Editorial: JCN – Developments in 2008

Abstract

In the past two years we have started the year by raising questions related to the content of JCN such as the extent to which it is clinical (Watson 2006) or international (Watson et al. 2007). This year, we start the year with good news and this is related to proposed developments in JCN as well as achievements in 2007 which, presumably, demonstrate the extent to which JCN meets its own target of being a clinically relevant journal of international importance. Since 2006 we have been running 12 issues annually and this year has seen a further increase in manuscripts submitted and, as a consequence, manuscripts accepted. At the same time we have every indication that the quality of papers in JCN is being maintained and 2008 will witness developments which respond to this. One of the most important achievements in 2008 was the further increase in the impact factor of JCN from 1·027 to 1·430. This means that, according to this internationally accepted indicator of journal quality, JCN remains the leading UK academic nursing journal and is now sixth out of 36 in the world ranking of academic nursing journals. This impact factor is an indication of the impact of the journal in the scientific community in terms of the extent to which work in JCN is cited but it also raises our profile internationally and ensures that we continue to receive a steady and increasing stream of papers from across the world. To view the kind of papers that are highly cited please see Williamson and Hoggart (2005), Whitehead (2005), Defloor and Grypdonck (2005), Nikoletti et al. (2005), Verhaeghe et al. (2005) which were our top five cited papers in 2005 and 2006. Another way the impact and profile of JCN is increasing is through our media outreach. This works through the identification of papers that are likely to be of general interest to the public, beyond our professional and academic readership. In 2006–2007 we were able to publicise the following papers: Smith (2006), Haglund et al. (2006), Yang et al. (2006), Chen and Chiang (2007), Mamhidir et al. (2007). The papers are picked up in the UK by daily broadsheets and across the world by important newspapers. For an indication of how well this raises the profile of JCN please check http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and search for ‘Journal of Clinical Nursing’. This year sees a further increase in the pages being published and this is a direct response to our increased intake and acceptance of manuscripts and to ensure that the time between acceptance of manuscripts and publication is kept to under a year. To enable this development, each issue of JCN will be published in two parts. One part will sharpen our focus on clinical practice and the other will broaden our horizon to highlight papers on issues that have an impact on clinical practice. Until now both these types of papers have featured in JCN but have been gathered under clinical headings. This new development will allow us to aim one part at nurses in practice while accommodating an increasing number of papers that are important and highly relevant to practice but which are directed more at nurse educators, managers and policy makers. The new sections will be specifically edited by two new editors who I will introduce below and each of these editors has been invited to provide their own vision for their respective parts of JCN (Haigh 2008, Jackson 2008). The editor of this section will be Carol Haigh from the UK. Carol works as a Senior Lecturer at The University of Salford in the School of Nursing and is a member of the Institute for Health & Social Care Research, where she is the Research Admissions Co-ordinator, and of the Salford Centre for Nursing, Midwifery & Collaborative Research. Her principal research interest is pain but she also studies older people and organisation of care. The editor of this section will be Debra Jackson from Australia. Debra works as a Professorial Fellow in the School of Nursing at the University of Western Sydney where she is part of the N-FORCE research group which brings a multidisciplinary perspective to support for vulnerable families and chronic and complex care. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Carol and Debra into the JCN team. These are crucial appointments and I look forward to working with both of them in the 2008 and beyond.