Acta Dermatovenerol APA Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica 2015;24:1-10 doi: 10.15570/actaapa.2015.3 Citation analysis of Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica: 1992-2013 Anja Ostrbenk S Mario Poljak1 13 Abstract Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica is the leading journal in the field of dermatology and sexually transmitted infections in the region. Several important steps were taken during the last 20 years to improve the journal's quality, global visibility, and international impact. Since 1992, 699 bibliographical items have been published, which received 1,360 citations. Web of Science citable items received on average 2.29 citations per item. Importantly, almost half (49.6%) of all citations retrieved to date were received from 2012 onwards. The predicted impact factor was calculated in a way to match official impact factors published annually in Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports. Citation analysis shows a substantial increase of the predicted impact factor since 2006, with values above 0.5 since 2007. For the first time in the journal's history, a predicted impact factor value above 1.0 was recorded in 2013. Keywords: Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, citation analysis, impact factor Received: 13 February 2015 | Returned for modification: 18 February 2015 | Accepted: 26 February 2015 Introduction The journal Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica (Acta Dermatovenerol APA) was founded in 1992 in Ljubljana by Aleksej Kansky, who was also the journal's first editor-in-chief. Over more than two decades of publishing, the journal and its editors experienced many challenges, as described in detail previously (1-6). In order to improve the quality and to establish its international recognition, several crucial steps were taken. The international visibility significantly increased after 2000, when the journal implemented an online open access policy in addition to the printed version. Since then, the entire content of Acta Dermatovenerol APA has been freely available at the journal's official website, http://www.acta-apa.org/. A major accomplishment occurred in 2005, when the journal achieved full indexing status in Index Medicus/Medline in addition to Biomedicina Slovenica and EMBASE/Excerpta Medica. Thus, from volume 14 onwards, the entire content of the journal has been included in PubMed, the most important bibliographic database for medical journals. In 2012, we significantly redesigned the journal's structure and appearance, in line with modern standards for a European journal. During 2014, we fundamentally redesigned the journal's website, including digitalization of all 699 contributions published since 1992, which are now freely available in the full text on the journal's official website (http://www.acta-apa.org/journals/acta-dermatovenerol-apa/archive). Recently, several steps were taken to further increase the journal's quality and to reach the next important goal in the journal's development: official indexing of the journal in the Thomson Scientific Science Citation Index. To foster this goal, we present here the most recent citation analysis (1992-2013), which accompanies two citation analyses published previously (4, 6). Methods The citation analysis comprised all bibliographical items pub- lished in Acta Dermatovenerol APA from 1992 to 2013. To optimize publication patterns according to the official Thomson Scientific Web of Science (WoS) publication types, the journal's original publication types were reclassified and divided into WoS citable and WoS noncitable items, using methodology described in detail previously (4, 6, 7). Citation analysis was performed manually and separately for each bibliographical item through a Cited Reference search of the WoS electronic database on 13 February 2015. Citations retrieved in this analysis were merged with citations obtained in two previous citation analyses published in 2009 and 2012, analyzing the time periods 1992-2008 and 1992-2011, respectively (4, 6). For all 22 individual years (1992-2013), predicted impact factors were calculated. The predicted impact factor reflects the average number of citations of articles published, based on the number of citable items published and citations retrieved. Calculation of the predicted impact factor was done in a way to match official impact factors published annually in Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports. The journal impact factor in the year X is defined as the ratio