Universitas Psychologica: Fifteen years of change and transformation

Fifteen years ago, when I founded Universitas Psychological Panamerican Journal of Psychology, I never imagined the countless transformations we would experience. Throughout these years we have gone from a 50% of institutional papers to a greater than 95% exogamy; from a national, to a regional, to an international journal; from being covered by databases with formal rating criteria, such as APA PsycInfo, to citation-based databases, such as Web of Science and Scopus; from single authorship to national and international collaborations (López-López, 2014; Rivera-Garzón, 2008). That is just a brief summary of those transformations we have experienced.

And besides all that, we also went from publishing 20 papers per year to nearly 150. This growth has made it difficult to achieve better citation indicators: the growth in citations has not changed symmetrically with the growth in number of papers published. However, we have stayed in the same Q3 in the two Scopus categories we are in (Miscellaneous Psychology and Social Psychology), and in Q4 in Multidisciplinary Psychology (JCR Web of Science). This is not a minor achievement, since nowadays we are a landmark for Ibero-American authors, and even for researchers in other parts of the world — we have received manuscripts by authors from over 40 different countries, and today we are receiving more than 600 papers per year.

Universitas Psychologica has also contributed to make certain Psychological communities more visible. Thus, psychologists working in organizational Psychology, cognition, juvenile delinquency, history, communities, and other fields, have published in our journal, and it is expected that the strategy of these communities will continue to give visibility to both them and the journal. This will surely increase the high standing of the journal (Lopez-Lopez, 2015).

Nowadays, Universitas Psychologica is one of the journals with the highest number of published papers in Ibero-America in the Psychology field. This transformation has also led to changes in user interaction, since people from all over the world are both downloading and citing papers from the now fully-digital journal. It is likely that new changes will happen in the forthcoming years, as editorial, content-management, and measurement processes experience other transformations as well.

I wish to thank all the authors who have put their trust on Universitas Psychologica and regard it as a quality journal. I also thank the reviewers, who have ensured that the quality of the journal is maintained and even increased. Thanks to the readers, who use our contents and who are our reason to exist — in the end, all these efforts aim to make the knowledge we publish available to communities. Thanks to the editorial, scientific, and international awareness teams, and to the many institutional offices that have lent us their support. Without it, we would not be able to continue.

Finally, we would like to apologize for not being able to always meet the full expectations of all the actors involved in these processes of scientific communication. The journal has grown, and that growth has demanded that our practices change. It has also meant investing on transformations in content management processes and in the development of technological innovations that let us decrease waiting times. You can be sure that we will continue to do everything possible to improve and reach our mission commitment of excellency. We understand it is not easy, but it is the path we are committed to.

Wilson López López
Editor

References

InCites Journal Citation Reports - Web of Science (2014). Recuperado de https://jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com/JCRJournalHomeAction.action?SID=B1-BnD5BZYEJHs2YkoIz73UWG4Gfx2FHHG-FC3-18x2dgSW1xxUHBfEEPrQKQ8eH2vwx-3Dx3DEEoBFBo17hlAp0dYbzJvAQx3Dx3D-9vvmzcndpRgQCGPd1c2qPQx3Dx3D-wx2BJQh9GKVmtdJw3700KssQx3Dx3D&SrcApp=IC2LS&Init=Yes

López-López, W. (2014). Editorial. The measurement of scientific production: Myths and Complexities. Universitas Psychologica, 13(1), 11-16.

López-López, W. (2015). La psicología iberoamericana: una realidad en expansión. Informacion Psicológica, 109(2), 2.

Rivera-Garzón, D. M. (2008). Caracterización de la comunidad científica de Psicología que publica en la revista Universitas Psychologica (2002-2008). Universitas Psychologica, 7(3), 917-932. Retrieved from http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/revPsycho/article/download/401/283.

InCites Journal Citation Reports-Web of Science (2014). Recuperado de https://jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com/JCRJournalHomeAction.action?SID=B1-BnD5BZYEJHs2YkoIz73UWG4Gfx2FHHGFC3-18x2dgSW1xxUHBfEEPrQKQ8eH2vwx3Dx-3DEEoBFBo17hlAp0dYbzJvAQx3Dx3D-9vvmzcndpRgQCGPd1c2qPQx3Dx3D-wx2BJQh9GKVmtdJw3700KssQx3Dx3D&SrcApp=IC2LS&Init=Yes        [ Links ]

López-López, W. (2014). Editorial. The measurement of scientific production: Myths and Complexities. Universitas Psychologica, 13(1), 11-16.         [ Links ]

López-López, W. (2015). La psicología iberoamericana: una realidad en expansión. Informacion Psicológica, 109(2), 2.         [ Links ]

Scimago Journal & Country Rank (2015). Recuperado de http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=3200&country=Latin America        [ Links ]

Rivera-Garzón, D. M. (2008). Caracterización de la comunidad científica de Psicología que publica en la revista Universitas Psychologica (2002-2008). Universitas Psychologica, 7(3), 917-932. Recuperado de http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/revPsycho/article/download/401/283.         [ Links ]