The evolution of the British Journal of Anaesthesia: the first 100 years

At this centenary of the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA) in 2023, six of its 12 editors/editors-in-chief detail developments over the decades that have led to the BJA becoming a high-impact international scientific journal. As a charity, the BJA supports academic research and training in anaesthesia, critical care, and pain medicine including funding of research grants and postgraduate education. Building on this foundation, the BJA continues to innovate as it aims to become fully electronic, expand into open access publishing, and increase the diversity of its editorial board.

21st anniversary of job embeddedness: A retrospection and future research agenda

BACKGROUND

Since the previous decade, researchers and academics have paid close attention to studying job embeddedness (JE), but the bibliometric examination of JE has not yet been explored.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to provide general information on the trends of the studies on JE as well as an overall perspective on the development of this topic by utilising a bibliometric analytic approach.

METHOD

A bibliometric evaluation was conducted in the JE field since the first publication was documented in the Scopus database. The information retrieved examines 1572 JE papers from a variety of perspectives, including citation and publishing metrics.

RESULTS

The research results pinpoint the most productive countries, universities, journals, authors, and JE articles. The study also classified the most important themes and offered some recommendations for further research.

CONCLUSION

The study provided a snapshot of JE patterns and trajectories from 1993 to 2020, which can help academics and practitioners figure out the pattern and direction of future research. To the best of our knowledge, no other study examines the bibliographic data on JE and thus this work is one of the first contributions to the literature.

Global optometrist research ranking derived from a science-wide author database of standardised citation indicators

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Publications in refereed scientific journals provide a rigorous research base that underpins clinical optometric practice. Leading optometrists who generate this literature can be identified and ranked using standardised citation indicators.

BACKGROUND

This work seeks to identify and rank all optometrists included in a Science-Wide author database of standardised citation indicators (S-W) and to compare this ranking with the Global Optometrist Top 200 Research Ranking (T200).

METHODS

A search was conducted for the names of all optometrists in the T200 who were included in the S-W, which is a world-wide listing of the top 2% of scientists in each of 174 subfield disciplines, ranked according to a composite citation indicator (c_ns) that excludes self-citations and corrects for multiple authorships and author order.

RESULTS

The names of 66 optometrists are found in the S-W. Of these, 58 are designated as working in the primary sub-field 'Ophthalmology & Optometry'; this listing, in rank-order of c_ns, is referred to as the 'S-W-derived Optometrist Research Ranking' (S-WORR). Australian optometrist Nathan Efron is ranked #1 in the S-WORR. The number (%) of optometrists in the S-WORR from each country is: the United States - 26 (45%), Australia - 12 (21%), the United Kingdom - 11 (19%), Canada - 5 (9%), Spain - 2 (3%), Hong Kong - 1 (2%) and South Africa - 1 (2%). The universities housing the equal highest number of optometrists in the S-WORR (five each) are the University of California, Berkeley, USA; the University of New South Wales, Australia; and Queensland University of Technology, Australia. There is a moderately strong correlation between T200 and S-WORR rankings (ρ = 0.6017, N = 58, p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

The S-WORR represents an elite cohort of optometrists who ought to be celebrated for their outstanding, leading and impactful contributions to optometric research.

Global optometrist top 200 research ranking

Clinical relevance: Clinical optometric practice is underpinned by a rigorous research base, the primary evidence for which is publications in refereed scientific journals. Leading optometrists who publish this work should be identified and celebrated.Background: This work aims to derive publication metrics of the leading optometric researchers worldwide.Methods: An extensive global search was conducted to discover leading optometric researchers; 480 names were identified. A custom-designed bibliographic search tool was developed to interrogate the Scopus database (Elsevier) and extract publication metrics using the unique Scopus Author Identifier number for each optometrist. On 13 January 2021, the full list was reduced to 200 optometrists (the 'Top 200') ranked by h-index - the 'Global Optometrist Top 200 Research Ranking'. The output from the custom tool automatically updates every 24 hours and is available at www.optomrankings.com.Results: The Top 200 have h-indices ranging from 20 to 67 and have published between 28 and 440 papers. Sixty one (30.5%) are women. Konrad Pesudovs has the highest h-index (67) and citations (51,193). The most prolific author is Robert Hess (442 papers). David Piñero is publishing at the fastest rate (17.6 papers per year). The Top 200 work in 13 nations, of whom 172 (86.0%) work in four nations: USA - 76 (38.0%), Australia - 43 (21.5%), UK - 41 (20.5%) and Canada - 16 (8.0%). Of the 72 institutions represented, the University of California, Berkeley, USA is home to the most Top 200 optometrists (17) and has the highest combined h-index of Top 200 optometrists (132).Conclusions: The optometric profession is supported by a robust research base, prosecuted by a large international cohort of optometric researchers who publish extensively on a broad range of ophthalmic issues and whose work is highly cited. The 200 most impactful optometrists in the world are identified.