of the number of citations received in year X by all published items in the journal in the years X - 1 and X - 2 (value A, Table 1) and the sum of published WoS citable items in the journal in the years X - 1 and X - 2 (value B, Table 1). For example, the predicted impact factor for 2013 is calculated as the ratio of the number of citations received in 2013 by all published items in the journal in 2012 and 2011 and the sum of published WoS citable items in the journal in 2012 and 2011. Results As summarized in Table 1, as of 13 February 2015, 699 bibliographical items were published in Acta Dermatovenerol APA from 1992 to 2013, including 435 articles, 148 reviews, 51 meeting summaries, 32 letters, 12 items about an individual, 11 book reviews, 8 editorials and 2 meeting abstracts. Among these, 582 (83.3%) were considered WoS citable items and 117 (16.7%) as WoS noncitable •institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Zaloska 4, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. h Corresponding author: mano.poljak@mf.um-lj.si M. D. Pavlovic et al. Acta Dermatovenerol APA | 2015;24:11-2 Table 1 | Results of citation analysis of bibliographical items published in Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica etAdriatica 1992-2013. „ . .. Total number of Publication year ....... published items Total number of WoS citable items Total number of received citations Total number of received independent citations A value for IF calculation B value for IF calculation Predicted IF (A/B) 1992 28 20 20 17 / / / 1993 30 24 4 3 / / / 1994 36 32 35 31 3 44 0.068 1995 41 36 11 9 3 56 0.054 1996 39 30 23 17 2 68 0.029 1997 26 22 1 1 2 66 0.030 1998 29 25 12 12 1 52 0.019 1999 32 25 18 14 0 47 0.000 2000 30 22 16 15 5 50 0.100 2001 32 26 29 16 2 47 0.043 2002 25 23 20 14 2 48 0.042 2003 29 24 17 17 6 49 0.122 2004 29 22 37 30 2 47 0.043 2005 30 26 180 167 2 46 0.043 2006 36 27 144 138 17 48 0.354 2007 38 31 232 218 30 53 0.566 2008 34 31 194 189 29 58 0.500 2009 40 34 143 133 55 62 0.887 2010 37 34 87 84 49 65 0.754 2011 33 31 101 91 42 68 0.618 2012 23 20 24 23 33 65 0.508 2013 20 17 12 11 52 51 1.020 Total 699 582 1,360 1,250 / / / items. A total of 1,360 SCI citations were retrieved from the WoS cited reference search and, as shown in Table 1, 1,250 (91.9%) were considered to be independent citations and 110 (8.1%) to be author self-citations. Among 699 items published, 582 (83.3%) WoS citable items received a total of 1,333 out of 1,360 citations retrieved, or on average 2.29 citations per published item. A detailed analysis of the main citation indicators of bibliographical items published in the period 1992-2013 in comparison to two previous citation analysis performed in 2009 (period 1992-2008) and in 2012 (period 1992-2011) is shown in Table 2. Briefly, as of 13 February 2015, 298 (51.2%) WoS citable items published in our journal had received at least one SCI citation, 124 (21.3%) items had received four or more SCI citations, and 284 (48.8%) items are still without a single citation. As shown in Table 2, in comparison to the period 1992-2008, in the period 1992-2013 the proportion of WoS citable items that received at least one SCI citation increased from 34.3% to 51.2%, respectively, and the proportion of WoS citable items that received four or more SCI citations increased from 3.1% to 21.3%, respectively. Among 117 WoS noncitable items published in our journal, 11 (9.4%) items received at least one SCI citation, with a total of 27 citations received, or on average 0.23 citations per published item (Table 2). Among all published bibliographical items, the most cited contribution was a review by Ro2man and Bolta published in 2007 entitled "Use of platelet growth factors in treating wounds and soft-tissue injuries," with 68 citations received as of 13 February 2015. As shown in detail in Figure 1, citation analysis showed a substantial increase in the predicted impact factor since 2006, with values above 0.5 since 2007. For the first time in the journal's history, a predicted impact factor value above 1.0 was recorded in 2013 (Fig. 1). Discussion Our citation analysis revealed that the majority of published items in our journal can be considered WoS citable items. As of 13 Feb- Figure 1 | Predicted impact factor of Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica etAdriatica from 1992 to 2013. ruary 2015, WoS citable items received an average of 2.3 citations per item. In comparison to the data published earlier (4, 6), the proportion of WoS citable items remains similar through