Editorial |
Greetings from Editor-in-Chief
Bioscience and Biotechnology Center, Nagoya University, Japan
Ten months have passed since I was appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of Plant and Cell Physiology (PCP), and I have received the good news that the 2007 Impact Factor of the journal has again increased and is now 3.654. Though I am happy with the news, more effort and innovation are still required to stay competitive in order to climb further up the ladder.
Since the beginning of my term, the Editors and I have been actively discussing and implementing some changes to improve further the status of this steadily growing journal. The first project I have handled is an extensive author/reader survey in which many of you authors and readers have participated. I would like to thank all of you who have contributed your comments for PCP. The survey was sent to 8,042 authors and readers, and was completed by 1,089 respondents. It was aimed at understanding their satisfaction and needs, the journal's performance and respondents’ perception of the journal in comparison with its competitors. The outcome offered quite interesting and important viewpoints to consider our way forward. The following are some of the results that you may find interesting.
- 78% of the total respondents gave the journal an ‘excellent/good’ rating.
- Results for authors ‘submitting within the last two years’ had higher performance ratings for the same factors when compared with the results of the total group of authors. Authors acknowledge that PCP's performance in terms of the submission and production system is good and has become increasingly better in the last 2 years.
- Eight image-related words were set to describe a journal—the ones chosen for PCP were ‘reliable’, ‘high quality’, ‘promising’ and ‘mediocre’.
These results suggest that the majority of respondents have a positive impression regarding our journal. However, at the same time, they see PCP as a journal which is ‘high quality and includes reliable data but not very unique or outstanding’. In order to develop PCP into a more exciting, innovative and unique journal, a series of developments are in progress.
As announced in Issue 1 of this year, PCP no longer charges authors for printing color figures. We would like to take a step forward and introduce a newly designed, full color text layout and a new cover starting from Issue 1 of 2009, the year which will be the memorable 50th anniversary of the journal. In order to give you the feel of the new design, the full color layout will be applied to the special articles featured in this issue. These articles dealing with "plant reproduction" are organized and edited by Prof. Watanabe (Watanabe 2008
). I am sure that these changes will provide readers with a better visibility and readability, and give a fresh impact to the appearance of the journal.
Needless to say, the most critical part of a scientific journal is the quality and timeliness of the content. We explored new subject areas where the journal has not been very active in the past. The revised scope can be found in our Instructions to Authors (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/pcp/for_authors/general.html) which will be updated on November 1, 2008. In addition to this special issue, several other special issues with topical subjects are planned in 2009 which include cutting-edge topics that incorporate some of the new subject areas in which we would like to see more growth.
In order to improve our peer review process, we have also been working to set firmer criteria and standard procedures in our review process. I hope that authors will find submision to and publication in the journal an even more smooth and helpful process than in the last 2 years.
I am confident that these plans will be received positively, but our goals cannot be achieved without the active participation of our readers and authors. I therefore ask for your continued support for our journal.
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References |
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 Top References |
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Watanabe M. Towards a comprehensive understanding of molecular mechanisms of sexual reproduction in higher plants. Plant Cell Physiol (2008) 49:1404–1406.
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