2021 - State of our JCMR

There were 89 articles published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (JCMR) in 2020, including 71 original research papers, 5 technical notes, 6 reviews, 4 Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) position papers/guidelines/protocols and 3 corrections. The volume was up 12.7% from 2019 (n = 79) with a corresponding 17.9% increase in manuscript submissions from 369 to 435. This led to a slight increase in the acceptance rate from 22 to 23%. The quality of the submissions continues to be high. The 2020 JCMR Impact Factor (which is published in June 2020) slightly increased from 5.361 to 5.364 placing us in the top quartile of Society and cardiac imaging journals. Our 5 year impact factor increased from 5.18 to 6.52. Fourteen years ago, the JCMR was at the forefront of medical and medical society journal migration to the Open-Access format. The Open-Access system has dramatically increased the availability and citation of JCMR publications with accesses now exceeding 1.2 M! It takes a village to run a journal. JCMR is blessed to have a group of very dedicated Associate Editors, Guest Editors, Journal Club Editors, and Reviewers. I thank each of them for their efforts to ensure that the review process occurs in a timely and responsible manner. These efforts have allowed the JCMR to continue as the premier journal of our field. My role, and the entire process would not be possible without the dedication and efforts of our new managing editor, Jennifer Rodriguez, whose premier organizational efforts have allowed for streamlining of the review process and marked improvement in our time-to-decision (see later). As I begin my 6th and final year as your editor-in-chief, I thank you for entrusting me with the JCMR editorship. I hope that you will continue to send us your very best, high quality manuscripts for JCMR consideration and that our readers will continue to look to JCMR for the very best/state-of-the-art CMR publications. The editorial process continues to be a tremendously fulfilling experience and the opportunity to review manuscripts that reflect the best in our field remains a great joy and true highlight of my week!


Background
In accordance with Open-Access publishing guidelines of our publisher, BMC, the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (JCMR) articles are published on-line in a continuous fashion and in chronologic number order, with no collating of the articles into sections or special thematic issues. In addition, due to the variability in the author galley review process, articles are sometimes not listed in chronologic order on the JCMR web site. As a result, our second editor-in-chief, Dr. Dudley Pennell initiated an annual review of all JCMR publications into broad areas of interest or themes, allowing readers to view areas of interest in a single article in relation to each other and contemporaneous JCMR publications. Though I believe this review would be a valuable asset for our readership, I have chosen not to continue this tradition so as to decrease our self-citation rate and potential "delisting" from the annual Impact Factor calculation. Instead, similar to last year, I will focus on conveying information regarding the editorial process as a "State of our JCMR" summary.
The JCMR is the official publication of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR). The JCMR published 89 articles in 2020, including 71 original research papers, 5 technical notes, 6 reviews, 4 SCMR position papers/guidelines/protocols and 3 corrections.
The 2020 publication volume was up 12.7% from 2019 (n = 79) with a corresponding 17.9% increase in manuscript submissions from 369 to 435. This led to a slight increase in the acceptance rate from 22 to 23% (the slight mathematical difference in acceptance/submissions is related to submission year and publication year).
In July 2018, the article processing charge (APC) structure changed with manuscripts for which an SCMR member is the first, co-first, senior or corresponding author receive an 80% discount to the full $2500 APC. Reduced APC fees are also available to those from BMC membership institutions, submitting authors from lower income countries, and for those who request a waiver due to financial hardship. APCs are waived for invited reviews and for Society publications. The APC will not be changing for 2022.
For 2020, the United States (n = 97) and China (n = 96) were the source of nearly 50% of all JCMR publications followed by Germany (n = 48) and the United Kingdom (n = 37) (Fig. 1). The top three countries for publications were the United States (n = 26), Germany (n = 16) and the United Kingdom (n = 13) (Fig. 1).

