Chapter 6 International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Chapter 6

International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

As mentioned in chapter 2, the Journal was established in 1972 under the leadership of Jens Pindborg, a renowned oral pathologist from Denmark. In the first years, the publication contained mainly case reports on clinical pathology and some, mainly Scandinavian, clinical followup studies on dentoalveolar surgery. Pindborg held this position until 1976 when Erik Hjørting Hansen took over.

The format of the Journal in those days was smaller and contained far less papers than currently is the case but it certainly served its purpose in giving colleagues from outside the U.S.A. access to a journal that they could feel was theirs. Erik invested an enormous amount of time in making the Volume 1 of the International Journal Journal a success during the 13 years he was in charge. However, of Oral Surgery he was only partially successful for reasons that were not completely in his power.

First, the Journal of Oral Surgery remained the main vehicle for non-Americans to publish their research because they knew this journal had the widest distribution. Secondly, the Europeans introduced their journal almost at the same time, while the British had also just come out with their national journal in 1962. In other words competition abounded. Another obstacle was the very limited spread of the Journal because of the limited number of members that actually subscribed to it.

Jens Pindborg, first editor of the Journal, 1972–1976 Erik Hjørting Hansen, editor, 1976–1988

The New ediTor-iN-Chief

In February 1987, the new executive committee met at Guy’s Hospital, London, under the presidency of Wilfried Schilli. High on the agenda was the need to appoint a new editorin-chief of the International Journal, to replace Erik Hjørting Hansen, who had just completed his contract. The choice seemed difficult, particularly to achieve a balance of language skills, academic expertise, clinical experience and geographic location. One name stood out, Paul Stoelinga, of the Netherlands. The executive committee was unanimous; he should be invited to fill the vacancy. At that time, the executive committee only met once a year and it was considered urgent to finalize an appointment as the association’s arrangements with the publisher were presenting problems and the position of editor was critical to the discussions with Munksgaard in Copenhagen.

The secretary general, David Poswillo, suggested the executive committee telephone the Netherlands and offer Dr. Stoelinga the position immediately. It was Saturday morning and by midday, he had tentatively accepted the position, subject to contractual arrangements. After some discussion, it was mutually agreed that the editor-in-chief should become an ex-officio member of the executive committee and he should have the authority to appoint his own editorial board. Thus began an association between the executive committee and the editor-in-chief of the Journal, an association which persists today.

Paul Stoelinga chaired the editorial board for 12 years, during which time it expanded dramatically in stature and circulation. His direction and guidance were monumental in laying the foundations to place the Journal at the forefront of scientific journals in the field.

At present, one could not imagine that an appointment for such a crucial position would be decided in a matter of one day. It reflects, however, the stage of the IAOMS at that time: it had just left behind its embryonic development and began its path to adulthood.

Robert Cook

Paul Stoelinga, editor, 1988–2000

Cover of the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Strengthening the Journal

The time was ripe for a change and the executive committee at that time, desperate to strengthen the future of the Journal, appointed Paul Stoelinga in 1988 as the new editor-in-chief. They gave him freedom and the means to bring success to the Journal. The first thing Paul oversaw was the change to a more attractive format and the addition of color. In the year preceding the appointment of the new editor-in-chief, the name had already been changed to Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

The most important change, however, was the concept of dividing the Journal into different sections and attracting active clinicians in the midst of their careers to become section editors. The new approach demonstrated its success through the subsequent increase in circulation and number of submitted papers. An important boost to the popularity of the Journal was the implementation in 1990 of a compulsory subscription for IAOMS fellows. In a matter of only a few years, the circulation rose dramatically from 1,000 subscribers to 2,500.

Another factor that contributed to the Journal’s success was the increasing importance of the impact factor, as published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The ISI, a private enterprise, publishes Journal Citation Reports on a yearly basis. The impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles of the two preceding years by the number of published articles in a given year. This impact factor has since become a means for assessing the success of a journal but more importantly a means “to measure one’s scientific contribution.” Universities and other institutions all over the world use this system to assess the output of their scientific workers.

