Past, current and future

OPEN ACCESS Two decades ago, professors Saleh M. Al-Deeb, Khalaf Al-Moutaery and Basim Yaqub launched the neurosciences bulletin as the specialized journal in the kingdom and the Arab world due to the growing interest in neurosciences research and publication. The journal started as the official bulletin of the Neurosciences Department, Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC) as a twice-yearly publication including articles, and abstracts from related meetings. After that, it became a quarterly publication, and continues to be well-respected peer review journal and services its mission as a mean to disseminate accessible, up to date medical information for clinical neurosciences and promote neurosciences research locally and internationally. With our devoted and hardworking editorial team the journal achieves successful steps and improvements. In 2000, the journal established the journal website which now had 124,813 hits, where readers can view, read and download the articles PDF. In 2006 the journal received an approval for indexing by the Thomson Scientific (formerly known as Thomson ISI) and following that the journal indexed and included in MEDLINE and that the English abstracts will be included using PubMed in July 2010. In 2016, we start including the journal in the Pub Med Central, and increasing the journal visibility in many databases. After years of dedicated editorship, the journal associate-editors Dr. Sonia khan and Dr. Mohammed Al-Zawahmah left the journal in 2016 after many accomplishments. In this regard, we would like to introduce ourselves to the readers as associate editors of neurosciences journal. Dr. Waleed Khoja is Deputy Director of the Neurology at the PSMMC; founder and past president of Saudi Stroke Association. Dr. Khaled hundallah is pediatric neurology consultant at the PSMMC and assistant professor at Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. To set our strategic plan, we decided to involve our target audience. An electronic survey was distributed and posted in the journal website. We received a total of 120 respondents. More than 60% of our respondents spend 2 hours and more weekly reading the medical journal and 65.83% find the journal important in their field. For the journal website, 39.47% of the respondents rate the journal website 3 out of 4. For the journal logo, 55% find out the logo represents the journal. However, improving the journal website, decreasing the processing time and establishing an electronic submission system, and increasing the journal visibility are the key points our audience look for. To satisfy the needs, demands and the expectations of our target audience the following steps were initiated. To increase the visibility of the journal, we invite all the local societies related to the neurosciences to sign an agreement and the journal will be the official journal of the society. In return, the society will contribute to the development of the journal scientifically. We also focus on the student corner and encourage the students to submit and publish an abstract of their research. The students’ abstracts will be published in the journal website and indexed in the pub med central. In addition to that, e-journal, the journal website, old issues archives, online submissions systems are all areas in our agenda. As per to a local study conducted by Jamjoom1 during the period 1996-2014 to evaluate the sate of the clinical Neurosciences research in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by determining its world ranking finds out that KSA is ranked 14th in the world and fourth in the middle east on clinical Neurosciences during the period 1996-2014. The study shows that KSA was ranked low in the world. This finding would suggest a strong action to promote research in our region and encourage the neuro clinicians in this field. In 2016, we received a total number of 135 manuscripts, with an average rejection rate of 37.8%. Reasons for rejection included papers out the scope of Figure 1 A pie chart Illustrates a) the rating of neurosciences website 1 represent the lowest score and 5 represents the highest score, b) the need to improve the layout of the journal Editorial Message