The inclusion of the journal of musculoskeletal surgery and research in the web of science^™ (emerging sources citation index)

The Journal of Musculoskeletal Surgery and Research (JMSR), the official English journal of the Saudi Orthopedic Association, has seen remarkable improvements since its launch in mid-2017 that publishes four issues per year in February, May, August, and November.

The editorial board of the JMSR is glad to inform the journal’s readers, authors, and reviewers that JMSR was selected in June 2024 for inclusion in the Web of Science^™. Articles published after 2022, beginning with 6(1), will be included in the Emerging Source Citation Index (ESCI), a citation index in the Web of Science^™ Core Collection that will certainly expand the reading and citation universe of JMSR; thus, we eagerly await the JMSR’s maiden impact factor in next edition of JCR 2025. ESCI complements the highly selective indexes by providing earlier visibility for sources. Inclusion in ESCI provides greater discoverability, which leads to measurable citations and more transparency in the selection process. JMSR has been listed in SCOPUS since 2022.

We hope that Scopus and ESCI’s indexing will help the journal reach a wider scientific audience and attract more quality research articles. Contributions of innovative research and cutting-edge musculoskeletal developments by eminent authors reciprocally increase journal citations.

A group of independent researchers looked at the journal. They compared the gender diversity and affiliation trends of the authors for two orthopedics journals from the Arab world. The JMSR showed superiority regarding the number of authors per article and the prevalence of female authors. The incidence of national institutions’ cooperation and international contributions was higher in the JMSR compared with the other.^[1]

The JMSR’s milestones and bibliometric analysis of the JMSR from its inception, which greatly contributed to its inclusion in ESCI, were presented in JMSR, Volume 6, 2022.^[2] It is time to reflect on the journal’s efforts to be recognized as a top-notch journal.

We are immensely delighted to share the journal metrics that have substantially improved over the last few years. As Scopus started ingesting the journal data from 2022, we are presenting the data for 2022 and 2023:

• The CiteScore (measures the three-year average citations received per document published in a journal) improved from 0.2 in 2022 to 0.5 in 2023.

• The percentage of articles cited (% Cited) was 20 in 2022 and improved to 33 in 2023.

• Hirsch index (defined as the number of papers with a citation number higher or equal to h) is 11 as of June 2024.

• This significant progress of the journal Scientometrics led to a proportionate increase in submissions to the journal, which was reflected in its acceptance rate. The journal’s acceptance rate was 26.11% in 2022 and 24.54% in 2023.

• The speed of the journal’s review process has improved from 60.95 days in 2022 to 55.7 days for the first/final decision in 2023.

The editorial board members are from seven countries. We received articles from 69 countries, with reviewers from 65 countries from the five continents. The journal covers a wide spectrum of musculoskeletal disciplines conducted on basic, clinical, educational, surgical techniques, and translational research. It is widely distributed, and in the last seven years, our contributors have represented over 30 countries. The journal’s contents have been viewed on five continents, and we are proud to have been exalted to this prestigious position for the journal.

We want to acknowledge the untiring efforts of the editorial board of JMSR and support by the Saudi Orthopedics Association and King Saud University administration, our publisher Scientific Scholar^®, reviewers, readers, and those who trusted in us and contributed with their scientific work for publication. Without them, we would not have accomplished this landmark achievement. We promise all stakeholders that we will continue this journey toward achieving our goal of reaching an appropriate international position.