Radiologia Brasileira - Publicação Científica Oficial do Colégio Brasileiro de Radiologia

The Brazilian radiological community is quite pleased with the indexing of our journal, Radiologia Brasileira, at PubMed Central. Finally, the journal articles are listed in the PubMed databank, the greatest worldwide reference source in medical literature, thus gaining international visibility. Researchers in the field of Radiology, especially those participating in stricto sensu post-graduation programs evaluated by the Brazilian Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES), will benefit greatly from such indexing, not only with the evaluation of the programs which they belong to, but also with their personal evaluation as they apply for research scholarships to funding bodies⁽¹⁾. This progressive evolution of the journal has been discussed in several editorials over the last years^(1-5).

However, there is a price to be paid for this. The greater the acquired visibility and relevance, the greater is the researchers' interest in publishing in this journal, the greater is the submission of articles to be evaluated and the greater is the significance of a qualified reviewers board as well as their willingness to do this job.

The reviewers' work is inglorious, anonymous and is done for free; it goes unnoticed, except by the journal management board, but it is fundamental for maintaining the integrity and exemption in the decision making by both the Editorial Board and the Editor. Despite the considerable number of members in our reviewers' board, most of them generously collaborating whenever requested to do so, the journal secretariat frequently faces serious difficulties in maintaining an appropriate and timely review workflow, particularly because of a constant and systematic refusal by some of our colleagues to do this task.

This is not a problem unique to our journal. Great international journals have been facing the same difficulties and are currently discussing possible ways to reward the participation of qualified reviewers. Financial compensation - particularly in the case of paid publications -, free access period to scientific databases such as Elsevier, Sage, etc., and even radical changes in the current articles review system, have been discussed as possible ways to encourage reviewers participation^(6,7). However, so far no satisfactory solution was found.

Another problem observed in our new data management platform for articles review (ScholarOne) is that the whole system is written in English which eventually may represent a problem for some reviewers. The journal suggests that the review process be developed in Portuguese, except in cases of foreign articles (which constitute exceptions, and reviewers would be noticed about that), so the process would become easier for reviewers, authors and also the editors themselves.

Finally, I appeal to all those who wish to see the development of our journal: whenever possible, accept doing article reviews, and do it timely, on the requested term. This would be an effective way to collaborate with the growth of our journal.


REFERENCES

1. Marchiori E. Radiologia Brasileira: good news for Brazilian researchers. Radiol Bras. 2013;46(3):v.

2. Marchiori E. The challenging indexation of Radiologia Brasileira. Are we able to collaborate in this process? Radiol Bras. 2011;44(2):v.

3. Carvalho ACP. What can we cite from Radiologia Brasileira? Radiol Bras. 2012;45(3):vii-viii.

4. Carvalho ACP. The journal Radiologia Brasileira. New possibilities of development in face of changes in Capes criteria. Radiol Bras. 2012;45(2):v-vi.

5. Marchiori E, Cerri GG, Moreira FA. Rumos da Radiologia Brasileira. Radiol Bras. 2008;41(1):v.

6. Diamandis EP. Publishing costs: peer review as a business transaction. Nature. 2015;517:145.

7. de Granda-Orive JI, Segrelles-Calvo G, García-Río F. The open access movement: a chance to re-evaluate the peer review process? Arch Bronconeumol. 2015;51:157-8.










Full Professor Emeritus at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niterói, RJ, Brazil. E-mail: edmarchiori@gmail.com