Variations of author origins in World Journal of Gastroenterology during 2001-2007

To discuss the variations and distributions of authors who published their papers in World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG) during 2001-2007 and evaluate the development of WJG and gastroenterology core journals in recent years by comparing the contributions of the authors.

WJG articles published in 2001-2007 were searched from MEDLINE database (by ISI Web of Knowledge). The variations (cooperation degree, cooperation rate) and distributions of the first authors were analyzed with bibliometric methods. SCIE was used to collect articles published in Am J Gastroenterol, Gastroenterology, Scand J Gastroenterol and WJG in 2007, and comparison of the data was made. Comparison indicators included the article number of annual journals, cooperation degree of authors, cooperation rate, mean number of articles published in each WJG issue, number of countries of the first WJG authors, geographical distribution and article contribution ratio of all WJG authors and domestic authors.

Of the 5851 articles covered in MEDLINE, 173, 236, 633, 826, 1496, 1382 and 1105 articles were cited from 2001 to 2007. The cooperation degree was 5.11, 5.56, 5.75, 5.76, 6.31, 5.90 and 5.64 respectively. The cooperation rates was 94.80%, 99.15%, 98.89%, 98.55%, 99.13%, 96.67% and 95.66%, respectively. The mean number of articles published in each WJG issue from 2001 to 2007 was 28, 39, 52, 34, 31, 28 and 23, respectively. The number of countries of the first WJG authors was 8, 8, 27, 32, 49, 61 and 56, respectively. The first authors of WJG came from 3 continents in 2001 and covered 6 continents in 2006-2007. The number of articles written by Asian authors was 136 (79.07%), 227 (96.19%), 575 (90.98%), 713 (87.81%), 1111 (75.32%), 712 (53.98%) and 555 (53.21%), respectively in 2001-2007. The number of articles written by European & American authors increased from 36 (20.93%) and 8 (3.39%) in 2001-2002 to 563 (42.68%) and 452(43.34%) in 2006-2007. The number of countries except for China contributing papers was increased. The number of articles written by first authors of Japan rose from 0 (0%) in 2001-2002 to 287 (12.15%) in 2006-2007. The number of articles written by American authors increased from 6 (1.47%) in 2001-2002 to 158 (6.69%) in 2006-2007. The number of articles written by Chinese authors was 136 (79.07%), 227 (96.19%), 548 (86.71%), 669 (82.39%), 884 (59.93%), 380 (28.81%) and 320 (30.68%), respectively, in 2001 to 2007. The number of articles published in Am J Gastroenterol, Gastroenterology, Scand J Gastroenterol and WJG was 565, 586, 238 and 1118, respectively in 2007. The cooperation degree was 4.77, 6.14, 5.95 and 5.64, respectively, in 2007. The cooperation rate was 95.40%, 84.18%, 96.63% and 95.66%, respectively, in 2007. The number of countries of authors contributing papers was 44, 35, 42 and 62, respectively, in 2007.

The geographical distribution of WJG authors is wide for the past 2 years. WJG has made a step onto international publishing, and drawn even more attentions from gastroenterology researchers. Its authors are distributed over 74 countries in 6 global continents, and the journal has become the main intermediary for international gastroenterology researchers to demonstrate their research accomplishments.