Tracing open data in emergencies: The case of the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic constitutes an ongoing, burning Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). In 2015, the World Health Organization adopted an open data policy recommendation in such situations.

OBJECTIVES

The present cross-sectional meta-research study aimed to assess the availability of open data and metrics of articles pertaining to the COVID-19 outbreak in five high-impact journals.

METHODS

All articles regarding the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), published in five high-impact journals (Ann Intern Med, BMJ, JAMA, NEJM and Lancet) until March 14, 2020 were retrieved. Metadata (namely the type of article, number of authors, number of patients, citations, errata, news and social media mentions) were extracted for each article in each journal in a systematic way. Google Scholar and Scopus were used for citations and author metrics respectively, and Altmetrics and PlumX were used for news and social media mentions retrieval. The degree of adherence to the PHEIC open data call was also evaluated.

RESULTS

A total of 140 articles were published until March 14, 2020, mostly opinion papers. Sixteen errata followed these publications. The number of authors in each article ranged from 1 to 63, whereas the number of patients with a laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection reached 2645. Extensive hyperauthorship was evident among case studies. The impact of these publications reached a total of 4210 cumulative crude citations and 342 790 news and social media mentions. Only one publication (0.7%) provided complete open data, while 32 (22.9%) included patient data.

CONCLUSIONS

Even though a large number of manuscripts was produced since the pandemic, availability of open data remains restricted.

High Impact and Highly Cited Peer-Reviewed Journal Article Publications by Canadian Occupational Therapy Authors: A Bibliometric Analysis

A bibliometric analysis of high impact and highly cited peer-reviewed literature published between 1992 and 2016 by Canadian occupational therapy authors that were included in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) or Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) was completed. To complete the analysis, journal article titles, abstracts, author details, and keywords were searched. A second-filter identified articles where the first or corresponding author had a Canadian affiliation and occupational therapy qualification. The total number of times an article was cited since its initial publication and during 2016 in Web of Science Core Collection was recorded. A total of 919 retrieved articles met the inclusion criteria with 18 articles having 5 or more citations during 2016 alone and another 34 articles having 50 or more citations since their initial publication date. The top three journals where high impact and highly-cited articles were published were Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Disability and Rehabilitation, and American Journal of Occupational Therapy. The three institutions that generated the largest number of high impact and highly cited articles were McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of British Columbia. Therefore, as of 2016, Canadian occupational therapy authors published 18 high impact and 34 highly cited articles.

Scholarly Merit in a Global Context: The Nation Gap in Psychological Science

Psychologists from the United States are extremely prominent in psychological science, publishing more articles and receiving more citations than researchers from other nations. In this brief article, I review some previous research on this "nation gap" in psychology and highlight relevant data from journals published by the Association for Psychological Science. I then discuss some possible explanations for the nation gap and touch on some of its implications for thinking about scholarly merit and scientific eminence. I hope that the research and data discussed here will stimulate further consideration of the role of author nationality for both judgments of scholarly merit and psychological science more generally.

Scientific Eminence: Where Are the Women?

Women are sparsely represented among psychologists honored for scientific eminence. However, most currently eminent psychologists started their careers when far fewer women pursued training in psychological science. Now that women earn the majority of psychology Ph.D.'s, will they predominate in the next generation's cadre of eminent psychologists? Comparing currently active female and male psychology professors on publication metrics such as the h index provides clues for answering this question. Men outperform women on the h index and its two components: scientific productivity and citations of contributions. To interpret these gender gaps, we first evaluate whether publication metrics are affected by gender bias in obtaining grant support, publishing papers, or gaining citations of published papers. We also consider whether women's chances of attaining eminence are compromised by two intertwined sets of influences: (a) gender bias stemming from social norms pertaining to gender and to science and (b) the choices that individual psychologists make in pursuing their careers.

