Advance and evolution of the journal: New challenges for the next term☆☆☆

Time has no divisions to mark its passage. —Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (1924)

Almost 5 years have passed since this Journal's editorship moved to Denver. In that time, The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has undergone a significant transformation with regard to its features, cover, layout, and Web site. Some of the major improvements include introduction of free publication of color illustrations for authors, rapid decision times (an average of less than 1 month), a reduction in backlog of manuscripts so that accepted manuscripts are published within 3 months of acceptance, and the introduction of online submissions and Web-based reviews. Articles of critical importance and widespread interest can now be published on The JACI's Web site within 2 weeks of acceptance.

The payoff for these many improvements to the Journal over the last 5 years has been a significant increase in its citation impact factor (a reflection of a journal's relative importance), its immediacy factor (a measure of how quickly the average article is cited in the literature), and the total number of citations of JACI articles (Table I).

At present, The JACI is the leading allergy journal in the world, with the greatest number of total citations per year as well as the leading impact factor and immediacy index.

The Journal leads its field in presenting the most innovative approaches and information in both its print and online formats. During the past year, the Editorial Office successfully converted its manuscript tracking process to a new and fully electronic Web-based data system called Editorial Manager . This upgrade brings The JACI to the cutting edge, with new levels of service and responsiveness to our authors and reviewers. It offers complete capabilities for electronic submission of manuscripts and the execution of all reviewer procedures and commentary.

The Editors are pleased to announce that the Editorial Office and editorship of JACI will remain in Denver for another 5-year term beginning in March 2003. This will eliminate the usual downtime that occurs every 5 years as a result of the physical relocation of the Editorial Office. However, recognizing the important contributions of many other centers of excellence in the field of allergy/immunology, we will establish a new team of offsite Editors to work with the Denver group. William Busse (University of Wisconsin) will join Harold Nelson and Stanley Szefler as a Deputy Editor to assist the Editor-in-Chief in identifying and selecting high-quality articles for The JACI. The Associate Editors for the next term will be Andrea Apter (University of Pennsylvania), Bruce Bochner (Johns Hopkins), Anthony Frew (Southampton, United Kingdom), Qutayba Hamid (McGill), Lanny Rosenwasser (National Jewish), and William Shearer (Baylor). With its broad expertise, this distinguished group represents a global commitment on the part of the Journal to improve itself in the areas of clinical immunology, environmental and occupational diseases, and health care delivery and quality while maintaining its current strengths in asthma, respiratory allergy, mechanisms of allergy, food allergy, anaphylaxis, and allergic skin diseases. We are also pleased that Burton Zweiman (University of Pennsylvania) and Marc Rothenberg (Children's Hospital, Cincinnati) will continue as Editors of the popular Beyond Our Pages feature. The Editorial Office would like to thank past associate editors Erwin Gelfand, Gary Larsen, and James Crapo, who have played an important role in advancing the Journal by writing feature articles and assisting in manuscript reviews. We are also grateful to guest editors Phil Norman and Bruce Bochner for their impartial review of manuscripts submitted from National Jewish during the past 5 years.

As we move forward into the new term, our challenge will be to continue to advance the quality and content of articles published in The JACI and to enhance the Journal's interest to the allergists, clinical immunologists, pulmonologists, dermatologists, and other subspecialists whose patients and research interlink with our field. The Journal will continue to publish the Current Reviews series, edited by Hal Nelson, which highlights important clinical topics in allergy and clinical immunology. William Shearer, Bruce Bochner, and Lanny Rosenwasser will coedit the Molecular Mechanisms series, which will continue to highlight cutting-edge issues in molecular biology and basic and clinical immunology mechanisms. With the advent of 2003, the AAAAI and The JACI will offer CME credits for completion of questions that accompany review articles in these 2 sections. Watch for details at The JACI's Web site.

The Editors of The JACI are also developing an exciting new series called Current Perspectives , which will focus on hot/high-profile issues of broad interest in allergy/immunology. This feature, which will appear frequently throughout the year, will be launched with a focus on such topics as the hygiene hypothesis and dog and cat allergen tolerance. Look for another new feature, Images in Allergy/Immunology , also beginning next month, that will be developed by Qutayba Hamid. It will present color figures and images that are relevant to the pathology and diagnosis of allergic and immune diseases and can be downloaded to create PowerPoint presentations. Access to this feature will be available through The JACI's Web site.

The last 5 years carry the mark of continuing improvement of our Journal. This progress has been paralleled by a significant increase in the visibility of allergy/immunology and in appreciation of the field's importance to medicine and science. As the official publication of the AAAAI, the Editors and the publisher, Mosby (an Elsevier company), are proud to contribute to the Academy's mission of advancing the knowledge and practice of allergy and immunology through publication of key articles in these fields. Though time might pass without divisions, this advance can mark its passage in the improved health and well-being of those within our care.