With the attainment of its first Scientific Impact Factor in June of 2010, the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention (JCRP) took a great step in increasing its visibility and relevance within the scientific and clinical communities focusing on cardiovascular and pulmonary disease.
For authors, the Scientific Impact Factor evaluation process can identify journals in which to publish, confirm the status of journals in which they have published, and identify journals relevant to their research. For the Editorial Board, Impact Factor reports allow for assessment of the effectiveness of editorial policies and objectives as well as tracking the standing of the Journal. As an end result, for the clinician, the Impact Factor evaluation process provides an up-to-date evaluation of the JCRP "hot topics" found in topical review articles, scientific statements from both the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR) and the Canadian Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation (CACR), and reports of scientific and clinical investigations. This feature promotes opportunities for practitioners to remain at the forefront of their professions.
In addition to the Scientific Impact Factor, JCRP has made significant strides in elevating the content level of the online version of JCRP to one that provides both the scientist and clinician with tools to greatly assist their endeavors to ultimately enhance patient care. Some specific new features of the JCRP website include tabs which identify:
* collections of AACVPR and CACR scientific statements, JCRP articles of similar subject matter, and Featured Articles which have been selected by the Editor;
* those articles which are available free to website users; and most importantly,
* the Publish-Ahead-of-Print section, which includes manuscripts which have not yet been published in the print version of the Journal. This latter feature of JCRP Online allows authors to get their work into the literature much more quickly, while providing online users the opportunity to gain from these papers in a much more time-efficient manner.
In addition, JCRP is pleased to announce a new website feature that showcases article ISI Citation Data. Some of the citation data features include:
* # Times Cited: Each article will display the total number of times and where it has been cited. This information can be found at the end of each article and is current though 2009 issues.
* High Impact Articles: In the Most Popular Web Part, a new tab displaying a list of the journal's highest impact articles according to the ISI Hot Papers service.
In addition, numerous other features are available to users when you register with JCRP Online. This can be accomplished by going to http://journals.lww.com/jcrjournal. Even if you access the JCRP through your AACVPR or CACR websites, take the time to register on the JCRP homepage in the upper right corner of the page. This will allow you to take advantage of all the exciting opportunities that JCRP brings and to customize which features would benefit you most.
On behalf of the AACVPR and CACR, I wish to thank the JCRP editorial staff, authors, reviewers, advertisers, and of course, our readership for your support and very tangible efforts to elevate JCRP over the past year. I hope you are as proud as I am that we have taken these next steps in our evolution.
I hope that 2011 is happy and prosperous for all.
Editor-In-Chief
-Mark A. Williams, PhD, FAACVPR