JMIG: 10 Years of Progress
The idiom, “all good things must come to an end,” reminds us to appreciate the time that we have within a role and to remember it fondly. I have come to the end of my two terms as Editor-in-Chief of JMIG. It was an honor to serve but it is time to pass on this great responsibility.
As I reflect on the last 10 years as Editor-in-Chief, I see that we have accomplished so much. We immediately introduced video manuscripts into the journal that are referenced in pubmed and are citable. In addition, the frequency of Journal issues increased from six times per year to a monthly publication, and then evolved further by going paperless.
Modifications were made to the workflow on the website for choosing the correct reviewers. All reviewers became required to acknowledge any conflicts of interest and we started giving reviewers more immediate feedback on their reviews. We also showed appreciation to the top editorial board reviewers and top JMIG reviewers by giving them a letter and certificate to recognize their service.
Another important step of development was establishing a formal policy for handling ethical concerns (using COPE guidelines) through the creation of a Journal Ethics Committee and appointing a Deputy Editor for research integrity. We then established a formal appeals policy for rejected manuscripts. The statistical guidelines for authors were updated and appropriate terminology for electro-surgery was introduced. We also established a Social Media Editor position and introduced our Social Media Scholars.
Finally, despite increasing the number of papers published to reach a monthly edition, we also increased our impact factor. This is a testimony to the high quality of each paper as well as the high quality of the reviews. As you can see from the figure, we went from an impact factor of 1.5 ten years ago to our new impact factor of 4.3! Our journal currently has the highest impact factor of any journal that is focused on gynecologic surgery. The acceptance rate for manuscripts submitted is around 20%.
A search committee for the new Editor-in-Chief has been established by the board of the AAGL and will be chaired by Dr. Mauricio Abrao. I encourage you to apply.
