Archives and the new Capes Qualis

EDITORIAL

Archives and the new Capes Qualis

Fernando Bacal

Editor-in-Chief

^{Mailing address}

We have witnessed in the last years, great changes and progress in the Brazilian Archives of Cardiology. The increase in the submission of original articles originating from postgraduate programs, the also increasing number of published manuscripts, the indexing in Thomson Scientific database (former ISI) and, more recently, the possibility of having our journal published in three languages, with the inclusion of the Spanish version, allow us to expect a promising future for the Archives, the main cardiovascular scientific publication in the country.

With the changes in the journal evaluation system of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Ensino Superior (Capes), the Archives will have to fit into the Qualis B3 category (see Table). The range includes publications that do not have a published impact factor, but are cited in PubMed.

For everyone's knowledge, the impact factor of a journal is defined by Thomson Scientific at the end of two years of indexing, considering the number of published articles and their relation with the number of times they have been cited. That, in the case of the Brazilian Archives of Cardiology, will occur in the beginning of 2010 when, automatically, we will be positioned in the Qualis B2 classification.

The Qualis B2 range comprehends journals with an impact factor between 0.1 and 1.299. Therefore, the upgrade to this ranking was not possible now just because we were recently included in the Thomson Scientific system and our impact factor has yet to be defined.

Up to 2011, our expectation is that, according to our calculations, the journal will have an impact factor between 0.3 and 0.4, which will keep the Archives at the top of the ranking of Latin American journals of Cardiology.

We believe this upgrade will be a great progress and that if we continue seeking the constant improvement, with the ever-restrictive search for high-quality original articles, including international publications and the unconditional support of the Brazilian cardiology scientific community, we can aspire to someday be among the main international journals, which is the aim of our researchers.

We have perceived an ever-growing receptivity from the coordinators of postgraduate programs in Cardiology in relation to the Archives, encouraging their postgraduate students in Cardiology to give priority to the journal. The creation of this "virtuous" circle, in which the journal increasingly publishes top quality articles, as more top quality articles are sent for reviewing, will make our journal more attractive and stronger.

This is not a phenomenon that occurs overnight. It is the result of the hard work and the effort made by several editors that preceded me and who will certainly succeed me in this trajectory.

My regards and thank you all for the support.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 July 2009
• Date of issue
  June 2009