Abstract
The Journal of Applied Gerontology (JAG) once again enjoyed a banner year in 2016, and much of this is due to those who have invested so much time and care to ensure that the journal meets the highest of standards. I wanted to thank Kjerstie Wiltzen first and foremost for her excellent work as Editorial Manager this past year; I could not do my job as Editor without Kjerstie’s help. The 40-member Editorial Board continues to provide invaluable guidance and the journal’s reviewers have ensured that JAG remains a high quality scientific outlet. The Publications Committee of the Southern Gerontological Society (once again chaired with great skill by Connie Coogle), the SAGE Publications team directed by Lauren Schroeder, and the Southern Gerontological Society’s Executive Committee presided over by Christy Jensen earlier in 2016 and now Turner Goins have offered substantial encouragement and leadership throughout the year. Of course, I also acknowledge the general membership of the Southern Gerontological Society for all of their support throughout the past year. Editing JAG is a true team effort.
Empirical Updates
Impact Factor
We received wonderful news this year: JAG has continued its climb in the impact factor and journal rankings. We improved from 1.125 in 2015 to 1.258 in 2016! We are also very close to ranking in the top half of gerontology journals as we are now 17 out of 32 journals in the Gerontology category of Journal Citation Reports. I was told by Ms. Schroeder that this is the highest impact factor ever recorded for JAG. This is not the result of a year’s worth of attention; it is the result of our hard work over the past several years to publish research studies of the highest quality in JAG and to ensure their recognition in the larger discipline. Thanks to all of you for your commitment to helping JAG continue to raise its scientific profile!
Acceptance Rate
In 2016 to date (August 27, 2016), the rejection rate for new submissions was 68.3%, meaning that the remaining manuscript decisions were either revise and resubmit or accept. It is important to note that this rate is likely conservative, as it does not take into account revised and resubmitted papers that are summarily rejected (although this does not happen often). An ideal rejection rate for a journal such as JAG, in my opinion, would range somewhere between 75% and 80%, although anecdotally I have noticed that the quality of submissions have grown substantially over the past several years. As always, I thank the reviewers and members of the Editorial Board for encouraging the highest quality submissions possible, and then providing excellent reviews that facilitate the eventual publication of the best research in applied gerontology.
Number of Submissions and Time to First Decision
We have received 225 submissions as of August 27, 2016, which is about the same number of submissions that we received at this time last year. This means that we will again likely receive well more than 300 submissions by the end of calendar year 2016. Clearly, JAG continues as a popular outlet for those interested in having their scholarship in applied gerontology disseminated. For the last 3 years, average time to first decision from point of submission has hovered at roughly 30 days.
Online Usage
Online usage and access of JAG continues to increase. As of August 29, 2016, users have downloaded 58,595 full texts of articles, which is nearly 9,000 more than the same time last year. JAG has also enjoyed 368,028 total online accesses from January through July, 2016, which is an increase of 18.5% since last year at this same time. The SAGE Publications team continues to do a magnificent job driving interested readers to JAG’s website.
Ongoing Initiatives and Developments
Addressing the Backlog
The work on the journal’s backlog continues. I miscalculated the degree to which an increase in issues and published page numbers would reduce the backlog in last year’s annual update. The length of time between online publication and print publication is now down to approximately 20 months or less. As I have emphasized in the past, all articles accepted in JAG are rapidly uploaded on OnLine First (http://jag.sagepub.com/content/early/recent as well as PubMed/MEDLINE), which helps to offset issues related to this delay for authors. I was also informed this past spring that we will be receiving a 12% increase in page numbers for 2017 from SAGE, which will continue to reduce the backlog. If we continue to make progress, we should be able to reduce the backlog by several months each year, given the number of submissions and our acceptance rate.
Continuing Initiatives
Over the past several years I have attempted to bundle groups of similar articles by theme, which has remained successful. Several of these Editor Introductions since 2014 are among the most read in JAG; and I believe this helps to drive additional readers to each issue’s articles (see http://jag.sagepub.com/reports/most-read). We now have amassed a wonderful library of podcasts of interviews with journal authors, and I again thank Jennifer Craft Morgan for continuing to lead this initiative. As you can see in any given issue, we are continuing to publish book reviews, and I update the “Editor’s Choice” section of particularly interesting articles twice a year (http://jag.sagepub.com/cgi/collection).
Finally, I wanted to note how all of these various efforts have helped to heighten media attention for some of the articles published in JAG. For example, Kaiser Health News highlighted Gimm, Chowdhury, and Castle (2016) on resident aggression and abuse in assisted living, and PBS NewsHour distributed an article on Weissman and Russell’s (2016) study of living arrangements and health status in the United States.
What Can You Do to Help?
I continue to make the same request that I do each year: there are several steps you, the readers, can take to continue to enhance and improve the profile of JAG! Please try to cite articles from JAG that have been published in the last 2 years, and consider using JAG articles in your classes or other educational and community engagement efforts (remember: instead of simply providing a pdf of an article, direct students to download the article directly from the JAG website, as this helps to improve online usage statistics). Cross-referencing or highlighting a JAG article in your blog is wonderful, and if you edit Wikipedia entries, please do feel free to highlight JAG articles that are relevant. I encourage you to share any other ideas you may have with Kjerstie Wiltzen or I via email (
I wanted to thank everyone for the journal’s success in 2016. It is a distinct honor and pleasure to edit JAG, and I hope you, the reader, share in this enthusiasm. Thanks to all of you who have worked so diligently over the years to make JAG a premier journal for research that improves the lives of older adults, their families, and communities.