Introduction

Following founding Editor Prof. Dilek Arman MD, we have completed our second year as the second Editor and Editorial Board of the Mediterranean Journal of Infection, Microbes and Antimicrobials (MJIMA), official publication of the Turkish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (EKMUD).

In this editorial, I would like to share some information about MJIMA (www.mjima.org) and to make a few additional requests.

In November 2015, Prof. Özlem Kandemir MD, Professor Yaşar Bayındır MD, Prof. Sedat Kaygusuz MD, Prof. Hasan Uçmak MD, Assoc. Prof. Selçuk Kaya MD, and Assoc. Prof. Ediz Tütüncü MD, and myself began to serve as the Editorial Board of our open-access journal, which was founded with the primary aim of contributing to the field of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology. Prof. Hasan Uçmak left the board in November 2016.

Our accomplishments of the editorial board in these two years can be briefly summarized as follows:

i) We organized the transition from the "emanuscript" system of Bilimsel Tıp Publishing House to the Thomson Reuters ScholarOne system as the journal"s manuscript submission/evaluation system. We adapted to the new system.

ii) We reviewed the journal"s instructions to authors in 2016. The most important change we made was not requiring fully comply with the journal"s instructions at first submission. This year we revised the instructions to authors once more and increased the variety of article types.

iii) We updated the journal"s website. We managed the transition from Bilimsel Tıp Publishing House to Galenos Publishing House.

iv) MJIMA has been added to the journals included in the EndNote program, one of the world"s leading reference editing systems.

v) We regularly announced the names of authors whose papers were accepted for publication in the journal EKMUD"s e-mail list and Facebook page.

vi) We organized the MJIMA session at EKMUD 2016 annual congress. We selected the best research article published in 2015 and the article was presented at the MJIMA session: Evaluation of HIV Infection and Tuberculosis Concomitance; Behice KURTARAN, Selçuk NAZİK, Aslıhan ULU, Ayşe Seza İNAL, Süheyla KÖMÜR, Ferit KUŞÇU, Hasan Salih Zeki AKSU, Yeşim TAŞOVA (Mediterr J Infect Microb Antimicrob 2015 4 :4).

vii) We also organized a MJIMA session in the 2017 Scientific Platform. The best research article published in 2016 was chosen and presented at the MJIMA session: Başak KAYHAN, Üner KAYABAŞ, Servet KÖLGELİER, Barış OTLU, Mehmet GÜL, Elçin Latife KURTOĞLU, Yaşar BAYINDIR; Mystery of Immune Response in Relapsed Brucellosis: Immunophenotyping and Multiple Cytokine Analysis (Mediterr J Infect Microb Antimicrob 2016 5:2).

viii) We managed peer review process of congress presentations/abstracts in 2016 and 2017, and we also published them as supplements.

ix) Our Editorial Board and Galenos Publishing House work together for a major development, we have started translating accepted Turkish articles into English with the support of the Society and publishing them in both languages.

x) At the end of 2015, MJIMA was indexed in "Google Scholar". In the two years since then, we have also been included in the Web of Science-Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Index Copernicus, Root Indexing, CINAHL Complete, Proquest, and TurkMedline. In other words, MJIMA is now indexed in many international indices except SCI-E. If scientific journals are ranked in a performance payment/academic promotion system as a) SCI-E journals, b) journals included in other international indices, and c) national journals, then MJIMA is now in the b category. We are currently in the review stage for inclusion in the major index Embase. Within the next two years, we also plan on applying to Scopus and PubMed.

MJIMA accepts articles written in English and Turkish. The first round of evaluation lasts an average of 42 days. A key conceptual difference between MJIMA and other journals in Turkey is that accepted articles are provisionally published within one week with the article"s address and DOI (digital object identifier) number. Accepted articles are published on internet in an average of 102 days after submission.

In the last 2 years, 74 articles were submitted to MJIMA for publication. Of those, 30 were published in the last 2 years. The manuscripts submitted to our journal were evaluated by at least 3 referees, with a median of 4 (minimum 3, maximum 9 referees). They were evaluated with the valuable contributions of a total of 115 of our colleagues (19 from outside Turkey). At the end of the review process, 51.8% of the articles were accepted for publication; while there are 28 articles currently being evaluated.

The success of scientific journals is dependent on many factors. These include the number of submitted manuscripts (one of the most important steps until the journal becomes included in major indexes), the peer review process (increasing the quality of submissions through a robust refereeing and editorial process), and fast, high-quality publishing. Furthermore, citations are also important for entering the indexes and increasing their impact/influence factors, which are overall quality measures. Considering examples from abroad, when you are able to accomplish these, success is bound to follow. Our Editorial Board and Galenos Publishing House are also striving together to increase the tempo of our journal.

I would like to individually thank the Associate Editors who dedicated their precious time to the journal in addition to their professional and family obligations--Prof. Özlem Kandemir MD, Prof. Yaşar Bayındır MD, Assoc. Prof. Selçuk Kaya MD, Assoc. Prof. Ediz Tütüncü MD, and Prof. Sedat Kaygusuz MD--as well as the 115 colleagues from Turkey and abroad who reviewed submissions during this two-year period. I cannot name all of those referees, but at the end of this editorial you can find the complete list of their names.

Beyond all of these efforts, as the Editorial Board we make the following requests from EKMUD community in order to ensure the continuing advancement of our journal:

abroad, when you are able to accomplish these, success is bound to follow. Our Editorial Board and Galenos Publishing House are also striving together to increase the tempo of our journal. I would like to individually thank the Associate Editors who dedicated their precious time to the journal in addition to their professional and family obligations--Prof. Özlem Kandemir MD, Prof. Yaşar Bayındır MD, Assoc. Prof. Selçuk Kaya MD, Assoc. Prof. Ediz Tütüncü MD, and Prof. Sedat Kaygusuz MD--as well as the 115 colleagues from Turkey and abroad who reviewed submissions during this two-year period. I cannot name all of those referees, but at the end of this editorial you can find the complete list of their names. Beyond all of these efforts, as the Editorial Board we make the following requests from EKMUD community in order to ensure the continuing advancement of our journal: i) Submit your manuscripts for publication in MJIMA.
ii) As the Editorial Board, we are particularly interested in unpublished trainee theses done in your departments.
iii) Updates to book chapters can be evaluated as reviews.

iv) Every scientific journal needs manuscripts to thrive and needs citations to enter international indexes. Especially in SCI-E publications, take care to cite studies from our country, including those published in MJIMA.

For their tireless efforts and support, I would like to thank all of the authors who have submitted their articles to the journal, the referees, the Editorial Board, the EKMUD Administrative Board, Galenos team members Hatice Balta and Burak Sever, and Galenos Publishing House, all of which has realized every step in bringing MJIMA to you over the last two years.

Referees who participated in the MJIMA review process in 2016-2017 (in alphabetical order by surname)