Editor's Note

Abstract

A year has passed rather quickly since my appointment as Editor-in-Chief. It has been very challenging, but also a tremendously enjoyable and rewarding experience. I am finally beginning to appreciate the relentless nature of the work of producing an issue of Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology each month. Thankfully, this task is made easier by the unwavering support of my fellow Editors, Editors for Trainees and the Journal office staff. It is this collective team effort that has made it possible to deliver on a number of objectives that we set ourselves this time last year1. I would like to express my particular gratitude to Lil Valentin who, after over two terms as an Editor overseeing the peer review of gynecology manuscripts, steps down. Her conscientious and diligent approach to her role has undoubtedly had an important impact on growth and development of the gynecology component of the Journal. The open call last year for new Editors was rewarded by applications from over 30 highly respected academics. The appointment of several new Editors has allowed the Journal to broaden its specialty base and increase the pool of available reviewers. Through their concerted efforts, the average time taken to a first decision on a manuscript has now decreased to around 30 days. When accepted, a manuscript is available online and citable as an Accepted Article within 2 weeks and is published in an average of 5 months. For selected, high-profile articles, a dedicated fast-track review system was implemented which was instrumental in attracting some of the highest impact articles published in this Journal2, 3. The Journal has also followed through on the promise to deliver, as a lead article each month, a meta-analysis or systematic or narrative review. Many of these reviews were unsolicited, but increasingly the Journal has been commissioning reviews in keeping with the theme of planned issues4, 5. From the reader's perspective, a number of features have been introduced to give the Journal more relevance and utility. The most popular output, particularly amongst trainees, has been the inclusion of a free-access Journal Club article accompanied online by PowerPoint teaching slides to facilitate dissemination and discussion of clinically important research. Article lengths have also been shortened, with authors being encouraged to provide additional supplementary text, images and videos online. Furthermore, all published articles older than 12 months are now being highlighted as freely accessible on PubMed. Journals are commonly ranked academically by Impact Factor, and it is reassuring that UOG's Impact Factor continues to rise and is now at its highest ever rating of 3.163. However, we should not ignore the fact that the clinical impact of the Journal is reflected by the exponential rise in online article downloads, from 130 000 in 2005 to over 1 million in 2011. I am determined to improve the academic quality of the Journal. I have no doubt that this will be my greatest challenge in the next few years. The original article submission rate has increased by almost 20% in the last year and now stands at around 45 per month. Previously, an unchanged article rejection rate and an increasing backlog of accepted articles led to a policy of increasing the size of the Journal and the number of articles published in each issue. Unfortunately, this is not a sustainable long-term strategy. It is a key aim to eliminate the falling backlog of accepted articles through increasing the efficiency of the review process. The Editors have made the inevitable and justifiable decision to increase modestly our rejection rate in order to help achieve this goal whilst still maintaining the quality and clinical relevance of published manuscripts. I am confident that, with the continued support of the editorial team and Editorial Board, the Journal will go from strength to strength, delivering benefits to researchers, readers and trainees alike. I would like to thank our readers and authors for their continued loyalty to the Journal and I would welcome your opinions and thoughts about ways in which further improvements can be made.