To improve the understanding and communication of different kinds of contributor roles in research output, we decided to apply Contributor Roles Taxonomy, a renowned community-developed open-standard taxonomy of contributions, to our journal starting from the first issue of 2017 (https://doi.org/10.5051/jpis.2017.47.1.1). Moreover, we have expressed our dedicated support for the National Library of Medicine in the United States regarding PubMed Data Management system to allow minimized manual data corrections during the process of receiving, managing, and exporting citation data (https://doi.org/10.5051/jpis.2017.47.2.64).

Through many in-depth discussions all of which were to improve the quality of user experience of our journal's authors and reviewers, we have selected the Editorial Manager of Aries Systems Corporation as the official e-submission system for JPIS and adopted it starting from July 2017 (https://doi.org/10.5051/jpis.2017.47.3.133). Also, considering the risk that participants take for being involved in the clinical trials, we have communicated that we will comply with the newly announced data sharing statements by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (https://doi.org/10.5051/jpis.2017.47.4.193).

Another notable accomplishment in 2017 was that 2016 Journal Impact Factor of JPIS announced last summer showed an increase from the previous year. We would like to express our sincere gratitude towards all JPIS patrons for the support and understanding, which made this great news possible.

In 2018, we plan to develop a new user interface which will enable us to present JPIS online with the best legibility and usability yet to our users from all over the world. This will allow further facilitated exchange of professional information within the JPIS community. As Editor-in-Chief of JPIS, I truly hope our valuable readers, authors, and reviewers will find all these efforts helpful and wish everyone a joyful new year!