This year, the RBO will be 50 years old!
The history of the RBO began in 1965. After a difficult start led by Marcio Ibrain, it was kept going for a long time through the dedication of our dearly missed friend, Donato, who was followed by Giesta. This history has already been narrated in this space.
We started our activity in the RBO in 2009, nominated by the administration of Romeu Krause. In the first editorial of our administration, Krause called on us to have the pioneering spirit of Marcio, the dedication of Donato and the seriousness of Giesta, in our duties as the new editor of the RBO.
On that occasion, we had eight studies to organize for the first issue. However, our publishing house, which depended on Mr. Katayama, the traditional publisher of RBO, was closing down its activities.
We had a meeting in Rio de Janeiro (which at that time was where the journal was based) with Giesta, who kindly familiarized us with the problems that we would have to deal with.
With unrestricted support from the Krause administration, we contracted a publishing house, Atha Comunicação e Editora Ltda, and we designed the format of the RBO, now to be based at the office of the Brazilian Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology (SBOT).
We envisaged a bimonthly journal, with review, updating and original articles, case reports and technical notes. We contacted our indexing database (SciELO) and determined what the minimum size for the RBO should be.
The RBO would have six issues per year, with a minimum of 60 original articles, and it would be necessary to define an editorial body that would be renewed annually, with members representing the entire country. The studies would require analysis by at least two editors, in addition to the assessment made by the editor-in-chief, a practice that was already in place during the Giesta administration.
Initially, there was a lack of studies and we had difficulty in editing the first issues, which we frequently completed through commissioning updating texts from several colleagues. In our first year, our rejection rate among the studies submitted was 17%.
We traveled to some other states around this country and spoke at several congresses to publicize the RBO and to seek to demonstrate how scientific studies were compiled. We could see that large numbers of possible authors were unaware of the techniques needed. We were surprised at the level of interest: we found that we were speaking to audiences of more than 100 people about how to write scientific studies. In our editorials, we have insisted on the need for published papers and sometimes we have disseminated rules for composing scientific texts, in order to guide new authors and also the editors who assess the studies that are submitted.
The number of studies submitted has increased significantly, followed by an improvement in quality. The increase in the number of articles has been so much that we needed to change publishing house: we have moved to one of international stature, Elsevier, which has provided us with a new editing system, along with editorial support.
The web-based analysis system has turned evaluations on submitted studies into a more dynamic process and has enabled interaction between editors and authors that has greatly helped to improve the quality of the RBO.
We have now analyzed more than 1,248 studies and we are maintaining a rejection rate of 35%, which is comparable to that of good international journals. In fact, there is a waiting list of more than one year for publication, which is being resolved through publication on the web, in Science Direct (http://www.sciencedirect.com/Science/journal/aip/01023616), for all studies that have been approved by the editorial board, independent of the date. In this manner, authors can cite studies and be cited in their studies without the need to be reported in the printed journal.
It is very important that we should cite studies published in the RBO in our texts for publication in Brazil and abroad, since this is the way in which we will be graded and added to the major international indexing bodies.
We have been approved by the National Library of Medicine and we have passed through the first phase of the acceptance process for PubMed Central. The issues of the RBO will shortly be in PubMed.
This is our birthday present, which is the result of long-term work. In this, we have had significant collaboration through the efforts of our librarian, Ms. Diva.
We have had support from all six presidents of the RBO with whom we have worked: Santili, Osvandré, Faloppa, Geraldo, Arnaldo and, of course, Romeu, the father of this process. All of these presidents have treated the RBO with enormous respect and have dedicated maximum attention to everything that we have requested for improving the editorial quality of our journal.
At the end of these six years, we would like to thank the editorial board and our associate editors, with special thanks to the area editors and invited editors who, in an anonymous manner, have analyzed texts and helped authors to improve their texts and consequently the RBO.
We begin this new period, which should last another three years, this time nominated by Percope, with the same enthusiasm with which we began our function of editor-in-chief six years ago, and an entreaty to the editors who preceded me to once again provide inspiration, with the pioneering spirit of Marcio, the dedication of Donato and the seriousness of Giesta.
Gilberto Luis Camanho
Revista Brasileira de Ortopedia
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
Mar-Apr 2015
History
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Received
22 Mar 2015 -
Accepted
23 Mar 2015
