Publication patterns and citation analysis of APJTM during 2008 and June 2014

To draw on data about publication patterns and citation indicators of Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine (APJTM) during 2008 and June 2014 in order to know about the current state of the journal.

Data used in this study were collected based on publications in APJTM from 2008 to June, 2014. Information including publication issue, type of manuscript, country/region of Corresponding author, funded research paper, and international collaboration were aggregated and analyzed with Excel software. Citation indicators including total cites, average cites of each manuscript, h-index, and impact factors were primarily drawn from Web of Science™ database on June 15, 2014 and changes over the past six and half years were interpreted. The top 10 most cited papers in Web of Science™ database were also analyzed.

Number of all submissions has arisen from less than 200 in 2008 to over 1 500 in 2013, manuscript acceptance rate has decreased to be less than 14.00% indicating its improvement in quality over this period of time. Out of the 1 115 publiations, 23.77% were fruits of funded projects or produced by funded co-authors, 87.08% of all publications in APJTM were submited by authors from 10 most contributed countries. During the studied period, each published manuscript in the journal has received an average of 1.05 cites, and at least 10 publications has been cited for more 10 times.

Detailed analysis shows APJTM has made great progress over the past six and half years, but authors' originating countries are still disproportionate. Efforts should be made to improve its citation indicators.