IJDVL is now indexed with PubMed

Uday Khopkar

 Department of Dermatology,117, 1st Floor, Old OPD Building, K.E.M.Hospital, Parel, Mumbai - 400012, India

Correspondence Address:
Uday Khopkar
Department of Dermatology,117, 1st Floor, Old OPD Building, K.E.M.Hospital, Parel, Mumbai - 400012
India

Dear Colleagues,

Another fruitful year has gone by and it is time to take stock again. Undoubtedly the event of the year for our journal has been its indexing by INDEX MEDICUS and PUBMED from 2005. In the inspection held by the LSRTC committee of National Library of Medicine, our journal scored a "very good" grade. The indexing of our journal by INDEX MEDICUS and PUBMED has shown that our journal is now on par with international journals. I take this opportunity to thank all the authors who responded to my earlier call and offered their continued patronage to IJDVL. I also thank all our selfless and hardworking reviewers and editorial board members whose persistent efforts have led to this positive outcome. A lot of credit is also due to Dr. DK Sahu of Medknow Publications, whose perseverance and sense of direction were of immense help to us in reaching this milestone.

Through this achievement, IJDVL has become the only dermatology periodical from India to be currently indexed with Index Medicus. Consequently we expect qualitative improvement and quantitative increase in the articles submitted to IJDVL for publication.

While the biggest positive of the past year has been the indexing, the biggest negative has been a singular lack of quality original articles. Throughout the year we received only 72 original articles. However, the quality of original articles has improved in comparison to previous year and hence we have a lesser rejection rate for them this year. This should be an impetus for all to submit more studies than case reports or review articles.

During the year we have upgraded our manuscript submission web site with features like reference checking facility. Fellow colleagues have also caught up the technology and most of the articles have been submitted through web site rather than as hard copy. This has encouraged us to go completely electronic in our article submissions. Hence, except for letters to editor, manuscripts for all other sections must now be submitted in electronic formats. No hard copies of articles need to be posted to editorial office for such articles either at the time of initial submission or during revision or proofing stages.

Our endeavor to bring out issues on time has been ably supported by our reviewers with a marked reduction in late responses from 24% in 2004 to 7% in 2005. In order to increase the worldwide exposure of our journal, we have added many overseas reviewers during this year, the percentage of these increasing from 5 to 20 during 2005. However, we are also looking to increase the number of Indian reviewers who can do the work online and on time. Those who wish to offer their services as a reviewer may please apply online from our web site or send an email with their CV to editor@ijdvl.com

Regarding complaints of editorial misconduct, last year we had taken the initiative of providing an avenue for redressal of such complaints by creating the office of the Ombudsman. From this year onwards, the Ombudsman - Dr. Bajaj′s report will always accompany the editor′s report for the year. I thank him for helping us in this respect.

I also take this opportunity to thank all the sponsors of the IJDVL print and web versions especially GSK, Gracewell, Galderma, Stiefel and Procter and Gamble for their wholehearted support that ensured financial health for IJDVL.

Finally I reiterate my appeal to you again to send us quality articles for publication. In fact, IJDVL has taken up a new initiative starting from this year′s national conference to organize small workshops on the subject of research methodology and publication throughout the country in order to improve the quality of research and publication. Looking forward to your participation in this forward march of IJDVL is,