30 years of Acta Paulista de Enfermagem – Challenges in the editorial situation and practices in the path of excellence

With over 2,000 manuscripts published, 31 volumes available and more than 100,000 pages in circulation, Acta Paulista de Enfermagem is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2018. In its quest to become an important vehicle of scientific communication in Brazil and around the world, Acta has exceeded the goals set in 1988, the year it was founded, and, in 2018, it ranks among the best journals in the area of nursing and health, both nationally and internationally.

Acta launched its activities under the management of the distinguished professors Laís Helena Ramos de Oliveira Franco (PhD), then head of the Department of Nursing of Paulista School of Medicine, and Maria Cristina Santos Gedraite (PhD), as Editor responsible for the journal. At that time, the primary objective was that Acta would serve as an active channel for publications from the graduate studies program of the Department of Nursing. Its mission was to promote sharing of experiences between schools of nursing.⁽¹⁾ Over the course of the years, professionals committed to intensifying the impact of the published findings started to project the journal to other editorial levels. Professor Nilce Piva Adami (PhD) worked vigorously on the journal's editorial processes, so that the publication would flow continuously and the quality of accepted manuscripts would be rigorously analyzed. Efforts were made to select the numbers and itemize important studies in the issues that would then be circulated among the academic community. The first indexation of Acta Paulista de Enfermagem was in the LILACS database (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences) and BVS (Virtual Health Library).⁽²⁾

In the mid-2000s, Professor Alba Lucia Bottura Leite de Barros (PhD) became the head of the Nursing Department of the Paulista School of Medicine and, in partnership with Professor Maria Clara Cassulini Matheus (PhD) and librarian Edna Terezinha Rother, sought to index the journal in important databases. During this period, Acta secured important indexations, such as Web of Science, SciELO, Scopus, Cinahl and Cuiden, and obtained its first impact factor, and its citations were analyzed by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information/JCR – Journal Citation Reports). Under this management team, the journal achieved the Qualis A2 position in the CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) stratification. During the 2000s, a noteworthy change occurred in the editorial area. The journals, which until then had never been assessed in terms of format, standard, and scope, needed to adopt an appropriate frequency, their own format, language that would differentiate them between one another, and considerable indicators to position them in relation to the demands (requirements) of the databases.^(3,4)

In the beginning of 2012, when the Department of Nursing became the Paulista School of Nursing, a University Unit of the Federal University of São Paulo, Professor Lucila Amaral Carneiro Viana (PhD) invited Professor Dulce Aparecida Barbosa (PhD) to become the scientific editor of the journal. In order to meet new requirements and make Acta one of the leading journals in its area, significant advances took place, since the editorial world required the journals to become open access and seek financial sustainability to ensure the continuous publications of its issues. Consequently, decisions were made to close ISSN 0103-2100 (printed version) and that, from that year on, the academic-scientific community would only use the online format (ISSN 1982-0194). Activities such as interactivity among authors and selection of manuscripts on electronic platforms were the most discussed issues during Acta's endeavor to reposition the journal.⁽⁵⁾

In 2013, Professor Sonia Maria Oliveira de Barros (PhD) assumed the position of director of the Paulista School of Nursing and management of the journal, focusing her efforts as editor-in-chief on professionalizing Acta's editorial processes. She selected ScholarOne as the online platform for submitting manuscripts, adopted the graphic design for the journal, redesigned the home page to temporarily meet the demands of Acta users, adopted XML language for published articles, and launched interactive activities on social networking websites. She also strongly invested in the specialization of professionals who were or are part of the Editorial Office, in addition to implementing the first online system for receipt of publication fees (PayPal). During her mandate, Acta launched its activities on the following databases: SCImago (SCImago Journal & Country Rank), DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Redalyc and Cabell's Directory.⁽⁶⁾

Since 2015, under my management, as director of the Paulista School of Nursing, Acta Paulista de Enfermagem has sought greater independence from the boards of the institution, as well as important partnerships with national and international organizations. In my view, being the director of the School of Nursing and editor-in-chief of the journal are activities that must be systematically re-discussed, in light of the dedication required to manage a scientific journal. Her mandate was marked by investments in management and relationships in order for the journal to adhere to editorial requirements and continue being a scientific journal of excellence. Some of the goals were indexation of the journal in PubMed Central and consequently on Medline, pursuit of A1 stratification in Qualis from CAPES and to gradually increase the impact factor, which has grown since the start of her mandate, adhere to the “Continuous Publication” editorial format, and rethink the journal's direction on digital platforms, the RevEnf Portal and preprint policy. Today, Acta Paulista de Enfermagem is a financially self-supporting journal with financial planning to ensure uninterrupted circulation. It is important to underscore the important role played by the Editorial Committee, formed by research professors and nurses with PhDs, in guiding the assessment processes for manuscripts submitted by the academic community to the journal. Managed by the Support Foundation of the Federal University of São Paulo, Acta has received important incentives from development agencies, such as CAPES, CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation).

Acta Paulista de Enfermagem is celebrating its 30^th anniversary in 2018 and aspires to complete another 30 years and uphold its long history of credibility and competence. We would like to thank all of our partners, professionals, and teams for their dedication and having helped us arrive to where we are today. We know we still have much more to do and emphasize that our goal is to strengthen the loyalty of our users, offer the world quality benchmark literature and perform with excellence in relation to editorial practices in the world. We also congratulate all you nurses and health professionals who trust in our work!

Referências

• ¹
  Gedraite MC. Editorial. Acta Paul Enferm. 1988;1(1):1.
• ²
  Silva CV. [Honoring the Prof. Dr. Nilce Piva Adami]. Acta Paul Enferm. 2005;18(1):1. Portuguese.
• ³
  Barros AL. Editorial. Acta Paul Enferm. 2002;15(1):1.
• ⁴
  Barros AL. [The Acta Paulista de Enfermagem is indexed in SciELO]. Acta Paul Enferm. 2007;20(1):7-9. Portuguese.
• ⁵
  Barbosa DA, Belasco AG, Vianna LA. [Acta Paulista de Enfermagem in digital format: making a mark in history]. Acta Paul Enferm. 2012;25(1):1. Portuguese.
• ⁶
  Barros SM. Editorial. Acta Paul Enferm. 2013;26(1):1.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Feb 2018