Abstract
Dear authors, reviewers, subscribers and readers, Last year in the first issue of the Volume 75 of the journal, I stated that the editorial office would make all efforts to bring out all six issues of the Platinum volume during the year 2013 itself. This task was achieved as announced although with a slight delay that the last issue of volume 75 came out in the month of January 2014. The first issue of volume 76 will be published online soon and the efforts would continue to maintain the periodicity of the journal going forward.
Dear authors, reviewers, subscribers and readers, Last year in the first issue of the Volume 75 of the journal, I stated that the editorial office would make all efforts to bring out all six issues of the Platinum volume during the year 2013 itself. This task was achieved as announced although with a slight delay that the last issue of volume 75 came out in the month of January 2014. The first issue of volume 76 will be published online soon and the efforts would continue to maintain the periodicity of the journal going forward.
It is necessary to ponder on the subject of why it is very difficult to maintain the periodicity of the journal and why papers take long time before they get accepted and published in this journal. Many well wishers and positive critics of the journal have often stated in public as well as in closed conversations that IJPS is very slow. Many authors have expressed their dissatisfaction over the time taken by the journal to give a final verdict on their manuscripts. Many authors have also chosen to send their papers to the several recently emerged online international journals, which publish papers with in a few weeks of manuscript submission. I believe that it is necessary to explain the situation with IJPS, which might not be faced by these rapidly publishing journals. During the calendar year of 2013, IJPS received 1520 submissions on line from all over the world. It is a huge task sifting through these papers by a couple of editorial assistants to check for format compliances and plagiarism. A manuscript submitted to IJPS will not go to a reviewer unless it is cleared of these two hurdles. A good 80% of the papers received fail to clear one of these two requirements or both. Checking for plagiarism is not an easy task since a manuscript should not be rejected for plagiarism when it is not plagiarized and at the same time a plagiarized manuscript should not be processed further. Since a lot of editorial assistant's time is spent on this, there is a time lag before good papers are identified and sent to reviewers. What is the way out of this situation? One simple solution is for authors to submit papers that are original and prepared according to IJPS format requirements. Once that is ensured, the entire process becomes rapid. I do not think that I have a solution to tackle the unprecedented large number of submissions that IJPS is faced with. Increasing periodicity and increasing the number of papers per issue is not feasible since these two solutions would have a huge impact on the financial position of the publication. As a result, delays are inevitable but our endeavor to publish on time and handle manuscripts as rapidly as possible continues. We also would like to ensure that IJPS continues to avoid publishing manuscripts that are plagiarized.
I would like to place on record the contributions of two editorial assistants of IJPS, Dr. Chandrasekhar Barhate and Miss Radhika Mani, without whose efforts the restoration of periodicity of the journal during the Platinum year of the journal would not have been possible. Towards the end of 2013, both these persons have parted with IJPS for better opportunities elsewhere and two new persons, Ms. Pallavi Suryawanshi and Ms. Shyli Makula have come on board. I welcome these two youngsters to IJPS family and I am sure with time they will be able to run the manuscript handling operations efficiently.
I take this opportunity to thanks all the authors, reviewers, editorial team members, IJPS advisory board and editorial board members, IPA office bearers, IPA office staff and the Medknow/Wolters Kluwer Health personnel for their valuable help in bringing out yet another volume of IJPS and look forward to their continued support to bring out the 76th issue of IJPS on time.