Welcome to 2019!!

Abstract

We have wonderful news to begin 2019: the impact factor (IF) for the Journal of Orthopaedic Research has increased from 2.6 to 3.4–a 30% rise! This places the JOR as the #1 Orthopaedic research journal and #8 of 87 journals classified as Orthopaedic. The clear reason for this increase in IF is the increase in citations to articles in our Journal. Therefore, it is incumbent on the JOR to publish the very best and most relevant and interesting scientific studies in the world of Orthopaedics. We hope that you will direct your attention to the JOR Table of Contents (www.ors.org), the ORS Connect Newsletter presenting the Editor's picks, highly cited papers and special announcements from the JOR, or go online to the Journal itself (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/loi/1554527x). A big thank you to our Wiley partners, Mia Ricci, Executive Editor, Elizabeth Brenner, Managing Editor and Shana Meyer, Production Editor, the Orthopaedic Research Society, Brenda Frederick, Executive Director and Amber Blake, editor of ORS Connect, and, most importantly, the hard working and brilliant Associate Editors, Matthew Allen, Bruce Beynnon, Stuart Goodman, Clark Hung, James Kang, Robin Queen, Clare Yellowley. Preprint servers are internet posting sights that allow authors to make public full-length versions of their complete manuscripts that have not yet passed peer review. Preprint servers offer the benefits of durability, speed of posting, and easy access by the public. They also offer other potential advantages including the ability for authors to establish precedent, to receive feedback on the work from other scientists and to disseminate results without barriers. These servers are supported by important funding bodies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust.11 Leopold, SS, Haddad, FS, Sandell, LJ, Swiontkowski, M. 2019. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, THe Bone and Joint Journal, the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, and The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery will not accept clinical research manuscripts previously posted to preprint servers. J. Ortho. Res. 37(1): The Journal of Orthoapedic Research has a policy in place to support the use of preprint servers and this policy will remain in place for all laboratory and basic science research. However, in coordination with other major Orthopaedic journals, the JOR will no longer accept clinical studies utilizing human subjects that have been published on medical preprint servers.1 The rationale for this decision is the potential for these pre-publications to cause harm, primarily to the public. As described in detail in the Editorial by Dr. Leopold, the preprint servers may be perceived by some (and used by less scrupulous investigators) as evidence even though the studies have not gone through peer review: The public may not be able to discern an unreviewed preprint from a seminal article in a leading journal. Secondly, preprint servers may lead to 2 competing, and perhaps even conflicting, versions of the ”same” content being available online at the same time, which can cause confusion and potentially grave harm. Thus, to protect the patient, these journals will not accept clinical submissions that are posted to pre-print servers. Linda J. Sandell, Editor in Chief, JOR