Citation Analysis of the Journal of Bone Metabolism from Korean Citation Index, Web of Science, and Scopus

Article information

J Bone Metab. 2021;28(3):193-199

Publication date (electronic) : 2021 August 31

doi : https://doi.org/10.11005/jbm.2021.28.3.193

Byung-Ho Yoon¹, Bo Kwon Hwang¹, Eun-Ae Jung², Deog-Yoon Kim³

¹Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Ewha Womans University, College of Medicine, Mokdong Hospital, Seoul, Korea

²Medical Library, Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital, Bucheon, Korea

³Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kyung Hee University Hospital, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding author: Deog-Yoon Kim, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kyung Hee University Hospital, 23 Kyungheedae-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02447, Korea, Tel: +82-2-958-8211, Fax: +82-2-968-1848, E-mail: ksbmr@naver.com

Received 2021 July 31; Revised 2021 August 14; Accepted 2021 August 17.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The Journal of Bone Metabolism (JBM) is the official English-language open access journal of the Korean Society for Bone and Mineral Research (KSBMR) and the Korean Society of Sarcopenia.[1] It is a peer-reviewed, quarterly publication covering clinical and basic science information relevant to physicians and researchers in the field of bone metabolism.[1] It was first published in 1994. We used the term ‘Korean Journal of Bone Metabolism (ISSN 1598-107X PRINT)’, which was the official title of the journal from 1994 to 2011, and then the journal has been remodeled to an English language journal (ISSN 2287-7029) to increase its international recognition in November 2012. It has been indexed in PubMed Central, PubMed, and Korean Citation Index (KCI) through the 2012 issues so that all papers from 2012 became freely accessible through the internet. A digital object identifier (DOI) was added beginning with the 2012 issues.

Recently, it was included in Scopus in February 2019 and almost 7 years have passed since the JBM was first included in PubMed Central/PubMed. It is this author’s belief that inclusion in PubMed/Scoups is more important than open access for increasing citations of medical journals, because these are still the primary search tool for most medical researchers. Therefore, it is time to check whether the number of citations has increased. It would also be interesting to gather a variety of bibliometric indicators to understand the present position of the JBM in the field of orthopedics among various citation indicators including the 2-year impact factor (IF) calculated from Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and KCI. These findings will provide insight into managing the journal to obtain an elite reputation among researchers in related areas.

METHODS

RESULTS

1. General characteristics

There was a steady increase in the number of articles published in JBM from 12 in 2012 to 141 in 2020. Accordingly, the number of citable articles has also grown during the same period: 260 (98.9%) of the total 263 articles were citable articles (Fig. 1). Of the total 176 original articles, 15 (8.5%) were supported by research grants. The editorial board consists of 44 specialists in their respective fields from 15 different countries: 17 from Korea, 8 from Japan, 5 from USA, and 14 from 12 other countries (Fig. 2). Authors of JBM were from 16 countries: most of the authors were Korean (213, 81.3%), followed by USA (13, 5.0%), Japanese (11, 4.2%), and Brazil (4, 1.5%) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1

Number of citable and non-citable articles of the Journal of Bone Metabolism.

Fig. 2

Countries of editorial board members of the Journal of Bone Metabolism.

Fig. 3

Countries of authors of 263 articles published in the Journal of Bone Metabolism between 2012 and 2020.

2. Total number and citation related index

The total citation of JBM in WoS has increased from 16 in 2014 to 141 in 2020. Of the 260 articles published between 2012 and 2020, 189 (72.7%) were cited at least once by articles in the WoS. If the 2020 IF from WoS (2.17) was applied to the 2020 JCR, JBM’s ranking in the orthopedics category was in the upper 37/82 (45.1%) Meanwhile, the SJR ranking was 165/219 (75.3%) in the category of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. The IF could be stationary in KCI from 0.29 in 2015 to 0.42 in 2020; The total citation of JBM in KCI seems to be low compared to WoS (Fig. 4). However, JBM is still the most cited journal (1 of 9 journals) in the field of orthopedics from KCI. The IF of competitive journals including the JBM are compared in Figure 5.