all three time periods evaluated (1992-2008, 1992-2011, and 1992-2013); however, WoS citable items received on average 3.4 more citations per item during 1992-2013 in comparison to the 1992-2008 period (2.29 vs. 0.67) and 2.4 more citations per item in comparison to the 1992-2011 period (2.29 vs. 0.97). A similar dynamic was also recorded for WoS noncitable items, with 0.05, 0.12, and 0.23 average citations per item during 1992-2008, 1992-2011, and 1992-2013, respectively (Table 2). These figures are a result of a recent dramatic increase in the total number of SCI citations, with almost half (49.6%) of all citations received from January 2012 onwards. The proportion of author self-citations among all citations received is comparable to other leading research journals (8), with an encouraging decreasing trend of author self-citations from 18.2% during 1992-2008 to 8.1% during 1992-2013. Alongside author self-citation (9), journal self-citation is one of the most common ways in which journals artificially improve their impact fac- 12 Acta Dermatovenerol APA | 2015;24:1-3 Citation analysis of Acta APA tor (10-12). We are proud that for Acta Dermatovenerol APA only a few journal self-citations were identified in this analysis. Regardless of the fact that the impact factor was primarily developed as a bibliographical tool (13, 14) it is still the most frequently used index for measuring the research quality of individuals, research groups, and institutions (15). Although it is often criticized as unrepresentative, misleading, and easily manipulated, a journal's impact factor remains of high importance for both authors and editors (7, 16-18). For the purpose of citation analysis of our journal, a very conservative and stringent approach for the "in house" calculation of the predicted impact factor was used (mainly for classification of WoS citable items), as described in detail previously (4, 6). Thus, we strongly believe that the predicted impact factors calculated in our analysis are a fairly good estimation (and most probably an underestimation) of the official impact factors that would be published in the annual Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports. As already described in our previous cita- tion analysis (6), the free online access policy of our journal established in 2000 surprisingly did not have any measurable impact on the predicted impact factor. On the other hand, a substantial increase of the predicted impact factor occurred in 2006, immediately after achieving full indexing status in Index Medicus/Medline. As shown in Figure 1, our analysis showed positive dynamics of the predicted impact factor of Acta Dermatovenerol APA, with values above 0.5 since 2007 and, for the first time in the journal's history, a value above 1.0 recorded in 2013. With its 2012 and 2013 predicted impact factors, Acta Dermatovenerol APA would be ranked 54th out of 59 and 45th out of 61 journals listed in the category "Dermatology" for 2012 and 2013, respectively, according to Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Report Science Edition. We sincerely hope that the recent significant quality improvements of our journal will soon also be acknowledged by Thomson Scientific by indexing our journal in the Science Citation Index and rewarded by the journal's first official impact factor. Table 2 | Main citation indicators of bibliographical items published in Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica etAdriatica over three time periods. Time span included in the analysis 1992-2008 1992-2011 1992-2013 (date of citation analysis performed) (1 August 2009) (27 November 2012) (13 February 2015) Bibliographical items published 544 654 699 WoS citable items 446 (82.0%) 545 (83.4%) 582 (83.3%) WoS noncitable items 98 (18.0%) 109 (16.6%) 117 (16.7%) Total number of SCI citations 303 544 1,360 Independent SCI citations 248 (81.8%) 483 (88.8%) 1,250 (91.9%) Author self-citations 55 (18.2%) 61 (11.2%) 110 (8.1%) Average citations per item for WoS citable items 0.67 (298/446) 0.97 (531/545) 2.29 (1,333/582) WoS noncitable items 0.05 (5/98) 0.12 (13/109) 0.23 (27/117) WoS citable items At least one SCI citation 153 (34.3%) 221 (40.6%) 298 (51.2%) Four or more SCI citations 14 (3.1%) 36 (6.6%) 124 (21.3%) Without SCI citation 293 (65.7%) 324 (59.4%) 284 (48.8%) WoS noncitable items At least one SCI citation 3 (3.1%) 7 (6.4%) 11 (9.4%) Without SCI citation 95 (96.9%) 102 (93.6%) 106 (90.6%) Article Review Review Most cited item Poljak M et al. 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