The ISI turned out to be a blessing and a curse for the Journal. In his yearly reports, Paul proudly presented a steady increase in the impact factor from 0.32 in 1987 to 1.18 in 1994. The Journal had achieved the number one position among its competitors and, thus, had gained tremendously in prestige.

The next year, however, when the ISI reported the 1995 results, the impact factor had dropped to almost zero. It appeared the ISI had mistakenly added the citations to our Journal to the account of the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants as their system could not differentiate between the two abbreviations that they used for these two journals in the process of counting the citations in the various journals. So much for the reputation and professionalism of that institution that has so much impact on the world of science! They did come up with a very meager excuse but no official rectification. Fortunately, the next year the impact factor bounced back to a reasonable level, which saved its standing and, to a certain extent, its survival as a respectable scientific journal.

Paul Stoelinga stepped down as editor-in-chief at the end of 1999 after 12 years at the helm of the Journal. The circulation had increased to approximately 3,000, which included members and institutional subscribers and the number of published articles per year went up by roughly 30 percent. It truly had become one of the IAOMS’s major assets.

Change in publisher

Piet Haers, already appointed two years previously as assistant editor-in-chief, took over Paul’s role in the year 2000 and initially carried on with the staff of editors that he had inherited. His transition was not exactly made easy for him as during the previous year, the executive committee had decided to change publishers. Despite its 28-year history with the IAOMS, Munksgaard in Copenhagen was not delivering enough benefits for the IAOMS even with the Journal’s significant growth in recent years.

Harcourt Brace was chosen from several other bidders and in 2001, took over as publisher. (Two years later, Harcourt would be taken over by Elsevier.) As a result of this monumental change, Piet had to cope with working with new people at the publishing house, more specifically, with the frequently changing editorial managers for his journal. On top of that, he was in the midst of overseeing the change towards electronic submitting and editing which made his transition to editor-in-chief even more complicated. Only after Elsevier had complete control of the Journal, some three years later and a new manager had been appointed, who turned out to be a blessing, did the turmoil end.

Piet Haers, editor, 2000–2011 The editorial board (section chairmen) at work in Arnhem, The Netherlands, 1996. From left to right: Joe Piecuch, Piet Haers, Liesbeth (secretary), Jurgen Bies, Paul Stoelinga, Viktor Matuka, and Peter Reade.

Content expansion

Piet’s main goal was the inclusion of more review and research papers. This objective proved to be very successful as interest in the Journal and its impact factor rose substantially. The amount of submitted papers grew from about 300 to close to 800 by the end of his term, which also caused him gradually to expand his editorial staff and the number of reviewers. The number of sections also had to be increased and with that, the number of section editors who were responsible for the papers in their section.

The Journal went from six sections to 17 and the number of reviewers and editors grew to nearly 200 individuals. This number did not take into account the incidental expertise that also was solicited, which brought the total to about 250 experts. At this point, it is only fair to mention the invaluable help that both Paul and Piet received from all the volunteers who spend so much time making the Journal a success. Some of these editors stayed on board for more than ten years, with particular appreciation going to

John Cawood Joe Piecuch

John Cawood, who chaired his section for 18 years and Joe Piecuch, who stayed with Piet until the very end for a total of 24 years. Both were instrumental in making the Journal endeavor a huge success.

The enormous growth of the Journal is best illustrated by the increase of the number of printed pages and articles published per issue. This happened gradually, of course, over Piet’s 12-year tenure. While it was still published six times a year, the Journal went from 96 pages per issue to

JørgeN rud aNd The IJOMS

Jørgen Rud, the president in 1972 when the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (IJOMS) was launched, wrote a letter from the president as a foreword in the first issue. It is of interest to read this some 40 years later as it provides insight into the state of oral surgery at that time and the perceived need for international communication.

“In the past, the science of oral surgery has to a great extent been practiced within localized areas determined by tradition and language barriers. This segregation must not be upheld if we want to attain the highest degree of progress. It will be necessary to make all qualified scientific material on oral surgery from all over the world easily accessible to the interested. Too often valuable papers are actually wasted because they are published in a national dental journal and either do not reach surgeons in other countries or are written in a language not understood outside that particular country. At present, specialized journals on oral surgery exist in the U.S., England and Germany.”

