A scientific evidence: the OBJN has more quantitative and qualitative links

Resumen

It is very important to a  scientific journal the citation index. The ejournals are emerging and there is not a consensus protocol to evaluate them. But, the OBJN and other Brazilian ejournals were evaluated by a team research. We present and discuss here part of this report.

Marcondes et al (2004) evaluated the Brazilian emerging ejournals in science and technology. they created a methodology based on analysis of links to ejournal’s site. They found these results for the ejournals in public health:

AREA HEALTH SCIENCES – PUBLIC HEALTH – 3 EJOURNALS

Ejornal

Inc. SciELO

tot. links

tot. repeated links

tot. Links from SciELO

tot.

links foreigners

(X 2)

tot.

links authorities

(X 3)

tot.

Simple links

(X 1)

Grade

Cadernos de Saúde Pública

yes

100

87

10

2

27

Revista de Saúde Publica

(Public Health journal)

yes

100

94

6

0

12

Revista de Saúde Coletiva

yes

62

57

3

0

8

Marcondes et al (2004) rated also the nursing ejournals. The table below summarizes the results:

AREA: HEALTH SCIENCES – NURSING – 2 EJOURNALS

Ejornal

Inc. SciELO

tot. links

tot. repeated links

tot. Links from SciELO

tot.

links foreigners

(X 2)

tot.

links authorities

(X 3)

tot.

Simple links

(X 1)

Grade

Online Brazilian Journal of Nursing

No

29

27

1

1

58

Revista Latino Americana de Enfermagem

(LatinAmerican Journal of Nursing)

Yes

75

68

4

0

3

11

Marcondes et al (2004) considered that the area of Nursing revealed a surprising result because in spite of quality criteria to be included in SciELO gateway, Revista Latino-americana de Enfermagem(LatinAmerican Journal of Nursing) got a grade of one-fifth of the grade obtained by the recent published, pure electronic Online Brazilian Journal of Nursing. The authors point out that they did not have a feed back from an expert in nursing, so they supposed that these results may be due to the fact that the OBJN is published in English. Beside that, the OBJN has also link of site considered authority (Brazilian university library). The authors observed that in the foreign links, there are many digital reference services from libraries outsideBrazil (and they refer the OBJN). So, they consider that this may indicate the need to adjust and fine tune the methodology and to enlarge the concept of authority, encompassing the foreign digital reference services.

But what are the implications of these research results to the OBJN?

First of all, it is very good sensation to got a scientific evidence related to what was a common sense.

The OBJN has published 07 numbers totalizing 27 original articles, 20 revision articles,07 opinion articles, 11 these abstracts, 09 editorials, 01 book review and 12 professional communications. Since article submission until its publication takes almost 3 months. The OBJN has more than 47 international peer-reviews. The OBJN is indexed or linked to Brazilian Nursing Association, CINAHL, CUIDEN, DOAJ, Free Medical Journals, Latindex, LIS-BIREME, Nurses. Info, RealNurse, and so on.

The  OBJN has free access and received more than 11.000 page views since its creation. The last number published in April 2004 received 2450 page views! Our visitors came from Brazil (67,2%), United States (9,3%), Portugal (1,8%), Canadá (1,8%), Korea (1,5%), Australia (1,3%), Chile (1,3%), United Kingdom (0,9%), Spain (0,8%), Mexico (0,7%), unkown (4,7%), and the rest (8,7%) (http://www.nedstatbasic.net/s?tab=1&link=1&id=2963790 Access in 08/25/04, 14:23h)

Second, these results showed to us that the OBJN is an important tool to the nursing researcher reach out her/his professional reader.

Third, the free access by the web and the texts in English permitted to introduce the Brazilian scientific production to the nurse community around the world.

We have working hard to accomplish these goals! But we are also sure that we have to work much more to maintain our position and,of course, to expand it!