Fig. 4

Changing pattern of total citations of the Journal of Bone Metabolism articles from 2 databases (Web of Science and Korea Citation Index).

Fig. 5

Comparison of the impact factor without journal self-citations from Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science Core Collection database. JBM, Journal of Bone Metabolism; AO, Archives of Osteoporosis; JBMM, Journal of Bone Mineral Metabolism.

The publication types of the most frequently cited 10 articles from 2012 to 2020 were review articles (9) and original articles (1) (Table 1). The publication types of the most frequently cited 10 articles from 2018 to 2020 were review articles (5), original articles (4), and guidelines (1) (Table 2).

Table 1

Mostly highly cited papers of the Journal of Bone Metabolism from 2012 to 2020

Table 2

Mostly highly cited papers of the Journal of Bone Metabolism from 2018 to 2020

DISCUSSION

Publication of 31 articles, the IF of 2.17, and the total citations of 141 are the evidences of evolution of JBM in 2020 into an internationally recognized journal. In addition, the editorial board includes 27 members outside the country, and authors from 16 different countries have contributed their works to our journal. Thus, JBM seems to deserve high recognition from the international community.

We can see the rapid increase in citation indicators such as the IF and annual total citations by SCIE journals after the language of the JBM was changed to English and the journal was included in PubMed Central/PubMed in 2010. We can see these kinds of phenomena consistently with other medical journals published in Korea.[5–7] Introduction of a variety of digital publication standards for scholarly journals was essential. This is likely due to the listing in PubMed Central/PubMed. This difference implies that if any papers are written in English and indexed in PubMed Central/PubMed, their chance of being cited by review writers increases such that writing papers in English is very important.

There are many factors that influence the journal to which an author chooses to submit. Authors are interested in submitting to journals with a high IF, as these journals are most frequently read and cited. It is unwise to judge the quality of research by citation rating alone, but we acknowledge the reality that without a high IF there are too few submissions. Although JBM has a publication history of 26 years, the journal has relatively low citation rates. We performed a citation analysis to determine our current position as international journal and achieve excellent bibliographical status soon.

Several strategies may improve our citation rate; First, studies presented at major bone metabolism meetings, such as American Society for Bone and Mineral Research were often eventually published in other top-notched journals. Thus, we should focus our some effect to promote our journal to be submitted by participating in these conferences are necessary. Second, in recent years, many clinicians are thus likely to spend more time reading relevant social media including YouTube, Twitter and eventually recall the information to cite the mentioned articles. A positive correlation between social media and citation rates has been reported in several journals.[8–10] Such efforts as using visual abstracts on social media lead to increase readership and the IF by increasing the citation counts of their papers. Finally, we also keep basics to boost our citation including correct information and keywords and making our manuscript easily accessible.

We found that the major publication types of the most 10 frequently cited articles from our journals were review articles (Tables 1 and 2). Many clinicians do not have enough time to read many basic science research along with updated knowledge, review articles are easy to assess and cite.[11–13] However, given the relative quality of the field, it may have also influenced the fact that the main articles from our journal still were primarily limited to level III evidence. However, we do not believe that this lower level of evidence detracts from the value or importance of these articles. We expect that as our efforts continue to grow with time, additional studies with increasing patient cohort sizes and possibly higher levels of evidence will be conducted and published.

For achievement of such excellent bibliometric status, the editorial board members’ laborious contribution and the KSBMR’s financial support were also instrumental in the evolution of JBM into a notable journal. We believe JBM will become one of the most influential journals in the future considering the continued efforts to serve as a vehicle for communication of valuable information.

CONCLUSIONS

The citation indicators of the JBM vary according to the database. The strategy of switching to an English-language format allowed JBM to be cited more frequently by international researchers after being indexed in PubMed Central/PubMed. To be cited more frequently, good original articles and high-quality review articles should be contributed. And efforts to increase the citation rate and increase the domestic readership should also be continued.

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