EDITORIAL
Acta Scientiarum: 40 Years
The scientific journals Acta Scientiarum, published by the Publishing House of the State University of Maringá (Eduem), formerly called UNIMAR (authorized by University Decree 27/1973), started being published in 1974. Only one issue per year was published till 1989 and it contained articles from all the areas of knowledge, with an average of 11 articles each.
Due to the great demand and to the heterogeneity and incongruence in publishing articles from all areas of knowledge in one yearly issue, the scientific journal UNIMAR was subdivided into three issues, or rather, as from 1993 the three comprehensive areas of knowledge, Human and Social Sciences, Biological and Health Sciences and Exact and Earth Sciences, began to publish articles specifically in their respective journal. More than 400 scientific articles were published between 1990 and 1997.
In 1998, the name of the journal was changed to Acta Scientiarum, chosen to express the contents and the philosophy of the journal which published scientific articles as products of original and still unpublished research. Acta Scientiarum was already indexed in several data bases in Brazil and worldwide. The journals Acta Scientiarum were published by the Pro-Rectory for Research and Graduation of the State University of Maringá to which the Publishing House of the State University of Maringá (Eduem) was subjected. In 2003, the journals were subdivided into six new journals comprising six areas of knowledge: Acta Scientiarum. Agronomy; Acta Scientiarum. Animal Sciences; Acta Scientiarum. Biological Sciences; Acta Scientiarum. Health Sciences; Acta Scientiarum. Human and Social Sciences and Acta Scientiarum. Technology.
However in November 2006, a new administration desired to give a proper identity to the Eduem which, due to Decree 30/2006 of the University Council, became a supplementary organ of the University. The publishing house passed from the Pro-Rectory for Research and Graduation to a fully-fledged Eduem, with its own premises, as from the 30th January 2008. Following the new regulations of the Eduem, the Editorial Boards of the journals Acta Scientiarum, were renewed, Associated Editors and Vice-Editors from the different areas of knowledge were nominated for each journal.
The journals' periodicity was decided. During this period, 20 issues with more than 300 scientific articles were being published with exemplary regularity. It is worthwhile mentioning that only during 1975 the journal failed to publish its yearly issue. On the 21st May 2008, the new journal Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture (Decree 32/2008-CEP) was published to attend to a new and promising area of knowledge, whilst on the 16th December 2009 the Editorial Board started the publication of Acta Scientiarum. Education (Decree 29/2009-CEP). The first evaluation of these two journals gave the classification A2 by Qualis of the Brazilian CAPES.
Among the eight journals that comprise the Acta Scientiarum, two others were recently classified A2 (Language and Culture and Education), three were classified B1 (Agronomy, Technology and Health Sciences), one was classified B2 (Human and Social Sciences) and another one B3 (Animal Sciences) by Qualis of CAPES, within their respective areas of knowledge. The journals currently publish 26 issues per year with approximately 430 articles.
Within the context of the international indexing of the journals, seven journals were included in the data base of Redalyc (Mexico). Out of the eight journals of the Eduem, six were indexed by SCOPUS, with Acta Scientiarum. Education in the final evaluation stage; two journals were indexed by Web of Science (JCR-Journal Citation Reports), two by SciELO (the main Iberian-American data base) and all the journals by Redalyc. Further, the journal Acta Scientiarum. Agronomy is indexed in the four above-mentioned data bases and features the impact factor 0.365 by JCR (2012).
The Directors and the Editors-in-Chief of the Eduem, together with the members and teams of the Editorial Board of the journals have tried to comply with the requirements of other important indexing authorities so that the journals would improve their scores. In January 2005, the printed version of the journals also had its electronic version which, without any doubt, provided greater accessibility and visibility to the journals. The on-line version used the SEER-Electronic Journal Publishing System and thus the Eduem's journals received two electronic sites, namely http://www.acta.uem.br and http://www.periodicos.uem.br. Each journal also has an Editorial Board made up of important researchers in their own field of knowledge. On the other hand, the peers reviewers are highly diversified, extremely qualified and comprehensive. They hail from all parts of Brazil and from many universities worldwide.
Several targets may be mentioned to improve the quality and visibility of the journals Acta Scientiarum: I. Expansion of the list of researchers for the Editorial Board of the different areas of knowledge, aiming at the internationalization of the journals and their future indexing; II. Constant updating of publishing norms (Directions to Authors), editorial policy and anti-plagiarism policies of the different journals, following indexing requirements; III. Expansion and qualification of the peer review system with more national and international researchers; IV. Increase in the indexing of the journals, with preference to quality; V. increase in the impact factor of the published articles due to quality acknowledgement of the scientific articles accepted for publication.
Alessandro Lucca Braccini
Editora da Universidade Estadual de Maringá
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
24 Apr 2014 -
Date of issue
Mar 2014
