Impacts of the Journal Evaluation Program of the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) on the Quality of the Member Journals

BACKGROUND: In 1997 the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) instituted a program to evaluate member journals. Journals that passed the initial evaluation were indexed in the KoreaMed. Here, we report changes in measures of quality of the KAMJE member journals during the last 20 years. METHODS: Quality measures used in the study comprised 3 assessment categories; self-assessment by journal editors, assessment of the journals by KAMJE reviewers, and by Korean health science librarians. Each used detailed criteria to score the journals on a scale of 0 to 5 or 6 in multiple dimensions. We compared scores at baseline evaluation and those after 7 years for 129 journals and compared improvements in journals indexed vs. not-indexed by the Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded; SCIE). RESULTS: Among 251 KAMJE member journals at the end of 2015, 227 passed evaluation criteria and 129 (56%) had both baseline and 7-year follow-up assessment data. The journals showed improvement overall (increase in median [interquartile range; IQR] score from baseline, 0.47 [0.64]; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.44–0.61; P < 0.001) and within each category (median [IQR] increase by editor's assessment, 0.17 [0.83]; 95% CI, 0.04–0.26; P = 0.007; by reviewer's, 0.45 [1.00]; 95% CI, 0.29–0.57; P < 0.001; by librarian's, 1.75 [1.08]; 95% CI, 1.77–2.18, P < 0.001). Before the foundation of KAMJE in 1996, there were only 5 Korean medical journals indexed in the MEDLINE and none in SCIE, but 24 journals in the MEDLINE and 34 journals in SCIE were indexed by 2016. CONCLUSION: The KAMJE journal evaluation program successfully contributes improving the quality of the member journals.

Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) and the Current Status of KoreaMed and KoreaMed Synapse

The Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) was founded in 1996. Among the 51 journals which participated in the founding of KAMJE, only 5 were listed in PubMed at the time, and none in Scientific Citation Index (SCI). In order to improve the quality of Korean medical journals, KAMJE established regular and systematic evaluation of medical journals, and has held academies for journal editors and education programs for manuscript editors. KAMJE has also focused on the database of Korean medical journals. KoreaMed, which provides access to articles published in Korean medical journals; KoMCI, which analyzes and provides citation data; and KoreaMed synapse, a digital archive and reference-linking platform. All of those are products of the efforts of KAMJE. By publishing "Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals", KAMJE also has been focused on research and publication ethics. KAMJE has played an active part in establishing the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) and West Pacific Regional Index Medicus (WPRIM). Today, KAMJE, now composed of 188 journals covering medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and nutrition, has 14 and 23 journals listed in PubMed and SCI, respectively. These achievements of KAMJE, attributable to the unrelenting efforts of Korean medical journal editors and editors, may be helpful in further improving the status of Korean medical journals.