as interesting and as clearly stated as possible” has been very satisfactorily achieved. We maintain the holistic approach as a tradition of our profession: JCO – an open access peer-reviewed journal for all disciplines in paediatric orthopaedics with world-wide dissemination.
The second goal of this journal was to reject geography as an excuse for non-delivery of information. We vowed that the Journal's contents were to be distributed wherever there was Internet connection and that information would be affordable and available to a wider readership, and so we made the electronic versions free of charge!
At its foundation, the Journal of Children's Orthopaedics, has signed affiliation agreements with the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA), La Sociedad Latino Americana de Ortopedia y Traumatologfa Infantil (SLAOTI), and the Paediatric Section of the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association (APOA). This all-encompassing association has enabled global readership and provided ample opportunity for continuous dialogue within the paediatric orthopaedic community, as reflected by the impact made possible by its international Editorial Board members who literally come from the four corners of the world.
As of 2017 the Journal of Children's Orthopaedics will be published by The British Editorial Society of Bone & joint Surgery (BESBJS). Bone & Joint Publishing is the imprint of BESBJS, the leading journal publisher for orthopaedic surgeons and researchers worldwide which provides a complete and trusted resource for the orthopaedic, trauma and musculoskeletal science communities. The Editors-in-Chiefs and the EPOS-Board are certain that they have found an excellent partner with a great reputation, who will actively support our Journal and will help ensure a positive further development of JCO.
The journal's new website, designed by Atypon to match Bone & Joint Publishing's existing online branding, was launched on January 10, 2017. The website http://online.boneandjoint.org.uk/jco includes the journal's archive. All the articles published in the first ten years are available free of charge.
A new manuscript submission and review platform was established with ScholarOne https://mc04.manuscript-central.com/jco. The new, easy-to-use system simplifies web-based manuscript submission, peer-review and tracking.
The world population of children is growing. By the end of 2015 there were 2. 5 billion children in the world and it is estimated that by the end of 2020 there will be 75 million more. 2 Needless to say that the majority of them are growing in underprivileged countries. Children world-wide should receive appropriate up-to-date evidence-based care when they need it and where they need it! At the same time much progress has been made in knowledge and technology. Paediatric orthopaedics today is in a state of ever expanding knowledge that should be distributed all over the world. Because of the advanced technology and human creativity, paediatric orthopaedics must try to keep pace with the new medical information. The half-life of medical knowledge is extremely short and what seemed new and up-to-date yesterday, is redundant today. Although we are very pleased and proud with our Journal, we must face the new decade and try to meet the increasing demands for our expertise.
The Editors-in-Chief are obligated to continue improving and deepening the multidirectional dialogue with the JCO readership in the rapidly changing global world. JCO will continue to be a comprehensive source of up-to-date paediatric orthopaedic knowledge in the new era of information technology.