{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.030983385720700495, 'fraction_numerical': 0.045127974854063765, 'mean_word_length': 4.846456692913386, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Report of the International Journal of Urology Editorial Board Meeting 2009 in Okayama

As has happened in the past, the International Journal of Urology (IJU) Editorial Board meeting was held during the 97 Annual meeting of the Japanese Urological Association on 17 April 2009. On the day, Drs Rainy Umbas, Chiang Han Sun, Xie Li-Ping, and Kwangsung Park were invited as guests from Asia together with 30 Editorial Board Members. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your participation. The meeting was opened by the Editor-in-Chief. He was followed by summary presentations on the performance of IJU in 2008 from the Managing Editor, and strategic considerations by the Medical Editorial Director from the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell. The Editorial Board meeting ended with an award ceremony for the extraordinary efforts of IJU’s Reviewers of the Year. The events are described below. IJU is an official journal of the Japanese Urological Association and has been affiliated with the Urological Association of Asia since 2001. This peer-reviewed journal is published monthly in print and online. The journal was established in 1994 as an English companion journal to the Japanese Journal of Urology. In 2001 the first impact factor was received and in 2004 an online submission system was introduced. The number of submissions increased around 2000 (Figure 1). Annual submissions were only about 170 in the 1990s, but after 2000, they rapidly increased to about 1000 submissions in 2005. This is mainly attributed to the increasing number of overseas submissions, which increased from only 17 in 1995 to 752 in 2008; a 50-fold increase. During the same time, submissions from Japan increased from 149 in 1995 to 285 in 2008. The number of submissions from Asia represented the largest share in 2008 (37%), followed by the Middle East (25%), and Europe (23%). Among Asian countries, China had the highest number of submissions (104), followed by Korea (61), India (58), and Taiwan (33). Among Middle Eastern countries, Turkey had the highest number of submissions (118), which was also largest among all oversea countries. In European countries, many papers were submitted from Italy (40) and the United Kingdom (38). There were also a significant amount of submissions from the United States (53). Figure 2 shows the average publication time. With increases in submissions, from 2003 to 2005, the time from submission to acceptance was longer than 7 months. However with our efforts, the time shortened to 4 months in 2008. In 2008, the acceptance rate of Original Articles was 19.1%, and 17.5% for Case Reports. In accordance with increasing submissions, the acceptance rate for all submissions dropped from 70% in the 1990s to 20% in 2008. In order to deal with the surge of submissions and still provide overall fast review times, we began immediate rejection, also known as triage, prior to review by referees in 2002. In that year, 16.4% of submissions were rejected immediately prior to peer review, increasing to 56.2% in 2007 and 56.3% in 2008. The Editors, who also get rejected as authors in journals, understand that a rejection is disappointing, but we hope that authors understand the background. A journal navigates the crossroads of serving readers, authors, and scientific progress. Many journals have decreased or entirely stopped publishing Case Reports in recent years for Impact Factor reasons. However, we continue to publish select Case Reports if they add significant new evidence of wide relevance to our readers. To help authors, IJU stopped charging authors for color images and pages in 2008, and we hired a Title and Abstract Editor from January 2008. This Editor, who is a urologist, edits all titles and abstracts of Original Articles and Short Communications to optimize their readability and search discoverability for the benefit of authors as well as readers. The average number of articles per issue was approximately 10 from 2000 to 2003, and increased to around 20 after 2003. Within the last year, new types of articles have appeared , including Guidelines, Meeting Reports, Research Highlights, and in 2009, Audio-Visual Articles, and How to Write editorials, which helps to make this Journal more informative and attractive. As a result of the aforementioned initiatives, we have maintained the quality of our Journal, and increased submission has made the acceptance rate lower and lower.