Here he is slightly wrong because he overlooks the Japanese and French journals, but he is right in emphasizing the parochial view most clinicians must have had, doing their own thing, not being aware of developments outside their own circle. In the following section he also makes an important point! “Although these journals do accept contributions from oral surgeons in other countries, they reflect mainly the tradition in their own countries and their editorial boards are national. The growing interest in oral surgery in other countries will result in increased research and development activity and a need for more space in a specialized journal.”

Although his analysis of the situation was right, he overlooked the efforts of Kurt Thoma, editor-in-chief of Oral Surgery, Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine, who had made it a policy to have an international flavor with consultants from different countries. He continued on to present Jens Pindborg, a renowned oral pathologist, as the editor-in-chief, assisted by oral surgeons and editors from 19 countries.

Looking back one can only admit that the right decision was made at the right time. The journal has indeed achieved the standard that Jørgen Rud foresaw.

Paul J.W. Stoelinga

120 pages per issue. It then increased its frequency and size, first to eight issues a year at 96 pages per issue, then to 12 issues per year with 100 pages per issue. The number of published articles also increased at roughly the same rate, going from approximately 90 articles to 210 per year. The acceptance rate, on the other hand, has stayed at a 35 percent rate.

With the introduction of the digital version of the Journal, the exact circulation is difficult to estimate. What is known, however, is the number of copies sent monthly to IAOMS members. At the publication of this book, roughly 4,000 members now receive the Journal. With the launch of the digital version, the number of institutions that subscribed to the analogue version went down considerably and may go down even further as most libraries nowadays limit their journal subscriptions to digital versions, which are often sold to them in packages by the publisher.

Our Journal’s status as a real asset may be illustrated by the increase over the past several years in the number of article downloads. When this service became available in 2005 it recorded 4,000 article downloads per month. In 2010, the number of downloads had grown to 45,000 per month. This spectacular growth truly is the result of the professionalism of the current editorial board. It is, therefore, no wonder that the impact factor has stabilized at around 1.5 which means the Journal is number one among its competitors.

In view of these figures, it should not be surprising to learn that the job of editor-in-chief in the digital age had become a true challenge that could hardly be achieved by a full-time clinician or academician. For this reason, three associate editors-in-chief had to be appointed to help relieve the editor-in-chief from this enormous burden. If the Journal continues its rapid growth pattern, it may become even more desirable for the association to hire a full-time editor-inchief. The job description of that individual, however, would need thorough consideration as today an all-around clinician is difficult to find, particularly someone with a talent and willingness to be a supervising editor and leader at the same time.

The IAOMS, recognizing the merits of Piet Haers, rightly gave him a distinguished service award at the ICOMS in Bangalore in 2005. Piet stepped down at the end of 2011 after 12 years of service. At the 20th ICOMS in Santiago, Chile, Nabil Samman was appointed editorin-chief of the Journal beginning in 2012.

Editorial board meeting with section chairs, 2008. Front row from left to right: Anh Le, Jacqui Merrison (Elsevier), Piet Haers, Nabil Samman, Joe Piecuch. Back row from left to right: Takashi Fujibayashi, George Dimitroulis, Stephen Feinberg, Ashraf Ayoub, Henning Schliephake, Henry Spilberg (Elsevier).

arTiCles published iN The JOurnal

Type of Article

Review

1972

1

Retrospective Prospective Research 5

1

22*

Case Report 2

New Technology 2

Total 33 1988 2000 2001

9

17

11

16

34

5

92

4

10

6

20

25

21

87

11

48

29 58

52

13

201

*The research presented in 1972 came largely from Andreasen and his coworkers concerning healing of the defects after apicoectomies.

Epilogue

The enormous evolution of the Journal over the years and particularly its scientific impact is best demonstrated when comparing the different categories of articles in the Journal in the first year, at the beginning of the editorship of Paul Stoelinga (1988), at the beginning of Piet Hears’ editorship (2000) and at nearly the end of his term (2010) as shown in the table on the previous page. This illustrates the growing realization that evidence is the basis for further development. It also shows the growth of the number of papers published, which more than doubled since 2000.