A new start

The year 2012 was a crucial year for the Spanish Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (Revista Española de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología, RECOT). We knew that there were two possibilities: that the journal was not indexed, in which case our planning led to a radical cost reduction and, therefore, to its transformation into a scientific bulletin, or, as was finally the case, that it was included in PubMed, and this option also involved significant changes.

After receiving news of the indexation and after the initial reactions, we resumed talks with Elsevier. For a long time, Elsevier had urged us to sign a new contract, which we delayed until we learned of the final outcome. With the new contract, the journal becomes fully dependent of SECOT, with the publisher only providing management and printing following universal standards for the publication of international scientific journals. This means that, as of this year, our society assumes the full cost of the journal and will pay the publisher for the publication of each issue. Moreover, SECOT will also be in charge of the translation, marketing, performance and advertising of the journal.

As reported during the first meeting of the new Managing Board of SECOT, we have worked on the new stage for several months, establishing the need to initially manage the publication directly through the Board. In order to achieve this, I thought of a person with proven ability to act both as Board Member in charge of Publications and as Director of the journal. Professor Javier Vaquero Martín has all the necessary qualities to make him worthy of the position. In addition to being Head at one of the busiest T&O units in Spain, he is a Professor at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, author of numerous publications, and was also a member of the Editorial Committee of the journal during the years 2000–2004. Above all, he is a recognised supporter of our journal, in which he has published a number of his works despite not being indexed, with the inconvenience this has meant for those who have had to undergo external evaluations.

In addition, it was necessary to establish a hierarchical Editorial Committee which was open to all subspecialties, including a peer review system overseen by Associate Editors with experience in corresponding sections of the specialty. Thus, Associate Editors will evaluate the responses from reviewers or replace them whenever it is necessary to make decisions on conflicts or responses are lacking, avoiding a delay in the assessment of works and sending their decisions to the Director or Editorial Coordinator. The outline of the organisation and members forming the new Editorial Committee can be seen on the title page.

In addition, the Director of RECOT must coordinate update topics with the SECOT Board Member in charge of Teaching and participate, along with the rest of the Board, in the financing of the journal, elaborating a strategy which enables attractive advertising possibilities for the industry. We have eliminated fixed remuneration among the Editorial Committee and will have to obtain a high percentage of online subscribers in order to decrease shipping and paper costs, but this measure is less profitable than it might seem initially. We have also removed the publication of conference proceedings and one of our objectives is to increase sales of derivative products, such as supplements or online scientific articles, as well as to open our journal to related societies which would like to have their work indexed. In addition, we will continue to ensure that our journal remains an international leader among publications in Spanish, since subscriptions will henceforth impact directly on the revenue of SECOT.

Regarding the editorial policy, indexing will involve a higher number of works being received, but will also demand a higher level of quality and a higher number of rejected articles. This is a logical fact and is common in all publications. From now on, all works will have to pass a double filter and we also expect to achieve higher quality through the increase in available options. We will continue to issue 6 publications per year, of about 80 pages approximately, seeking to balance the cost and considering the expense in paper and, above all, the convenience of direct mailing for any subscribers who so wish.

The additional support of the SECOT prizes, with invitations by the Research Agency (i-SECOT) to present all doctoral theses and funded projects, should increase participation by our American colleagues, as well as the number of research works received, which will improve the impact factor of our publication. Moreover, all members will receive the index of the next issue by e-mail.

The publication will continue to be translated into English, another considerable expense that cannot be avoided, and this English version will be the one distributed to PubMed in order to obtain better penetration and a higher impact factor. This should be the primary goal at the start of this new phase: to increase the presence of our journal and the articles published therein within the world of orthopaedic surgery and traumatology, making them more read and therefore, more cited. But this is not the exclusive responsibility of a Managing Board or an Editorial Committee, this task corresponds to all SECOT partners.