Impact factor
Though only one of many journal metrics and not a consideration in our review process, the Clarivate Impact Factor is nonetheless a well-known metric with which many readers are familiar and is a metric often considered by both authors and readers. I am pleased to report that the 2020 JCMR Impact Factor (which was released in June 2021 and is based on manuscripts published in 2018 and 2019 that were cited in 2020), slightly increased from 5.361 to 5.364. This impact factor means that the JCMR papers that were published in 2018 and 2019 were cited on average approximately 5.4 times in 2020. This puts JCMR well positioned in the top tertile (37/142) of journals in the broad categories of "Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems" and the top quintile (20/133) of "Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging. " In addition, our Journal Citation Indication is 1.44, meaning JCMR has 44% greater citation impact than the average in its category! The 2021 JCMR impact factor will be released in June 2022, and I will keep you abreast of the results (follow us on Twitter!).
Perhaps more important than the Impact Factor is the frequency that JCMR articles are accessed. Our openaccess format allows for much greater visibility for our authors with the 2020 JCMR annual digital access now exceeding 1,200,000!!-a threshold not achievable with a subscription/print publication of a Society journal. Open-access has "leveled the playing field" so that an electronic search allows JCMR manuscripts to rise to awareness and to then be downloaded without cost. This is a great benefit to our readers, to the greater scientific community, and to our authors.

JCMR editor-in-chief leadership
Dr. Gerald Pohost (Fig. 2)    Jennifer Rodriguez (jcmroffice@scmr.org) joined the JCMR managing staff as an assistant managing editor in mid-2019 and was promoted to managing editor in January 2021 (Fig. 3). Jennifer has made tremendous progress in keeping me and the entire manuscript review process organized and on schedule. As a result, we have seen a marked decrease in our time to first decision time from a mean of 63 days in 2019 to 36 days for the first 6 months of 2021! I hope our authors have felt this tangible difference.

JCMR Journal Club
A highlight of 2020 was the introduction of our JCMR Journal Club just as the COVID-19 pandemic was bursting across the globe in March 2020. These monthly one-hour webinars are held on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at 11am ET. A link for the monthly registration is on the JCMR (https:// jcmr-online. biome dcent ral. com/) and SCMR (www. scmr. org) websites. These monthly JCMR Journal Clubs are hosted by one of our three Journal Club Editors, Drs. Scott Flamm (clinical), Raymond Kwong (clinical) and Matthias Stuber (nonclinical). On a rotating basis, each editor choses a manuscript that was recently published in JCMR After a brief Journal Club Editor introduction of the topic, the presenting author gives a 25-30 min presentation followed by a spirited 30 min discussion. We continue to offer CME for reading the manuscript and hope to provide CME for Journal Club attendance in the coming year. Please join > 100 of your colleagues every month for an informative presentation and discussion! Don't worry if you missed one. Recordings of the monthly webinars and a CME link are provided on the SCMR web site. Check them out! Like other JCMR activities, the JCMR Journal Club is a village effort. In addition to our 3 talented Journal Club editors, I very much appreciate the strong administrative assistance of Lauren Small from the SCMR managing office who was succeeded by Sarah Mania this past July. Lauren and now Sarah are responsible for coordinating registration, the speaker presentations, CME, Zoom operations and recording, and subsequent posting of the monthly JCMR Journal Club recording on the SCMR website. The 2020 JCMR Journal Club selections were on a wide variety of topics ( Table 2).

