New initiatives of IJDVL in the year 2009

Devinder Mohan Thappa

 Department of Dermatology and STD, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry - 605 006, India

Correspondence Address:
Devinder Mohan Thappa
Editor, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, Professor and Head, Department of Dermatology and STD, JIPMER, Pondicherry - 605 006
India

Dear members,

With the change of editor, you saw the change in the cover and presentation of contents of the journal. In an endeavor to live up to the expectations of members of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists (IADAL), the present team made certain changes in the journal. Six issues of Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology (IJDVL) were brought out along with two supplements on "Acne in India: Guidelines for management - IAA Consensus Document" and "IADVL Standard Guidelines of Care in Dermatosurgery -Report of Taskforce-2009" in the year 2009. Each article published in IJDVL is now assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and PubMed Identifier or PubMed Unique Identifier (PMID) number. Another new feature of this journal is the Google map of authors in the year 2009 giving the places of origin of articles.

Following PubMed and Science Citation Index-e listing, the IJDVL has seen substantial increase in the number of articles submitted. A highlight of this trend has been an increase in the number of submissions from other countries. This year we had more than 600 articles submissions to the journal website, an increase in submission rate of nearly 100 articles over 2008. As a consequence of this, the acceptance rate of submitted new articles for the journal has come down in the year 2009.

The quality of original articles has kept a steady uptrend throughout the year. Compared to 104 original articles submitted in 2008, we received 114 original articles in 2009, about 20% of which were from outside India. We have a relatively low acceptance rate of about 4% for such articles only to make sure that you get the best of the material to peruse.

In order to increase the worldwide exposure of our journal and for expert reviews, we have added many overseas reviewers during this year. All the same, 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 website or send an email with their CV to editor@ijdvl.com.

I thank my committed editorial team for their all round efforts to improve the journal and for spending a substantial part of their life for this mission. A million thanks are due to the reviewers who not just helped in selection of good articles but also added value to the selected articles. And above all, I thank our hardworking authors for sending their best material to IJDVL.

A large part of the success of the IJDVL has been due to the persevering efforts of Dr. DK Sahu and his dedicated team at Medknow Publications. The IJDVL manuscript submission site is being upgraded continuously by them and I am sure you must be happy with the new looks of the website. Now articles are not accepted directly as done earlier. They follow the path of pre-acceptance during which edited articles are proof-read by authors and related queries are answered. During this phase, one can also upload the high resolution images. It is now possible during new article submission time itself to upload the images of 2 MB size, thus avoiding the need of re-submission of high resolution images later on.

My thanks are due to all our sponsors for the 2009 print version, especially Gracewell, Galderma, Glaxo SmithKline (GSK), and Dr. Reddy′s laboratories Ltd for their financial backing of this scientific activity.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Drs. Timir Y Mehta, Laxman M Prajapati, Bharti Mittal, Chaitanya G Joshi, Jayesh J Sheth, Dinesh B Patel, Dinkar M Dave, and Ramesh K Goyal, authors of the original article titled "Association of HLA-BFNx011502 allele and carbamazepine-induced Stevens-Johnson syndrome among Indians" for winning the Bishnupriya Devi Award for best paper published in IJDVL during the year 2009. I also congratulate Drs. Hemanta Kumar Kar, Sonali Langar, Tarlok Chand Arora, Pankaj Sharma, Alok Raina, and Meenakshi Bhardwaj, authors of the article "Occurrence of plant sensitivity among patients of photodermatoses: A control-matched study of 156 cases from New Delhi" for winning the Indubala Memorial Award for best paper published in IJDVL in 2009 in the subject of occupational/contact dermatitis. Last but not the least; I thank all the contributors for their unstinted support during the year that is pivotal to the continued success of our journal.

I take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!