Abstract
We are delighted to share with you the excellent news that our application for an Impact Factor for JCO has been successful!
JCO has been accepted into the Web of Science's Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and will receive an Impact Factor for 2017, the very best outcome we could possibly have hoped for! Calculations are based on papers published in 2015/16 and cited in 2017 and evaluation continues during the first quarter of 2018. Our exact Impact Factor will be announced in the Journal Citation Reports in June 2018.
One year ago, we changed publisher and moved from Springer to Bone & Joint Publishing. This has been an excellent step for our Journal. In 2017, we published 71 papers covering a wide spectrum of current paediatric orthopaedic problems, including a special issue on Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis summarizing the symposium on the same subject at the EPOS congress in Rome in 2016. Another traditional special issue was the abstract book for the first combined EPOS/POSNA meeting in Barcelona in May 2017.
Continuously improving the quality of the Journal is one of our main objectives and to this end, we are introducing some new features in 2018. Declaring the level of evidence (LoE) is now mandatory for all Original Clinical Articles, Systematic Reviews and Technical Notes. At submission, authors are instructed to make a statement on the LoE, which the reviewers and the Editors-in-Chief assess and revise if necessary.
Another novelty is that going forward every article will be supplemented with a professional Chinese translation of the abstract, to be found on the journal website, including all papers published in 2017. This is an important step for the Journal which will undoubtedly increase its visibility in the extensive Chinese medical community and in turn attract some excellent papers.
Further improvements have been made to enhance the usability of both our journal website and our online submission and peer-review system ScholarOne Manuscripts. The online presence and visibility of the Journal has also made significant progress.
Following a year of waived publication fees for EPOS members and reduced fees for non-EPOS members, in 2018 the Article Publication Charge (APC) for each accepted Original Clinical Article, Technical Note, Basic Science paper and Perspective will be €400 for EPOS members – the Society is still subsidizing each article with €400 – and €900 for non-EPOS members. Compared with other Open Access Journals, this is still a very low rate and a significant benefit when publishing in JCO.
The Journal of Children's Orthopaedics will continue to be a comprehensive source of up-to-date paediatric orthopaedic knowledge in the era of information technology. The Editors-in-Chief are strongly committed to improving and deepening the dialogue between scientists and the large medical community devoted to treating often very complex disorders of the locomotor apparatus in children and adolescents.