I am writing this on my way home from the AASV Annual meeting held in San Diego, California. I always find “air time” to be so rewarding and productive as there are no distractions because my smartphone is in airplane mode. As always, the meeting this year was superb and motivational. It is a valuable time for me because it allows me to connect with other AASV members, the members of the editorial board, and is a welcomed break from Canadian winter weather!
It has been an exciting time at the journal. In my November 2017 message, I mentioned the retirement of our Associate Editor, Dr Judi Bell. It was nice to have Judi attend the AASV Annual meeting this year so that we could celebrate and thank her for her 17 years of outstanding work for the journal. Congratulations Judi!
As many of you know, the journal has also welcomed our incoming Associate Editor, Sherrie Webb. Sherrie visited Judi, Karen, and me in Guelph, Ontario in January 2018. True to form our Canadian winter did not disappoint, it wasn’t the best weather that week; sorry Sherrie! Sherrie spent the week here learning the ropes and shadowing Judi. This was a valuable training opportunity and Sherrie has already brought new ideas to the editing process. Sherrie also visited with Tina Smith, our graphic designer and advertising coordinator, and our publisher (Walsworth in Marceline, Missouri) in February 2018 to round out her training. Welcome to the journal Sherrie!
I also hope you were able to visit the “Evolution of JSHAP” display at the annual meeting. This was a lovely display of how the journal has changed and improved over the years. Some comments were received and the journal staff will review these suggestions at upcoming staff meetings. Thank you to those who took the time to submit suggestions and comments.
Left to right: Sherrie Webb, Associate Editor; Karen Richardson, Publications Manager; Dr Terri O’Sullivan, Executive Editor; Dr Judi Bell, Associate Editor (retired); and Tina Smith, Graphic Designer and Advertising Co-ordinator.Photo credit: Barbara Molnár Smith
The journal’s editorial board met at the AASV annual meeting. The journal continues to see a healthy line-up of submissions covering a broad range of relevant swine health and production related topics. The hard work and dedication of the editorial board members are vital to the success of the journal, and I would like to thank the entire editorial board for their dedication and individual contributions. At the editorial board meeting, we discussed important journal-related issues. One topic was the journal’s 2016 impact factor, which has dropped since our last published rating in 2015. While disappointing to see this drop, it was unanimous amongst those editorial board members in attendance that most journals, in general, do not hold the impact factor metric in high regard anymore. This is predominately because the impact factor metric doesn’t take into consideration the impact of a specific article but rather citation rate of articles from the whole journal.
As a reminder to JSHAP readers, I invite you to revisit my editorials from the September-October 20131 and the May-June 20162 issues where I discuss impact factors in a little more detail. An important take-home message I would like to highlight from my past editorials is that a journal’s impact factor does not reflect how well a journal is read or how influential the journal may be in a certain area. Rather, the impact factor is a metric of citation rate and journals with an applied focus typically have lower impact factor ratings when compared to non-applied focused journals.
My message is brief this issue because I wanted to share this lovely photo of journal staff taken while in San Diego.
All the best,
Terri O’Sullivan, DVM, PhD
Executive Editor
References:
1. O’Sullivan T. Impact! [editorial]. J Swine Health Prod. 2013;21(5):239.
2. O’Sullivan T. Shout-out! [editorial]. J Swine Health Prod. 2016;24(3):129.