Factors impacting time to acceptance and publication for peer-reviewed publications

OBJECTIVE

Timely publication of data is important for the medical community and provides a valuable contribution to data disclosure. The objective of this study was to identify and evaluate times to acceptance and publication for peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, and letters to the editor.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Key publication metrics for published manuscripts, reviews, and letters to the editor were identified by eight Amgen publications professionals. Data for publications submitted between 1 January 2013 and 1 November 2015 were extracted from a proprietary internal publication-tracking database. Variables included department initiating the study, publication type, number of submissions per publication, and the total number of weeks from first submission to acceptance, online publication, and final publication.

RESULTS

A total of 337 publications were identified, of which 300 (89%) were manuscripts. Time from submission to acceptance and publication was generally similar between clinical and real-world evidence (e.g. observational and health economics studies) publications. Median (range) time from first submission to acceptance was 23.4 (0.2-226.2) weeks. Median (range) time from first submission to online (early-release) publication was 29.7 (2.4-162.6) weeks. Median (range) time from first submission to final (print) publication was 36.2 (2.8-230.8) weeks. Time from first submission to acceptance, online publication, and final publication increased accordingly with number of submissions required for acceptance, with similar times noted between each subsequent submission.

CONCLUSIONS

Analysis of a single-company publication database showed that the median time for manuscripts to be fully published after initial submission was 36.2 weeks, and time to publication increased accordingly with the number of submissions. Causes for multiple submissions and time from clinical trial completion to first submission were not assessed; these were limitations of the study. Nonetheless, publication planners should consider these results when evaluating timelines and identifying potential journals early in the publication planning process.

Quantifying published scholarly works of experiential education directors

OBJECTIVE

To determine the amount and potential impact of scholarly works that directors of experiential education in US colleges and schools of pharmacy have published since 2001.

METHODS

A search in Web of Science was used to identify publications and citations for the years 2001-2011 by experiential education directors as identified by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Roster of Faculty and Professional Staff in 2011. Publication productivity was analyzed by position title, faculty rank, and type of institution (public vs private, research vs nonresearch-intensive). Types of published works were characterized, related citations were identified, and a reported h-index was collected for each person who published during this period.

RESULTS

Ninety-seven of 226 (43%) experiential education directors published 344 scholarly works which had received 1841 citations, for an average of 1 publication every 3 years and an average citation rate of 5.3 per publication. Directors at publicly funded and research-intensive institutions published slightly more than did their counterparts at private and nonresearch-intensive schools. Publications were concentrated in 6 journals with a weighted mean publication impact factor of 1.5.

CONCLUSION

Many experiential education directors have published scholarly works even though their titles and ranks vary widely. While the quantity of such works may not be large, the impact is similar to that of other pharmacy practice faculty members. These results could be used to characterize the scholarly performance of experiential education directors in recent years as well as to establish a culture of scholarship in this emerging career track within pharmacy education.

Measuring the impact of allied health research

BACKGROUND

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) rankings are given to academic journals in which Australian academics publish. This provides a metric on which Australian institutions and disciplines are ranked for international competitiveness. This paper explores the issues surrounding the ERA rankings of allied health journals in Australia.

METHODS

We conducted a broad search to establish a representative list of general allied health and discipline-specific journals for common allied health disciplines. We identified the ERA rankings and impact factors for each journal and tested the congruence between these metrics within the disciplines.

RESULTS

Few allied health journals have high ERA rankings (A*/A), and there is variability in the impact factors assigned to journals within the same ERA rank. There is a small group of allied health researchers worldwide, and this group is even smaller when divided by discipline. Current publication metrics may not adequately assess the impact of research, which is largely aimed at clinicians to improve clinical practice. Moreover, many journals are produced by underfunded professional associations, and readership is often constrained by small numbers of clinicians in specific allied health disciplines who are association members.

CONCLUSION

Allied health must have a stronger united voice in the next round of ERA rankings. The clinical impact of allied health journals also needs to be better understood and promoted as a research metric.