This issue brings to a close my 8-year tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Athletic Training. When I became Editor in 1996, I pledged to enhance the image of JAT as a scholarly journal. With the support of many people, I believe we have succeeded in this goal. In this editorial, I will provide an update on the current state of JAT.
The Journal presently has a circulation of 29 000 in 38 countries, including approximately 24 000 members (about 50% elect to receive JAT online) and 5000 institutions and individual health care professionals. We receive about 125 manuscript submissions per year. Virtually none of those (less than 1%) are accepted on the first submission, and all that are not rejected are returned to the author for revision. Approximately 55% of the manuscripts we receive are rejected, and 27% are ultimately accepted for publication. (The remaining manuscripts are not revised and resubmitted.) The length of time between initial submission and publication runs 12 to 18 months.
Most papers published in JAT focus on original clinical and basic science research. Other types of papers published are literature reviews and communications articles. (The latter category includes official position and policy statements from the National Athletic Trainers' Association; technical notes on such topics as research design and statistics; and articles on other professional issues of interest to the readership.) Case reports that define and promote the standard of care for certified athletic trainers are also published in JAT.
The Journal and its owner, the National Athletic Trainers' Association, conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.” The Journal is currently indexed in PubMed Central, Focus on Sports Science & Medicine, Research Alert, Physical Education Index, SPORT Discus, Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature, Allied and Alternative Medicine Database, PsycINFO, and EMBASE.
Our quest to become indexed in Index Medicus continues. Our Indexing Priority Score has improved from 2.5 in 1994 to 3.0 in 1999, and most recently, 3.5 in 2003. (A 4.0 out of 5.0 is necessary for indexing). Thankfully, our acceptance in PubMed Central (www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov) has brought the national and international exposure to JAT that we sought from Index Medicus. PubMed Central is an online archive of full-text life sciences journal articles. A service of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the US National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central provides free, unrestricted access to everyone with an Internet connection. As a member of PubMed Central, our journal's citations are now available in PubMed, the online bibliographic database that includes MEDLINE. MEDLINE provides citations and abstracts from more than 4600 biomedical journals in 71 countries.
I believe the future for JAT is bright. The new section, “Evidence-Based Practice,” uses a real clinical problem as the basis for choosing topics to review. This section will help clinicians develop strategies to integrate medical research findings into their clinical decision making. We are currently setting up our online manuscript-submission and -review system, which will be operational by the time this issue is printed. This will allow authors to submit online and reviewers and editors to view manuscripts online, which should streamline the process for everyone.
I am grateful to Managing Editor Leslie Neistadt, the Associate Editors, and the many Editorial Board members and manuscript reviewers for their support during my editorship. Special thanks are extended to the guest editors of the JAT special thematic issues and to the hundreds of authors who have selected JAT as the outlet for their work. I urge you to continue your support of the Journal of Athletic Training under the capable leadership of incoming Editor-in-Chief Christopher Ingersoll.