Veterinary Dermatology Editorial April 2007

Abstract

In this issue of the journal readers will find the abstracts selected by the North American Veterinary Dermatology Forum to be held in Hawaii on April 18th–22nd 2007 (http://www.aavd.org/2007forum.htm). Readers should note that the abstracts have only been formatted for publication in the journal. There has been no additional peer-review process of the abstracts, such as would normally take place with submitted articles. Later in the year it is anticipated that the abstracts accepted by the scientific committee of the ESVD-ECVD Congress planned for September 13–15th in Mainz, Germany (http://www.esvd2007.org/) will be published. Readers of the journal will notice that the author guidelines are regularly incorporated into the journal in an abridged form. Prospective authors are advised and encouraged to see the unabridged author guidelines on the Blackwell website at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/submit.asp?ref=0959-4493&site=1. The guidelines are kept under regular review and authors should also look at recent articles to assist them with formatting of their submission. Recently the editorial board has been considering the ethical policy of the journal as it is currently given in the author guidelines. Prospective authors are expected to read the policy and also the guidelines. The latter can be accessed via the website: http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/ and then go to Guidelines and code of conduct on the menu on the left side (this is a website entitled Committee on Publication Ethics). We are currently considering what evidence authors should provide that the ethical policy has been followed with particular reference to the use of animals. Traditionally when client-owned animals are used authors should provide evidence of owner informed consent. When it comes to other (research) animals they ought to be covered by national legislation and copies of documents relating to legal and Institutional Ethical Committee approval may be required. Blackwell has recently added to the author guideline website a section on best practice guidelines on Publication Ethics from a Publisher's Perspective, with a link to: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/publicationethics/ The link then provides access (as a pdf) to an important and interesting paper: Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective is reproduced with permission from International Journal of Clinical Practice by Graf C, Wager E, Bowman A et al. Int J Clin Pract 2007; 61 (s152):126. This paper covers a range of ethical issues relating to the publication process and is very relevant to readers and prospective authors of Veterinary Dermatology. For example it discusses authorship and it could be argued that authorship should based on meeting all three of the following criteria: Substantial contributions to the conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; Drafting the article or revising it critically for important content; Final approval of the version to be published. The current Veterinary Dermatology author guidelines are very similar to these three points. What is the take home message here? Well, it is important for prospective authors to be aware of the need to get all co-authors to read and contribute to an article. To this end some journals require signatures from each author on submission of an article. Secondly readers should be aware that in reading an article with an eminent author one cannot assume that all of the authors have read and contributed to it! As an editorial board it is our aim, of course, that there should be no similar concerns about the authorship of articles published in Veterinary Dermatology.