JMIR's new Impact Factor: 4.7 (5-yr IF: 5.0) - remains top journal in its discipline
(This is an archived post, for 2013/2014 data see this announcement) (Toronto, June 29th, 2011) The new JMIR Impact Factor for 2010 (released in June 2011 by Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports) has further increased to an unprecedented 4.7 (5-year impact factor: 5.0). Never before in the history of the impact factor had a journal in the medical informatics category such a high impact factor. JMIR remains the leading journal in the health informatics category, clearly outranking other journals like the runner-up, the J Am Med Inform Assn (JAMIA) (IF 3.1, 5-yr IF 3.9), the Int J Med Inform (IF 2.2, 5-yr IF 2.2), the J Biomed Inform (IF 1.7, 5-yr IF 1.2), or Method Inform Med (IF 1.5, 5-yr IF 1.2). JMIR also remains the #2 journal in the health sciences & health services research category, with the top journal in that discipline (Milbank Q) having almost the same impact factor as JMIR (IF 4.8). JMIR outranks journals such as Health Affairs (IF 3.8) or Med Care (IF 3.2). JMIR also outranks established public health journals such as Am J Prev Med (IF 4.1) or the Am J Public Health (IF 3.9) - this is an interesting observation because JMIR has a clear "public health" angle due to the large number of studies evaluating web-based or mobile behavior change programs. Finally, as an open access journal, we also take pride in the fact that our papers receive more citations than open access articles published in a "generic" open access outlet such as PLOS ONE (IF 4.4). JMIR's impact factor is also higher than all 35 BMC journals except the two BMC flagship journals BMC Med (IF 5.7) and BMC Biol (IF 5.2), which are ranked 12th and 8th in their disciplines. Except for two PLOS Biology journals (PLOS Biol and PLOS PLoS Computational Biology), JMIR remains the only open access journal taking the #1 spot in its discipline. While everybody in the publishing industry recognizes the limitations of the impact factor as a metric for quality of a journal, these numbers (in addition to our other metrics such as views or tweets, published at http://www.jmir.org/stats/overview) provide an important validation of our editorial work, and of the work of the authors deciding to submit their best work to JMIR to achieve maximum exposure, visibility, and recognition. We also know from emails and conversations with fellow scientists that JMIR has been and continues to be an inspiration for those seeking to establish new journals independently of large publishers. With the creation of iJMR and other journal-spin offs, JMIR will broaden its publishing activities in 2011 and beyond. Thank you - once again - to all authors, reviewers and editors for helping us to maintain our status as the leading journal in our fields and one of the the leading open access publishers!
ABOUT THE JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH ---------------------------------------------------------- The "Journal of Medical Internet Research" (JMIR; Medline-abbreviation: J Med Internet Res), founded in 1999, was the first international scientific peer-reviewed Open Access journal in eHealth and Health Informatics and has quickly established itself as the leading journals in this field. The journal has now more than 50.000 readers per month, is subscribed by more than 45.000 TOC alert subscribers, and publishes about 50-60 high-quality papers per year. Leading ehealth research institutions and departments are institutional members of JMIR (http://www.jmir.org/membership/viewall)
, enabling their faculty and students to publish in JMIR free of charge, while other authors pay our article processing fee from their grants (similar to how they budget for conference presentations and travel). JMIR focusses on patient/consumer-centered, participatory approaches, innovative methods, and applications with public health impact, as opposed to hospital information systems and clinical informatics. With a 2010 ISI impact factor of 4.7 and a 5-year impact factor of 5.0 JMIR has established itself as THE leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of "ICT in health". As of 2011, JMIR is listed #1 in the medical informatics category and #2 in the health services research category of Thomson/Reuters Journal Citation Reports (JCR 2010, released June 2011). Due to its open access policy, the journal has a broad readership, including policy makers, health care practitioners, academic researchers (including medicine, social sciences, and engineering), and even patients/consumers. JMIR will publish applied research in the areas of consumer health informatics, mobile communication, and public health informatics, in particular if mobile or web-based methods are employed. A rigorous evaluation preferably with clinical outcomes is usually a prerequisite for acceptance - technical papers with only formative evaluation or other papers not fitting the scope of JMIR should be submitted to iJMR (interactive Journal of Medical Research) instead. As one of our unique features JMIR tries to publish in "Internet speed", achieving minimal editorial turnaround times of sometimes only a couple of days or weeks between submission and publication. Selected papers are published for open peer-review before formal acceptance. The journal is freely available at http://www.jmir.org. COMMENT