Trends of publication in the orthopedic journals from India: A bibliometric analysis

Editors and editorial board

All the three journals have international representation in their Editorial board, apart from distinguished experts of several general and subspecialties of orthopedics and trauma. These also have included experts for basic science, statistics, and health-care administrators to address the variety of papers received by these journals.

All three websites have provision for registration of new reviewers.

Papers published and publication trends

From January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, the JCOT published 1158 papers as revealed by the Scopus and 1048 articles as per PubMed data. A rising was seen in the number of publications in the past 5 years, in both the JCOT and JOO, reflecting their rapid growth. A very similar rising trend in publications was evident for the JOO, which has 1066 publications on PubMed and 1070 on the Scopus, in the same last period. However, for the IJO, which has 888 publications in Scopus and 798 papers in PubMed, the trend is almost constant, reflecting a consistent number of issues and publication rate in this period [Figure 1]. The numbers of papers published and citations received to date (since 2015) in these journals were JCOT (1158 papers; 2060 times), JOO (1070 papers; 2429 times), and IJO (888 papers; 1872 times).

Close

Figure 1:

Publication trends of the Indian Orthopaedic Journals.

Export to PPT

The JCOT has witnessed an accelerating rise in the submission rate, particularly over the past 45 years, and their rejection rate has been stable between 60 and 70%. The number of issues per year for JCOT was increased from two to four (2018) and a couple of supplementary issues per year to give space to these manuscripts. JCOT increased the number of issues to six per year, from 2019, with no restrictions on the number of pages per issue, to meet the demand of rising submissions and to allow their earlier publication. For the JOO, the acceptance rate initially rose and peaked in 2014 (60%), but remained similar in 2015 (57.1%), declined to 36.5% in 2016, and again rose to 43.8% in 2019. Detailed data are not available for the IJO, but statistics on its submission site says that it had an acceptance rate of 5% in 2018. A recent editorial^[2] mentions that 90%– 95% of articles are unsolicited in IJO with a rejection rate around 86%–88%. Rejection rates in 2019 and 2020 were 80% and 86%, respectively (Personal communication, Medknow).

Citation trends

The 684 papers in JCOT were cited 1386 times. The latest h index of JCOT, as calculated from SCOPUS database, is 19. The 655 papers in JOO have been cited a total of 1818 times, whereas 598 papers in IJO were cited 1458 times. The latest H index of JOO is 16, and that of the IJO is 32, as calculated in the Scopus database. There has been a significant rise in citations received by Indian journals over the past 5 years (2015–2019, P = 0.017, Freidman’s test, approaching statistical significance). A rising trend in citations received by the papers is evident in Figure 2. It reflects their popularity, global acceptance, and scientific respect increasingly being received by these journals in the last few years. Cite scores have also shown a rise (P = 0.166, Freidman’s test). So far, only IJO is listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and has an impact factor (for the year 2019, released in June 2020 by Clarivate analytics) of 0.92, which has declined a little as compared to the previous year (0.978). The applications of the other two journals for SCI are pending a decision.

Close

Figure 2:

Citation trends of the Indian Orthopaedic Journals.

Export to PPT

Comparison with other well established International Orthopaedic Journals

We have compared the cite scores with that of some prominent international orthopedic journals, including American Journal of Sports Medicine (9.6), Bone and Joint Journal (7), Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (6.9), Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research (4.7), and International Orthopaedics (4.8) – latest (2019) cite scores have been indicated in parenthesis. This comparison suggests that Indian journals can be at par with and become a prominent orthopedic journal of international importance. Cite score comparison trend with other well-known international orthopedic journals is shown in Figure 3.

Close

Figure 3:

Cite score comparison of the Indian Orthopaedic Journals with the other known International Orthopaedic journals.

Export to PPT

Other metrics such as cite score, SNIP, and SCImago ranking are depicted in Table 3.

Most prolific authors and countries

Although most publications in the JCOT and IJO belonged to Indian authors, the authors from all over the world also contributed to it. It reflects the global diversity of these journals. Furthermore, it fulfills these journals’ aim to be a medium for knowledge sharing by Indian authors, with their native colleagues and the rest of the world at the same time. JOO had more authors from the USA, the UK, and Japan, compared to India [Figure 4].

