Editorial

Abstract

EDITORIAL In the first issue of each year, RAE outlines a balance of its activities for the previous year in the "Editorial Information" section. Complete data are included at the end of this issue but here some of the figures shown in the balance sheet are highlighted with the aim of making clear how our editorial procedure has evolved and also to give information about the scheme for greater internationalization that we currently pursue.The increase in the number of articles submitted in 2012 was only 2.5% compared with 2011, reaching a total of 584 submissions. This modest increase shows signs that we should not expect an avalanche of submissions in the next few years. Moreover, it was surprising to note that, as in previous years, 50% of these articles were rejected in the format used for the screening process, which suggests that a considerable number of authors are still not used to reading the editorial guidelines before making their submission.Our desk review approval ratings are also very strict: only 43% of the articles showed the minimum standard necessary at this initial stage of evaluation, even less than the 49% approval rate for the same stage in 2011. Of the articles that were recommended to be assessed by the members of the Scientific Editorial Board, 34% were also rejected, a figure very close to the 36% of 2011.All this suggests that, of the 600 articles or so that were submitted to the editorial board, only 5% managed to reach the double blind review system for evaluation by the reviewers responsible for expressing deeper opinions about the articles and which allows us to ensure that they can go beyond this stage and be able to receive more in-depth comments. Of these, 40% are still unable to be approved for publication.Although candidates have to undergo a strict standards-based assessment when they pass through our processing system, we make every effort to carry it out as speedily as possible. The average time for the approval of 45 articles that were published in 2012, was 216 days, 4% more quickly than the average of 226 days in 2011. In the time when the articles were being assessed (just over 7 months), more than half of it (3.6 months) was spent on the analysis of the articles by the two assessors appointed.The scientific editors spent 33.2 days on giving their initial opinion and 25.7 days in re-evaluating the new versions of the articles after they had been improved by the authors. Those, who were concerned about having their articles published, spent, on average, 21.4 days working on the alterations requested by the editorial staff and reviewers.The good news for the authors is that the average time we spent on conducting the desk review improved a good deal and in 2012, was only 5.7 days. When this is all added up, the time spent by an article is passing through the internal procedures of RAE is less than 10% of the whole time needed for it to be processed by the editorial staff. As well as this, we can count on the constant improvement in the standard of the reviews and the judge...

E-Health Practices and Technologies: A Systematic Review from 2014 to 2019

“…The time frame for the published research was five years, from 2014 to 2019. According to [29], a five-year period is the half-life for article citations. In addition, the following filtering procedures were applied to the databases to obtain the results: selection of types of articles published (review, research, and journal-published), exclusion of duplicate articles.…”