Announcement of first time Cytojournal impact factor for 2012 coincides with Cytojournal decade celebration (2004-2013)

Dear Authors, Peer Reviewers, and Readers,

On behalf of the Cytopathology Foundation Inc., (CF) and the CytoJournal editorial board, we are communicating the recently announced 2012 impact factor (IF) of 1.2 for CytoJournal.[1] This numerical indicator has been long awaited by authors, as many institutions use IF to determine preferences for publication metrics. However, as all CytoJournal readers and authors are aware,[2] there are many additional quality metrics for journals and authors. CytoJournal was launched in 2004 and due to the benefits of internet and open access [Figure 1], since that time many of its metrics have been significantly high [Table 1, Figure 2].[2,3,4,5,6] The recently assigned IF of 1.2, announced during our decade celebration (2004-2013) [Figure 3] is yet another additional parameter indicating journal quality.

Figure 1.

Publishing with old traditional method (a) versus open access (b) (Modified from open access publication-CytoJournal 2006; 3:5).(2)

Table 1.

IF for peer reviewed sentinel cytopathology journals (over a 5-year period 2008-2012)

Figure 2.

Impact factors (average for 5 years-2008 through 2012, Table 1) for sentinel peer reviewed cytopathology journals

Figure 3.

CytoJournal decade celebration (2004-2013) of open access in cytopathology

It is the uncompromising efforts of CytoJournal's peer reviewers and the consistent commitment from devoted authors that make all CytoJournal articles suitable for the widest circulation. This process is profoundly facilitated by the open access charter of CytoJournal [Figure 1].[2,7,8,9,10] As reported by many scholars, open access charter increases the number of citations per article with an ultimately positive impact for individual authors, CytoJournal, and global readership.[3,4,5,6]

The 2012 IF for CytoJournal was calculated based on citations from 2010[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38] to 2011[39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61] CytoJournal publications within the articles from indexed journals published in 2012.[1] Considering the trend over 5 years (2008-2012), CytoJournal's IF of 1.2 for 2012 is comparable with the other peer reviewed cytopathology journals [Table 1 and Figure 2].[62,63,64,65,66] With increasing interest, visibility and access to the readers, as well as copyright retention benefits to the authors, the IF should rise even further over the coming years. The 2012 CytoJournal articles cited during 2013 will contribute to the forthcoming IF for 2013.[67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92]

It is observed that the work of authors who publish in open access journals with free global access is more visible and therefore has increased citation rates for all good quality articles (personal experience, 3-6). As the number of citations is considered an important quality metric, it brings more rewards to the individual authors with expedited career trajectories. In addition, “the creative common license”[93] for all the work published in open access allows authors to retain their copyright in the public domain. This gives them easy and hassle free access to their published material (such as tables and figures) so that they and their colleagues can incorporate such material back into their future works (like in textbooks), with only a citation of the original work needed.[93]

Currently with support from CF, CytoJournal is the only peer reviewed, cytopathology journal that offers this highly beneficial, revolutionary, open access platform to all cytopathology scholars across the globe.[94] An article publication cost (APC) of $ 1,500 for publishing the manuscripts accepted after completion of peer review process is required to accomplish the goal of a self-sustainable publication model. However, with courtesy of the CF, the entire APC of $1,500 is completely waived for all CF members (annual membership is $50 and full CF membership for life is only $1,000, with both dues reduced to 40% for members in developing countries).[95]

We would like to thank the CytoJournal editorial board and its peer reviewers for their high quality editorial support. We also thank Wolters Kluwer/Medknow[96] for their publishing support with a commitment to the open access charter in collaboration with the CF.

Congratulations are also extended to all of the authors for their achievements in attracting high citation rates for their CytoJournal articles, which was achieved with the additional benefit of retaining their copyright in the public domain. These articles will have maximum global scientific impact for future generations. The high citation rates for individual authors additionally benefits them by increasing their H factor and other metrics available free on the web for anyone to monitor.[2]

Finally and most importantly, we thank all the CytoJournal readers for their timely suggestions and preferential citations of CytoJournal articles. We look forward to higher CytoJournal IFs in the future.