Foot & Ankle International: the preeminent foot and ankle journal in the world.

Foot & Ankle International remains the preeminent journal publishing articles on the care of the foot and ankle. The most widely used objective measure of the importance of a journal is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). The 2012 JIF was calculated by dividing the number of citations in 2012 of articles published by FAI in 2010 and 2011 by the number of articles published in 2010 and 2011 in FAI. As one can see in Figure 1, our JIF has been gradually improving over the past 5 years with a significant jump this past year with recently released numbers from 1.22 in 2011 to 1.47 in 2012. Other statistics of note include an increasing number of submissions to the journal from 502 in 2011 to 635 in 2012, and on a pace for around 700 in 2013. Conversely, our manuscript acceptance rate has dropped gradually over the past 5 years from 45% in 2010 to 30% so far in 2013. The Editorial Board recently met and developed strategies to further increase our JIF. It is generally accepted in the publishing world that the best way to achieve that goal is to increase the overall quality of published manuscripts. One of our primary goals is to make Foot & Ankle International the first journal that all authors consider for publication of their work. Our overall median time from submission to first decision is now 22 days, which is another reason to consider our journal as your first choice for submitting your work. We are truly an international journal. In the first 6 months of 2013, 64% of submitted manuscripts were from outside the United States, and 41% of published articles were from our international colleagues. Our new publishing partner, SAGE, has vastly increased our journal’s availability around the world. Also, AOFAS members now receive access to all of the journal electronically, from current issues all the way back to Volume 1, Issue 1. The number of full-text downloads of articles in the first 6 months of the year was over 131,000, and journal accesses were over 909,000, which are vastly greater numbers than years past. The future is bright for our journal. Thanks to all of our reviewers who volunteer their time to the vital peer-review process that legitimizes the validity of the articles in our journal. I encourage all of you to submit all of your best work to us, yet do not be disappointed if it is not accepted for publication. Feel free to email me any time with ideas on how to improve our journal.