Times are changing

All changes bring anxiety. It has been proven that human beings feel comfortable in familiar situations over which they believe they have some control, and that change generates anxiety, worry and unease. Changes in themselves are neither good nor bad; they obviously have positive effects as well, increasing our level of awareness and engendering enthusiasm.

More than 75 years have passed since our journal was created in 1944 by Professor Sanchís Olmos (under the title Revista de Ortopedia y Traumatología (Journal of Orthopaedics and Traumatology)). It was born as the official organ of the Spanish Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology and remains the principal journal of the specialty in Spain. Its title remained unchanged until December 2007, when it was renamed the Revista Española de Ortopedia y Traumatología (RECOT) (Spanish Journal of Orthopaedics and Traumatology). This change marked the beginning of a new stage and fresh and exciting challenges under the direction of Enrique Gil Garay, Enrique Guerado and Joan Carles Monllau. I experienced many years of intense work and major changes during my time on the Board of SECOT, which were rewarded with indexing in 2012 under the presidency of José Ramón Rodríguez Altónaga. This marked a milestone in the development of RECOT.¹

In the acknowledgements chapter are many colleagues, a number of them anonymous, who have contributed to this important event. We should remember the editors of the journal since its foundation, the editorial committee members, reviewers, and orthopaedic surgeons who have entrusted their work to RECOT and who, with different fortunes, have seen through the editorial process without becoming discouraged. Our readers have also been the protagonists of this story. As have all the reviewers and editors, whose selfless and commendable work can never be sufficiently appreciated. The peer review editorial process ensures anonymous review and guarantees the scientific quality of published works, compliance with the ethical standards of publishing and of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Thank you to everyone.

We are starting a new stage which, although visible with the different cover, involves other substantial changes including our journal’s move to open access. This change is down to the former Editor of the journal (José Cordero) and the last President of SECOT (Enrique Guerado), further names to be remembered.

What does change to open access mean and what does it involve? Open access means immediate access, with no registration, subscription, or payment requirements (i.e., with no restrictions) to scientific or other digital material, primarily research articles; in our case, to specialist scientific journals. This implies greater visibility and, consequently, greater impact for our scientific work.^2,3

The aim of any scientific publication must be to share professional experiences with the medical community and to present the results of research in an objective manner. For the benefit of society, the greater the dissemination the better. Over these more than 75 years, we have gone from being a printed journal, with great difficulty in referencing papers, to become an open journal with the capacity to reach all corners of the planet. This greater exposure and visibility are not only present today in the publishing world, but also in the changes taking place in our society with the explosion of social networks and digital environments. In this regard, the new technologies section also wishes to contribute to the dissemination of the journal with infographics of the most relevant articles, like other large international journals in the field of orthopaedic surgery and traumatology.

In the near future, and as a sign of SECOT’s commitment to its members, the Society will cover payment of authors for publishing their articles, as is the norm in open access formats.

In short, “our beloved journal” is in excellent health and I am absolutely convinced that the change to open access will be another great moment it its history. A step further to excellence. Another exciting challenge will be access to the ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) database as a preliminary and necessary step to obtaining impact factor and improved response and publication times, without diminishing scientific quality. Together we will achieve this.