Annals of Occupational Hygiene Performance, 2010

Abstract

Submission and publication: In 2010, we had 227 submissions, 16% up on the previous record, and our rejection rate was 55%. We increased the number of research papers and commentaries published to 86. In 2011, we have increased the number of issues to 9, and we are considering a further increase in 2012. Since 1997, the number of submissions has been increasing at 7% a year. Handling time: For papers received between October 2009 and September 2010, the median time to send a first decision to authors, including peer review, was 42 days, and 85% of first decisions were sent within 75 days. This is a marked improvement on 2009 and much faster than most journals in our field. Publication time: Papers are usually published online 6 weeks after acceptance. Circulation: The provisional figure for the number of institutions paying for access to the whole journal in 2010 was very slightly down, following a 16% increase in the previous year. No doubt that this is a consequence of the recession. In addition, 1280 institutions in developing countries have registered for free or deeply discounted access. The number of full texts of papers downloaded from the online edition in 2010 was 1000 a day, 7% up on 2009. Sources: The leading sources of submissions, by address of first author, were USA (72 papers), UK (23), Germany (13), Sweden (13), Italy (12), and France (10). The regional distributions were Europe 44%, North America 34%, East Asia and Australasia 15%, and the rest of the world 7%. Journal Impact: No single numerical indicator properly measures journal impact, and this is a subject of much research. The Thomson Scientific Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has many shortcomings and in our field is rising at a few percent a year (Ogden and Bartley, 2008) but is widely used. Our JIF for 2009 (announced in the middle of 2010) was 1.91, about equal to our previous record. Corresponding information for 2009 is given by Ogden (2010).