2021-02-22 OMA Agenda - Board of Trustees (002)

o Updates to prior Obesity Algorithm content o Fellows of academic institutions who submit articles o Reward for high volume journal reviewers

• MYTH: JOMA would have no connection to Academic Fellows and OMA Abstracts

Establishment of JOMA would have substantial impact on Fellows and OMA Abstracts. As above, it is possible allowances could be made for designated academic fellows to publish their science with waiver of publishing fees. Also, once JOMA were established, then OMA should consider a greater commitment to soliciting high quality abstracts, with plans to publish OMA – accepted Abstracts in JOMA at least once a year.

• MYTH: It will be challenging for JOMA to catch up with more established obesity journals regarding its impact factor.

Given the amount of ongoing clinical research in anti-obesity therapeutics, the future is bright regarding the potential marketplace of obesity-related submissions. Also, OMA is in an advantageous position in that it already has high quality scientific content good-to-go with regard to transformation into high quality and highly cited review articles – that should continue to undergo yearly updates. Such an advantage should help JOMA achieve a respectable impact factor in short order.

• MYTH: If the first publication for JOMA is not planned until 2022, then we have plenty of time.

As hopefully can be ascertained from the above description, the start of a medical journal is a highly detailed and laborious task involving many moving parts, logistics, and politics. Even if the OMA BOT agreed to establishing JOMA today, it will be challenging to have the article ready for publication January of 2022. Much groundwork will be required, followed by much editorial and publishing work afterwards. It can be done. But this gets done only if the OMA BOT moves quickly and only if the OMA BOT has a commitment that JOMA be a world-class top of the line obesity journal.

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