Manuscript review process, omissions, and suggestions
I reviewed the manuscript submission process in my report last year [1] and will further expand on this below.
All manuscripts are submitted and processed through the http:// www. jcmr-online. org website. I encourage all authors to closely follow the guidelines so as not to delay the review process. By far, the most error that leads to review delay is the omission of the names and contact information for at least two suggested reviewers in the cover letter. I ask authors to use JCMR preferred abbreviations (https:// jcmr-online. biome dcent ral. com/ submi ssion-guide lines/ prepa ring-your-manus cript/ abbre viati ons) and to use the terms "CMR" and "cardiovascular magnetic resonance" rather than "cardiac magnetic resonance. " While the abbreviation issue does not delay the review, it adds additional burden to the prepublication editing process.
I encourage authors to carefully consider the number of significant digits and reported p values in their manuscripts. For example, when reporting native T1 and standard deviation, would report to the nearest ms and not to the X.X ms or X.XX ms. While technically accurate, reporting T1 to this level of accuracy has no clinical relevance. Similarly, when reporting p values for the sample sizes of most JCMR publications, a value of < 0.001 is a reasonable limit.
Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Reviews and Position Papers) should cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive self-citation, coordinated efforts among authors to collectively self-cite, gratuitous and unnecessary article citation or any other form of citation manipulation are inappropriate and strongly discouraged.
Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript: Jennifer Rodriguez, JCMR Managing Editor After manuscript submission and BMC office confirmation that the manuscript is in the appropriate format (abstract, text, references, figures, tables, supplements), the manuscript is sent to the Boston office for initial review. Within 48 business hours, I assess the manuscript for its appropriateness for the JCMR readership and its overall likely priority for publication. Approximately 5% of submitted manuscripts are deemed inappropriate for the JCMR audience (non-CMR topic) or very unlikely to reach sufficient priority for acceptance (e.g., case reports/ very small case series, unsolicited reviews). These manuscripts are quickly returned to the author(s) so as to expedite submission to a more appropriate journal. If appropriate, the authors are offered the opportunity to directly forward their manuscript to another BMC openaccess publication.
For manuscripts deemed appropriate for consideration, an associate editor is assigned and reviewer assignments are then requested. Manuscript evaluations are simultaneously requested from up to 5 reviewers (with special consideration for the 2 author suggested reviewers) until confirmed acceptance has been received by 3 reviewers. Reviewers are asked to follow a specific format and to return their review within 2 weeks of acceptance. We are fortunate to have over 900 reviewers (but are always looking to expand our reviewer pool and encourage all members/innovators/leaders of the CMR field to apply to be a reviewer. If you are interested in becoming a JCMR reviewer, please contact our managing editor, Jennifer Rodriguez at jcmroffice@scmr.org. When at least two (of 3 agreed) reviews have been received by noon Friday, the manuscript is scheduled for discussion at our weekly associate editorial board meeting held every Tuesday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. ET. When I am out of town/unavailable, the associate editors continue to meet so as to not delay the publication process. At each meeting, 4-12 manuscripts may be discussed. The manuscript decisions at that meeting include. When a manuscript is accepted, I then edit the submission to be consistent with JCMR style/abbreviations (see https:// jcmr-online. biome dcent ral. com/ submi ssion-guide lines/ prepa ring-your-manus cript/ abbre viati ons) before final submission to BMC for galley production. The galleys are first sent to the corresponding author and finally to me for final sign-off. I then identify a postage stamp (remember those!) image for publication in JCMR web site listing and to accompany the @ JournalofCMR twitter feed. The manuscript is usually published on-line within a week of my final sign-off. Along with BMC, Drs. Juan Lopez-Mattei and Purvi Parwani handle the social media dissemination of the manuscript's publication.
Upon taking my position as editor-in-chief in 2017, my goal was to have first decision within 40 days of receipt for 60% of manuscripts, a process that is dependent on timely return of reviews. I am pleased to report that we have more than achieved this goal for 2021-thanks in large part to the strong efforts of our new managing editor, Jennifer Rodriguez. Delays are due to multiple issues-if the two reviews markedly differ in their assessment/recommendation (~ 25% of the time) or the associate editor feels we need additional information; we may then delay a decision until the third review has been received or solicit a fourth. We may also to seek the counsel of our statistical reviewer, Dr. Long Ngo. If any of these occur, we try to alert the corresponding author.
We recognize that the review process is not perfect. We may not have sent the manuscript to the best reviewers (your suggestions help, or the best reviewers may have declined our invitation). The reviewer may have misinterpreted the manuscript (we try to catch this at our weekly associate editorial meeting).
Sometimes you will find the editorial decision is different from your perception of the review(s). This is because we do our best to objectively assess the science, presentation, and appropriateness for the JCMR audience. The review(s) help, but we also ask ourselves these four questions: 1. Is the study scientifically sound? 2. Are the Methods, Results, and Discussion appropriately presented? 3. Is the work novel? Does the study extend or clarify our current understanding or is it a confirmation of a prior report? 4. Will our readership be interested or informed by the topic?
Anonymized reviews are returned to the authors. We continue to work with BMC so that we can post anonymized reviews for published manuscripts on the JCMR web site. In contrast to some open-access journals, I do not anticipate posting of submitted (but not accepted) manuscripts or inclusion of prior versions of an accepted manuscript as I am concerned such postings will be confusing to the reader. Stay tuned as we hopefully bring you anonymized reviews in 2022.

