Every professional society and scholarly journal must evolve, not only to maintain and enhance interest of the membership and readers, but also to sustain a competitive advantage over the many medical journals now being published, even when limited to the field of oncology. For a journal to succeed it must position itself so that potential readers know where to look for quality articles pertinent to their interest and that authors know where to submit their best work. Many journals now publish oncology papers, including general medical journals, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, and Lancet. The broad visibility of these journals and their high impact factors attract high numbers of high-profile papers.
Given the current state of electronic journalism, abstracts, at least, might be available for review upon electronic publication, but many high-profile journals require subscriptions or lengthy time periods after publication before nonsubscribers can access full articles without charge. General oncology journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, or Annals of Oncology, may dedicate up to 10%–15% of their published material to papers in gastrointestinal cancers, even though these tumors comprise a much larger burden of malignancies worldwide. Although only a small proportion of physicians who specialize in gastrointestinal cancers see patients with only a single tumor, such as colon cancer or neuroendocrine tumors of the gut, most of us care for patients with a variety of gastrointestinal cancers, and we need a source for (1) networking and publishing, and (2) reading up-to-date, clinically relevant papers. The International Society of Gastrointestinal Oncology fulfills the first function. The Society's journal, Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, serves the latter.
The true heart of most peer-reviewed journals is timely reports of original research.
As I was completing my 10-year commitment as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, I was asked to consider taking on a new role as Editor-in-Chief of GCR, succeeding founding Editor-in-Chief Jaffer Ajani. I certainly had both the time and the interest, but I spent a great deal of time considering how the journal could change to meet the changing needs of the gastrointestinal cancer community, which is both multidisciplinary and international. Although journals are judged primarily by content and reputation, appearance also counts, so we began our makeover with an updated cover design.
The true heart of most peer-reviewed journals is timely reports of original research. High-quality original reports are the hardest to attract, as authors naturally want their work to appear in journals with high readership, distribution, and reputation scores. I would suggest that one of the responsibilities of ISGIO membership is to consider submitting more of their original research to GCR, and to encourage their colleagues to do so as well. Important papers deserve fast and fair review, and high-quality reports that might otherwise languish among the countless submissions to well-established journals, which like all journals are also limited by the number of pages they can afford to print, will find a home in GCR. Since the impact factor for each journal relies primarily on citations of original reports, the art of publishing is finding the “right” number of such papers. The impact factor represents the mean of the number of citations divided by the number of published papers, which means that too many noncited papers can significantly negatively reduce the overall impact factor.
GCR has published other than original reports, including reviews, book reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, and case reports. As with all journalistic endeavors, for each of these categories, authors should be authoritative, the content innovative and potentially practice changing, and highly interesting to a diverse readership. By focusing on these goals and delivering high-quality material, we can expect to attract new readers and new ISGIO members, from all regions of the world. As an international journal, for example, we might consider introducing a section that describes an interesting or perhaps atypical case that would be followed by brief commentaries by experts from around the world discussing what constitutes standard of care in their country or regions vis-à-vis the clinical circumstances presented. These pieces wouldn't necessarily need to be presented in a so-called “point-counterpoint” style, which can sometimes turn out more confrontational than educational.
On a final note, every journal depends immensely on the contributions of an engaged, active editorial board, whose members are highly motivated, who are able and willing to bring new ideas and new lines of thought to the editorial process. Equally important is the role of expert reviewers who are committed to ensuring that only high quality papers appear in the journal's pages and that the information is communicated effectively and professionally. So let this last paragraph of my first communication to you as Editor-in-Chief serve as a call for dedicated volunteers to fulfill these vital roles and ensure that GCR endures as a scholarly journal we can all be proud of. I look forward to hearing from, and working with, all colleagues interested in joining me in this challenge.