Close

Figure 4:

Supplementary material: Extra Fig: Authors’ countries.

Export to PPT

The evolution and journey of the Orthopaedic Journals of India

The IJO is being published regularly since 1967. Initially, the IJO was published with two issues per year for 26 years until 1993, and then, its frequency of publication was increased to four issues per year, from 1994 till 2011. Now, its frequency of publication is six per year. The IJO had a facelift in 2006, with its website (www.ijoonline.com) with all modern journal website features, expansion of editorial board to include international experts and was included in PubMed/PubMed Central in October 2009 [Table 1].^[2-5]

The JOO is an official publication of the Prof. PK Surendran Memorial Educational Foundation, related to Calicut Ortho Alumni Association. It was started in 2004 and was included in PubMed/PMC from 2013 [Table 1]. The JOO has an international readership, and its website recommends that all submissions be aimed at specifying something about the setting in which the work was conducted. However, now, more papers are from the USA and the UK, and Japan than India.^[6-8]

The JCOT is the official scientific publication of the Delhi Orthopaedic Association, with the present member’s strength of around 1200. It is a successor of the “Delhi Journal of Orthopaedics.” JCOT witnessed remarkable growth since its launch in 2010 and more so after its inclusion in PubMed/ PMC in 2012. The JCOT was included in SCOPUS in 2010; all the articles from 2010 are available on SCOPUS.^[9]

Global reach

Quality research work must be made readily available to other research workers around the world. Further research can be performed on the topic, and the findings can be utilized in clinical practice. The JCOT publishes most of the articles within a few days of acceptance as “Published as Ahead of Print” after completing the typesetting and language editing process. All the items are indexed in Scopus, and after 2012, in PubMed. The Journal supports both traditional publishing and open-access models. Free to use, full text is available in PubMed Central after 1 year embargo period. The JCOT has a dual publication policy, where there is an option of an open access also if the authors opt to choose it. The increased global visibility of the journal attracts better manuscripts and also enhances the citation as received for the published papers.

The IJO has placed all the back issues since its inception (1967–2006) on their website. It has helped in increasing the citation received by these older articles. The IJO provides a free facility to download the PDF of any published article in India and HTML version globally. This step has contributed to increased global visibility of the IJO and has given it a quantum leap in overseas submission and citations.^[2]

Recent work has shown a poor representation of research work from developing nations in Orthopaedic Journals published from the western world. The authors have even concluded that they are neglecting orthopedic problems encountered by three-fourth of the global population.^[17] One of the essential aims of all these three Indian journals has been to fill this knowledge gap in the orthopedic literature by accepting and publishing quality papers from developing world relevant to their inherent problems.

Online submission system and the peer-review process

The entire submission and review process for JCOT and JOO are performed on EVISE, a user-friendly system recently launched by Elsevier. This system efficiently manages the double-blind peer review and leading to reduced editorial processing times. In JCOT, after an initial review by one of the editorial board members, the manuscript is sent to subject experts, who are either selected from the existing reviewer database of the journal or a much broader expert database. These reviewers are then included in the journal reviewer database, and editors can also add appropriate reviewers. Therefore, the reviewer database is increasing. It now contains numerous expert reviewers from all subspecialties and research areas, including basic sciences epidemiology and statistics as per the paper’s subject matter provided by SCOPUS. Based on at least two quality reviews and his judgment, the Editor-in-Chief is informed about the decision. The Editor takes the final decision on all manuscripts in Chief based on all the available comments and his manuscript evaluation. The system allows authors to verify the style and accuracy of references. The editorial team can also check for any possibility of plagiarism or similarity, as the “ithenticate” tool is made available to the editors for this purpose. The corresponding author is notified by regular emails when the manuscript is sent for revision, at the time of acceptance, proof checking, online publication ahead of print, and final printing. Proof Central has made final proof checking and typesetting very convenient. High-quality management of the publication process led to the authors’ enhanced confidence, thereby incentivizing more and more good quality manuscripts. The journal is, therefore, able to choose progressively better manuscripts for publication. However, any manuscript containing a message of academic or clinical value, particularly relevant to developing countries, is not ignored. Following final acceptance of typesetting and changes as advised by the corresponding author, the manuscript is immediately made available on the journal website and Scopus and Science direct. It appears on PubMed sometimes after a lag, that is, after the formal publication of an article in a regular issue of the journal, and is made available free on PMC after an embargo period of 1 year. The IJO website is managed by Wolters Kluwer and provides a somewhat different manuscript submission system, much more cumbersome than that of Elsevier. It has migrated to Springer Nature from January 2020.^[18]

