The Path Ahead for the Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology

Nearly three years ago, the Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology (SJCAPP) went online: its very first article was published in March 2013. The number of articles published by the SJCAPP has grown steadily and will reach 20 in 2015. Our journal is hosted by the State and University Library in Århus, where there is a large Open Journal Systems (OJS) server that hosts several journals. Furthermore, a new and much improved version of the OJS software (OJS 3.0 beta) is coming in 2016. This new version will have an improved user interface and include many other important changes.

The SJCAPP now aims to increase its visibility and attractiveness as a means for the dissemination of excellent science by achieving indexing in Scopus, Thomson Reuters, and PubMed. To reach this goal, the SJCAPP will receive support from a professional publishing house. The support provided will also include advice about how to increase citations, handle reference linking, allocation of digital object identifier (DOI) numbers, and use metadata distribution to cross-reference and cross-check certain information. We have received a grant from the Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorder at Karolinska Institutet (KIND) via the Stiftelsen Barnforskning in Stockholm (made possible by a generous donation from Stephanie and Gustav Bobeck Arnhög) to enable this support to occur in the near future. If the SJCAPP is indexed by Thomson Reuters, an official impact factor for the journal can be calculated after three years.

The Thomson Reuters citation data makes it possible to calculate an unofficial impact factor for the SJCAPP, even if the journal is not yet officially listed in the database. It is relatively straightforward to make this calculation by using the same formula that is used for the official calculation. Thus, in March 2016, we will be able to calculate the unofficial 2015 impact factor for the SJCAPP.

The impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited during a particular year or another time period. The annual impact factor is a ratio of the actual citations to the recent citable items published. Thus, the impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current-year citations of a given journal by the number of source items published in that journal during the previous two years (Table 1).

As soon as it is possible to calculate the unofficial 2015 SJCAPP impact factor, it will be announced on the journal’s homepage like this:

We are happy to have experienced increased interest in the SJCAPP as indicated by a steady progression of submissions. One strategy that we used to attract submissions, readership, and citations was the composing of special journal issues. The third of these special issues will be published later this year and will address psychosis in children and adolescents; the first two special issues covered autism and personality disorder. We hope that editorial strategies like this as well as our future plans for the journal discussed here will prepare the SJCAPP to become a leading journal of childhood mental health in Europe and beyond.