About the publication
Title: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA)
ISSN: 1067-5027 (Print) and 1527-974X (Online)1
Website: https://academic.oup.com/jamia
Purpose, objective, or mission: “JAMIA is AMIA’s premier peer-reviewed journal for biomedical and health informatics.”2 “JAMIA articles describe innovative informatics research and systems that help to advance biomedical science and to promote health.”3
Target audience: “Physicians, informaticians, scientists, nurses and other health care professionals,” as well as academic and medical librarians are among this publication’s target audience.4
Publisher: Oxford University Press5
Peer reviewed? Yes6
Type: Academic / Scholarly7
Medium: Print and online8
Content: “Covering the full spectrum of activities in the field, JAMIA includes informatics articles in the areas of clinical care, clinical research, translational science, implementation science, imaging, education, consumer health, public health, and policy. JAMIA‘s articles describe innovative informatics research and systems that help to advance biomedical science and to promote health.”9
Frequency of publication: Monthly10
About the publication’s submission guidelines
Location of submission guidelines: https://academic.oup.com/jamia/pages/General_Instructions
Types of contributions accepted: The journal accepts research and applications, reviews, brief communications, case reports, perspectives, correspondence, and editorials and highlights.11
Submission and review process: Manuscripts should be double-spaced and accompanied by a title page, abstract, references, acknowledgements, etc. Additionally, authors should submit their manuscripts in Word format to JAMIA’s submission site. As for the review process, authors must provide details of any conflicts of interests, so that the review can “be handled by ones of the other editors.”12
Editorial tone: Scholarly.13
Style guide used: The journal asks authors to use footnotes and format their references according to Medline style.14
Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors
JAMIA is a great publication for LIS authors familiar with informatics, health sciences, etc. It explores topics LIS professionals are familiar with, including social media, the ethics of various information dissemination methods, etc.15 Health informatics professionals, as well as medical librarians with knowledge of these topics will feel right at home with this publication.
Audience analysis
About the publication’s readers
Publication circulation: Although exact circulation statistics are unavailable, all members of the American Medical Informatics Association receive a subscription to JAMIA.16 AMIA has over 5,400 members,17 though JAMIA‘s readership is likely higher than this figure, since articles are freely available on JAMIA’s website and PubMed Central.18
Audience location: Because this journal is the official journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,19 it stands to reason that the majority of readers will live in the U.S. At the same time, JAMIA is published by the Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom20 and features articles concerning biomedical data sharing as a whole. Thus, the journal has articles of interest to English-speaking biomedical professionals worldwide.
Reader characteristics: The majority of readers will be healthcare professionals with specialized knowledge of bioinformatics.21
Knowledge of LIS subject matter: Because JAMIA is first and foremost a medical publication within the highly specialized field of bioinformatics, most readers will be more familiar with medical terminology than LIS terminology. Thus, while medical terms can—and should—be used freely, LIS terms should be used sparingly and defined where necessary.
Conclusion: Analysis of reader characteristics and their potential impact on authors
Because the majority of readers will come from highly technical backgrounds, authors should ground their articles in methodical, well-documented research. Additionally, authors should—at the very least—have taken a class in health informatics. Ideally, however, authors will be healthcare professionals (including medical librarians) with extensive knowledge of bioinformatics.
Last updated: April 18, 2018
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