Aim: To understand the changes and development of World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG) in recent years.
Methods: The Journal Citation Report (JCR) and SCI-E database of the ISI Web of Knowledge were used to search the articles and data of related indices in WJG during 2008-2012. Bibliometric methods were used for statistical analysis of the author's degree of collaboration, collaboration rate, the first author's publications, high-productivity authors, the authors' origins in each year; the distribution of the countries and journals of the authors citing WJG papers was also analyzed. In addition, the indices related to this journal in each year were compared with the data from 6 SCI journals in the field of gastroenterology in the 2012 volume.
Results: A total of 4409 papers in WJG were examined in this study. For the period 2008-2012, the self-citation rate was 8.59%, 6.02%, 5.50%, 4.47% and 5.21%. Of a total of 3898 first authors, 3526 published 1 paper, 291 published 2 papers, 59 published 3 papers, and 22 published 4 or more papers. The origin of WJG authors covered the six continents, and the majority came from Asia, Europe and North America. The number of countries of origin of WJG authors was 65, 66, 61, 65 an 60 for the period 2008-2012. Authors from 66 countries cited a total of 3194 of the 4409 papers, and these citations were found in 1140 journals.
Conclusion: The results suggest that WJG has stayed on the track of normal international publication and all the indices of this journal are stable and reasonable.
Keywords: Author analysis; Bibliometrics; Science Citation Index; World Journal of Gastroenterology.