DISABILITY, CBR AND INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT
(Formerly Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal)
Progress Report for 2012
Introduction
The Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal was started in 1997, with the support of Action for Disability, UK. CORDAID, Netherlands joined Action for Disability as a sponsor some years later. With the support of these two donors, 2 issues of the journal were brought out each year, and distributed free of cost to readers, 60% of whom were from developing countries. The journal was for private circulation, meant for researchers, planners, administrators, professionals, donor organizations and implementing agencies involved in disability and community based rehabilitation. About 2000 copies of each issue were mailed to over 90 countries, with an estimated readership of about 20,000. AIFO, a donor from Italy started hosting the journal and its back issues on their website from 2001.
From 1997 to 2010, spanning 13 years, the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal developed a readership base in 91 countries that included not only Asia, but also Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Australia/Pacific. The journal has attracted a wide range of articles on disability and rehabilitation, with an attempt to focus on community-based rehabilitation. Given the increasing importance of disability issues, in particular human rights and community-based rehabilitation, combined with the fact that the majority of people with disabilities live in low and middle-income countries, the time was considered right for the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal to have a more global scope; to continue to be free and openly accessible for readers and free for authors; to reach higher international scientific quality; and to be published more frequently.
From 2011, the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal was renamed as DISABILITY, CBR AND INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT, with initial support from NLR and Light for the World (formerly Dark and Light), and with CBM coming in later. VU University, Amsterdam is the publisher.
Journal Statistics
Since its launch in May 2011, the online journal management website http://dcidj.org has been visited by 17239 people, of whom 11344 were unique visitors. On an average, 860 people have visited the site every month. Each person browses around four pages in a visit.
11,344 people visited the website |
Page views: 76,263 |
Pages per visit: 4.42 |
Average visit duration: 4:04 minutes |
India, United States and Netherlands are the top 3 countries from were visits have been recorded as detailed in the table below –
S.No. | Country/ Territory | Visits | % Visits |
---|---|---|---|
1. | India | 4,115 | 23.87% |
2. | United States | 1,807 | 10.48% |
3. | Netherlands | 1,588 | 9.21% |
4. | United Kingdom | 1,260 | 7.31% |
5. | Australia | 806 | 4.68% |
6. | Japan | 499 | 2.89% |
7. | Canada | 463 | 2.69% |
8. | Philippines | 410 | 2.38% |
9. | Malaysia | 373 | 2.16% |
10. | Nigeria | 349 | 2.02% |
The total number of article views/downloads is 44199 (from launch till the last i.e. Winter issue of 2012). Attached is a file detailing article-wise data.
Progress in 2012
Between January to December, 240 new users have registered on the journal website, taking the total number of users to 434.
During the year, 68 articles were submitted to the journal, of which 29 were published, 17 rejected, 18 are currently being reviewed and 4 are being copyedited.
Statistics from the website for the period Jan-Dec 2012 are given in the table below –
Year | 2012 |
Issues published | 4 |
Articles published | 36* |
Total submissions | 68 |
Days to review | 42 |
Days to publication | 166 |
Registered users | 434 (240 new) |
* Includes articles that were submitted the previous year but published in 2012.
Four issues of the journal were published in 2012. Additionally, 500 print copies per issue have been distributed to readers mainly from developing countries and some libraries that requested for them. Issue-wise details of articles published are given in the table below –
Issue/Article type |
Original research |
Brief Reports |
Reviews/Case studies /Experiential accounts |
Letter to Editor + Guest Editorial |
Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Spring 2012 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
8 |
Summer 2012 |
4 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
9 |
Autumn 2012 |
7 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
10 |
Winter 2012 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
9 |
Journal Management
Dr. Maya Thomas, Editor-in-chief continues to oversee the journal management, supported by Ms. Vardhani Pramod (part-time Editorial Assistant), Ms. Padma Nair and Ms. Nina Agtey (Copyeditors). The National Printing Press continues to deal with layout and printing aspects. The funds are being managed by the NGO called Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind, based in Bangalore.
The associate editors and the editorial board members have been very supportive in terms of reviewing articles and providing advice/suggestions as and when required.
Plans for 2013
The journal team would continue to focus on improving quality and coverage of articles. Peer review and publication time for submitted articles has improved slightly but needs to be speeded up further. The team is planning to conduct a readership survey in 2013 to get feedback from readers and to better understand how and to what extent the journal is being used.
For the year 2013 also, four issues are planned for publication i.e. one every quarter.
We are grateful to NLR, Light for the World, and CBM for supporting this information dissemination effort, and look forward to continued support in the future too.
The Editorial and Support Team, Bangalore, India