All manuscripts submitted to the journal cannot be under simultaneous consideration by another journal
All work submitted to the JCMR must be original and cannot be under consideration by another journal until a decision is made by the JCMR. Fortunately, this past year we have not had any known occurrence of simultaneous submissions; but have unfortunately become aware of this issue in the past. When this does occur, the manuscript is immediately withdrawn from further consideration and the authors are put on administrative warning.

Reviewer recognition-Gold Star Reviewers
Reviewers are a key component to the success of the JCMR. As a recognition of reviewers, at the 2021 SCMR Annual meeting we recognized our 135 "Gold Star" Reviewers for 2020 (Table 3). Gold Star reviewers are those individuals who reviewed at least 3 JCMR manuscripts in 2020, with reviews both of high quality and timeliness. Please join the ranks of JCMR reviewers and strive to be a Gold Star reviewer! As an added incentive, reviewers have the option to receive continuing medical education (CME) credit for providing a review.

Conflict-of-interest, reviews, SCMR guideline/ position manuscripts and SCMR Committee papers
Conflict-of-interest manuscripts, those for which a member of the associate editorial board is either an author or closely associated with an author, are independently handled by a Guest Editor (Table 4) chosen by me. Neither I nor any of the associate editorial board are involved with reviewer selection or with manuscript decision. Our managing editorial office assists the Guest Editor with the administrative software/Editorial Manager. If a conflict-of-interest manuscript is accepted, the Guest Editor is recognized in the JCMR publication with the text "Dr. XX served as a JCMR Guest Editor for this manuscript. " The JCMR does not accept unsolicited reviews. Authors are encouraged to contact me before submitting any reviews. In general, reviews are authored by individuals considered experts in the field and receive considerable attention/downloads. All solicited reviews follow the usual peer-review process. Several reviews were published in 2020 (Table 5), including reviews on normative values [2] exercise CMR [3], native T2 and T2* for cardiomyopathies and heart transplantation [4,5], the role of CMR in women [6], and highlights of the 2020 23 rd SCMR Scientific Session [7].
The JCMR is the official publication of the SCMR. As such, SCMR Guidelines and Position papers endorsed by the Full (or Executive) SCMR Board(s) do not undergo peer review. I review these manuscripts for consistency with JCMR style and abbreviations. They are then published in an expeditious manner. In addition to Society Position papers on standardized image interpretation and post-process [8], updated standardized CMR protocols [9], and clinical indications for CMR [10], we published several Covid-specific SCMR position papers in 2020 [11,12] (Table 5). I have encouraged Society leadership to have updates of the Guideline papers to be on a 5 year renewal cycle, with rotation in authorship as well. In contrast to SCMR Guidelines and Position papers, SCMR Committee approved manuscripts undergo the usual JCMR peer review process albeit with an anticipation that they will ultimately be published in the JCMR. SCMR Committee publications in 2020 are listed in Table 5.

SCMR case of the week series
While the JCMR does not accept case reports, for many years, the SCMR web site has an active "Case of the Week" (https:// scmr. org/ page/ caseo fthew eekLD GPG) series, currently coordinated by Dr. Sylvia Chen. In 2021, we published the 2019 Case series as a single manuscript [13]. We plan to make this unified publication an annual occurrence in JCMR to allow for these illustrative cases to be more widely available to search engines.

Gerald M. Pohost and Dudley Pennell Awards
In recognition of the efforts of our inaugural editor-inchief, Dr. Gerald M. Pohost, (Fig. 2) for the past 14 years, the JCMR has awarded the Pohost Prize to that manuscript deemed by the associate editors and editorial board to be the best/most important manuscript published in the prior year. The associate editors and I select the Pohost finalists (Table 7) and the entire editorial board votes on the top prize. At the virtual 2021 SCMR Scientific Sessions annual meeting, the 14th Gerald M. Pohost Prize was awarded to Dr. Bandettini (Fig. 3) and co-workers for their manuscript" A comparison of cine CMR imaging at 0.55 T and 1.5 T" [15]. The Pohost Runner-up Prize was awarded to Dr. Reddy (Fig. 3) and colleagues for their publication, "Invasive cardiovascular magnetic resonance (iCMR) for diagnostic right and left Table 6 2020 JCMR manuscripts chosen for continuing medical education (CME)