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Vol. 30. Issue. 3.May 2010
Pages 271-380
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Digital NEFROLOGIA. A project for coming years
NEFROLOGÍA Digital: Un proyecto para los próximos años
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Roberto Alcázar Arroyoa, Carlos Queredab
a Journal NEFROLOGIA, official journal of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Executive Editor, Madrid,
b Journal NEFROLOGIA, official journal of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Director, Madrid,
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In March 2010, the website for the NEFROLOGIA Editorial  Group (www.revistanefrologia.com) was upgraded.  This is a new application that aims to enhance the interactivity  of the electronic version of the journals of the Spanish  Society of Nephrology (SEN) and provide greater technological  capabilities that enable successful handling of the Editorial  Group’s new projects. This “Editorial” highlights the  importance of new technologies in the dissemination of biomedical  information and details the changes that the new  website currently incorporates as well as those that will be  implemented in the coming months. 

IMPORTANCE OF WEB DISTRIBUTION OF  BIOMEDICAL JOURNALS 

The emergence of the Internet and the development of new  information technologies have revolutionised all stages of  scientific communication. Biomedical journals are no  exception and to a greater or lesser extent they have been  adapting to the new requirements of a society in which, in  only a few years, globalisation has shattered the boundaries  of communication and has put the health professional into a  situation of information overload. The traditional printed  scientific journal is no longer the main element of continuing  medical education and it had to be incorporated into the  digital world through tools that allow it to provide quality  information in a friendly electronic environment, one that  ensures appropriate distribution in an increasingly  competitive environment to potential readers who are  increasingly becoming overloaded with information. 

This transformation in such a short a period of time has led  to a change in the traditional flow of communication for  scientific information (editing, reviewing, publication of an  issue of the journal, indexing and distribution). Electronic  publishing allows for streamlining the entire process, which  is triggered when a work is received, significantly optimising  the review process and allowing for essentially instant  indexing in PubMed and other databases, along with  electronic distribution, upon approval of the work.1 Article  management and publication “ahead of print”, facilitated by  the use of electronic tools and assignment of unambiguous  identifiers through the DOI (Digital Object Finder) system,  has made it possible to greatly reduce publishing times and  encourages the exchange of ideas and scientific progress.2 

In recent years, biomedical journal websites have ceased to  be a structured collection of documents in electronic  formats accessible via the World Wide Web (known as Web  1.0) to become truly interactive platforms that facilitate  information exchange and interoperability through a usercentred  design. These websites, known as Web 2.0, offer, in  the case of electronic journals, additional services such as  the possibility of commenting on published papers, quickly  forwarding them by email, RSS (Really Simple  Syndication) that allows rapid distribution of news that  appears on the site, “blogs” for describing new trends,  “Wikis” for sharing knowledge, and audio and video  “podcasts” as a continuing education tool and for debate on  current issues.3 Several recent publications have analysed  the impact of these new electronic services in medical  training and practice.4,5 The trend for the coming years is  what is known as Web 3.0 or “semantic Web”, which is  based on the transformation of the Web into a database for  manipulating data more efficiently and personalising access  to updated and instant information.6 

So many changes in such a short time make it difficult  for publishers and users to adapt without suffering stress  and tie-ups. Maintaining a printed journal, with its high  printing and distribution costs, along with its electronic  version becomes increasingly complex with more  services and more costs (computer application design,  maintenance, server hosting). In addition, a declining  funding framework from the pharmaceutical industry has  caused many important journals to opt for reducing the  number of articles in the printed edition and shorter in  length than the one that appears on the website, which on  the other hand, is the most read by the end user.7 The  funding problem is even greater for those journals that  are not backed by scientific institutions or societies, since  they have seen greatly reduced their direct revenues from  subscriptions given the wide accessibility and  dissemination of the electronic version of published  articles and the growing use of electronic platforms that  collect freely available articles such as PubMed Central  (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/) and sCieLO  (http://www.scielo.org), among others. Another aspect of  the debate in this context of electronic dissemination of  information is the utility of currently used bibliometric  indices such as the Impact Factor. New emerging indices  such as Eigenfactor (www.eigenfactor.org) could be more  appropriate for measuring the actual influence of a  journal in the scientific community.8 

NEW WEBSITE FOR THE NEFROLOGIA EDITORIAL  GROUP 

With the aim of progressively improving the administrative  and bibliographic functions of the NEFROLOGIA editorial  group and of progressively incorporating utilities that  improve the presentation and dissemination of the different  SEN journals, the website has been completely remodelled  (www.revistanefrologia.com) (Figures 1 and 2). The major  changes in the website are: 

1. Integration of all NEFROLOGIA editorial group’s  productions on the same site and in the same format,  including: NEFROLOGIA, NEFROPLUS, NEFROLOGIA  BASADA EN LA EVIDENCIA, supplements in  NEFROLOGIA and Monographs. 

2. Free access to the entire NEFROLOGIA archive from the  first issue of 1981 to the present. 

3. Presentations in text and PDF formats of every article in  a much more attractive fashion than the previous website  with additional services that improve user interactivity  such as the ability to comment on each published work,  instant access to the access statistics of each article and  access to related works both on PubMed and  NEFROLOGIA. 

4. Personal space for each registered user on the website  that lets them customise a collection of favourite articles  of NEFROLOGIA Editorial Group (Figure 2). 

5. Improvements in the presentation and functionality of all  tasks related to introduction, peer review and editing of  originals.

6. Questionnaires for online evaluation of journals such as  NEFROPLUS and selected monographs that have  continuing medical education credits. 