Special issues

Several special issues have been published by the JCOT and IJO, in the past few years, on some highly specialized and burning topics. These special issues contain invited articles from worldwide field experts, and submission of is also welcomed from all other interested authors on relevant topics by publishing regular advertisements. All the special issues were received warmly by the readership and enlighten them about current trends in an upcoming topic. These articles have also achieved higher readerships and citations.

Abstracting, indexing, and digital archiving

All these three Indian journals have been included in major indexing and abstracting bodies, including PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Index Copernicus, and Indian Science Abstracts. It fulfills the Medical Council of India recommendations and the University Grants Commission for the faculty promotions.^[19,20] Furthermore, the journal contents are regularly deposited in Archival databases, including Gale Academic OneFile, EBSCOhost, and TOC Premier, which ensure additional preservation, protection, and availability of all contents in the future. The journal hard copy is sent to the medical college libraries in India, society members, and those who demand it. The contents are also made available for all major global university libraries through the databases mentioned above. Definition of an international journal is yet to be established, but editorial board members and authors from overseas; worldwide circulation and citations; and inclusion in international indexing databases are important features. Hence, all three Indian Orthopaedic Journals fulfill these criteria and deserve high recognition from the international community.^[21]

Papers like the present one, highlighting the evolution and history, have been published earlier by several orthopedic journals.^[21-23] We felt that it is appropriate to reflect on the growth of Indian Orthopaedic Journals also. India is a large country with a vast population of 1340 million and their musculoskeletal problems, which are entirely different from Western countries. Hence, the Indian journals must highlight their population base’s issues and provide solutions for these problems, which may not be published or highlighted in the Western journals. None of the three journals are indexed in Medline, but it is hoped that they may appear in this prestigious indexing body in due time, considering their unique growth pattern. The IJO was included in Web of Science and SCI Expanded from October 2009. The advantage of these was that the IJO received the first impact factor (0.285) in 2011. We feel that several factors, namely, editorial efficiency, the publication of clinically relevant articles, and presenting special issues on hot and burning topics, etc., have led to the steady progress of JCOT and IJO. The other factors, such as supportive editorial board members, editorial efficiency, passionate reviewers, excellent clinical and research material, valuable readers, and professional publishers, are the critical factors in these journals’ success.

Some of the limitations of our study include the fact that these journals are published by different publishers, who may offer differing avenues for disseminating articles, which may undermine any effort made at a comparative evaluation of these journals. The three journals have different ages, IJO being senior most, followed by JOO and JCOT in that sequence. This may undermine the meaning of any effort at comparison using journal metrics only and that too only for the past 5 years. Journals starting publication at an earlier time may be an advantage as they may be more known to researchers and may, therefore, attract better manuscripts. All three journals are available on SCOPUS and PubMed, whereas only IJO is available on the Web of Science in these years, so to ensure uniform comparison, we have included only Scopus and PubMed databases in our study. Based on a study of this journey, we can provide 10 suggestions [Table 4] which can help similar journals from developing countries to perform better and contribute to uniformity in global dissemination on evidence.

All the three Indian Orthopaedic Journals, that is, IJO, JCOT, and JOO have grown in size and relevance the recent past and have created a niche for themselves in the international medical literature. These Indian journals have represented as the torchbearer of knowledge shared by orthopedic surgeons in India and Asia regarding problems peculiar to this region, besides the rest of the world. Inclusion in the SCOPUS, EMBASE, and PubMed/PubMed Central of these Indian journals has contributed to the markedly increased international relevance.