Have Online International Medical Journals Made Local Journals Obsolete 英文参考文献.docVIP

The PLoS Medicine Debate Have Online International Medical Journals Made Local Journals Obsolete? David Ofori-Adjei, Gerd Antes, Prathap Tharyan, Elizabeth Slade, Pritpal S. Tamber B ackground to the debate: All of the major international medical journals are now available both in print and online. Being online increases the potential for these journals to have a more global distribution. With the rise of these online international journals, what functions do local journals serve? South Africa, for example, showed that in the past 14 years, one-third of South African journals had not had a single paper quoted in their international counterparts [1]. In the face of these problems, it is legitimate to ask whether journals in the developing world meet the roles for which they were established. Journals are expected to provide a medium for scholarly discourse, sharing of information, and dissemination of knowledge and practices. The basis of these interactions is scienti?c research, the results of which must contribute to the generation of knowledge and the translation of knowledge into policy and practice. In this regard, research should be seen as a public health good. In the African developing world, very few journals can be said to provide these roles. There have been efforts in recent times to improve the scienti?c quality of African medical journals and their international visibility through listings on databases such as Medline and through creating Web sites for these journals. The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, a joint program of the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, took the ?rst steps in this direction by initiating the Forum for African Medical Editors [2]. David Ofori-Adjei’s Viewpoint: African Journals Can Advance Health Sciences and National Development Only a few journals in the developing world have a long history of survival.