7. Improved search engine. 

8. Coming soon, the ability to send via email any  article that appears on the website and the addition  of RSS feeds to receive all updates that appear on  the site. 

The website platform is aimed at management by article, not  by journal issue, so that, after approval of each original, its  corresponding DOI is created automatically and the process  of editing, layout and indexing in PubMed are initiated,  which allows it to be included in the website and on PubMed  as an article in prepublication one or two months in advance  of the distribution of the print edition. This system also  includes the possibility of adding supplementary information  that will not appear in the print edition in all articles. 

The generation of messages to the NEFROLOGIA mailing list  (lista-nefrologia@senefro.org) has been automated as well as  the inclusion of each number in sCieLO (www.scielo.org),  Scientific Electronic Library Online for Latin America that  since the end of 2009 collects the complete texts of the  scientific production of NEFROLOGIA. 

These strategies, already underway in recent months, aim  towards improving visibility and dissemination of  NEFROLOGIA especially in the English-speaking world.  The visitor statistics for our articles on PubMed seem to  support this idea (Figure 3). According to this agency’s  report, the articles of NEFROLOGIA were consulted by an  average of 1,757 visits per month in the last half of 2007.  This number has grown steadily with 3,686 visits in March  of 2010 (last available data) the highest number achieved by  our journal in PubMed so far. 

FUTURE PROJECTS: NEFROLOGIA IN A DIGITAL  FORMAT 

The future of biomedical journals is based on enhancing  the possibilities offered by new information technologies.  While not neglecting the quality of the print edition, SEN  publications, included under the umbrella of  NEFROLOGIA Editorial Group as the coordinator of all  publishing activity of our scientific society, must have the  broadest dissemination and visibility possible through the  website, so as to empower one of our main strengths: our  standing as the leading nephrology journal in Spanish and  reference for all of Latin America.  To do this, we must not only insist on a greater presence in  the main bibliographic databases such as PubMed, in which  access to all the articles of NEFROLOGIA has been  consolidated, but also advance the inclusion in biomedical  literature databases that include full text articles such as  PubMed Central (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/). The  development of an English version of the current website  will provide greater visibility for our journal in English speaking  countries. 

The dissemination of activities of NEFROLOGIA  Editorial Group through the website is another objective  that should be strengthened in the medium term. As a  Web 2.0 site, it should enhance the user interaction.  Therefore, the index numbers of the various journals are  sent by e-mail as soon as they are available on the  website. In the case of NEFROLOGIA, this index is  disseminated in English to a significant number of  ERA-EDTA members.  Nevertheless, we are aware that much of SEN’s publishing  activity through its website (www.senefro.org), its journals  and its various workgroups does not have adequate  dissemination. To correct this, the NEFROLOGIA DIGITAL  project has been put in motion with the primary objective of  using new information technologies to increase the  efficiency and visibility of the knowledge transfer programs  and continuing education courses of SEN and  NEFROLOGIA Editorial Group. The main tasks that this  project will develop are: 

1. Enhance communication through the mailing list (listanefrologia@  senefro.org) of the main editorial news of  Editorial Group. 

2. Disseminate specific aspects of SEN’s publishing activity  through a specific web environment included in the  editorial group website. These include articles of interest  from various journals, case reports, images of interest,  “Ask the Expert” questions, and SEN web conferences,  among others. These aspects will be disseminated in  structured newsletters that will also be sent through the email  mailing list. 

3. Incorporate digital books into the NEFROLOGIA  website in a format that allows for continuous updating  of contents by authors and editors. 

4. Post educational material to the website that is not  published in print editions of the journals. 

To meet these goals, along with the rest of the  commitments that current technology and globalisation of  biomedical information access demands, everyone’s effort  is required: the SEN Board of Directors, the members of  editorial group and, above all, the SEN members so as to  maintain their trust and their continued citation and  submission of their scientific work to NEFROLOGIA and  to the rest of the editorial group journals. Without this  scientific production of increasing quality, the rest is  merely a wrapper, an elaborate and attractive one, but a  wrapper nonetheless.      

Figure 1. Front page of the NEFROLOGIA website.

Figure 2. Individual utilities offered by the website to registered users.

Figure 3. Last year¿s (March 2009 to March 2010) access statistics for NEFROLOGIA. A: Visits to the NEFROLOGIA website. Source: Google Analytics. B: visits to the NEFROLOGIA website from the PubMed database. Source: PubMed.

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Figueiredo RC. Impact of the Internet on communication flow of scientific health information. Rev Saude Publica 2006;40:57-63. [Pubmed]
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The Digital Object Identifier (DOI®) System. http://www.doi.org (ultimo acceso abril-2010).
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Giustini D. How Web 2.0 is changing medicine. BMJ 2006;333:1283-4. [Pubmed]
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Boulos MNK, Maramba I, Wheeler S. Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generatin of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. BMC Medical Education 2006;6:41. [Pubmed]
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McLean R, Richards BH, Wardman JI. The effect of Web 2.0 on the future of medical practice and education: Darwikinian evolution or folksonomic revolution? MJA 2007;187:174-7. [Pubmed]
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Hébert PC. CMAJ in changing times. CMAJ 2009;181:125. [Pubmed]
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Fersht A. The most influential journals: Impact Factor and Eigenfactor. PNAS 2009;106:6883-84.
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Quereda C, Alcázar R, García-López F, Purroy A. Objetivos para Nefrologia en una nueva etapa. Nefrologia 2008;28:1-7. [Pubmed]
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