Editorial Review Process Research Articles

Endorsement of the CONSORT statement by Chinese journals of Traditional Chinese Medicine: a survey of journal editors and review of journals' instructions for authors.

We aimed to assess the endorsement of the Consolidation Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement by Chinese journals of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its incorporation into their editorial processes. PubMed, Embase and major Chinese databases were searched to identify journals of TCM from China for inclusion. The latest 'instruction for authors' (IFA) of each included journal was obtained and any text mentioning CONSORT or CONSORT extension papers was extracted. Subsequently, the editor of each of the included journals was surveyed about their journal's endorsement of the CONSORT recommendations and their incorporation into editorial and peer review processes. Sixty-three journals of TCM from China were examined. Of these, only three (5%) and one (2%) of the 63 journals mentioned the CONSORT statement and extension papers, respectively, in their IFA. Fifty-four of 63 (86%) of surveyed journals responded, with the majority of respondents being editors. Only 20% (11/54) of the respondents reported that they had any knowledge of the CONSORT statement. Only 6% (3/54) of the editors reported that they required authors to comply with the CONSORT statement or that they incorporated it into their peer review and editorial processes. TCM journals in China endorsing the CONSORT statement constituted a small percentage of the total. The majority of editors surveyed were not familiar with the content of the CONSORT statement and extension papers. We strongly recommend that the China Periodicals Association issue a policy to promote the endorsement of the CONSORT statement and conduct relevant training for journal editors in China.

Participation of natural resource managers on editorial boards of conservation and applied natural resource journals

AbstractA gap between research and management exists in numerous natural resource fields. This can lead to management actions that are based on experience rather than evidence and may be less effective as a result. The gap may be partly attributable to research not being relevant, timely or accessible for managers. Editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals are responsible for determining the relevance of submitted manuscripts for a journal's readership. Limited representation of natural resource managers on editorial boards may make it more difficult for journals to identify the topics and findings of most relevance for management, thus contributing to the research–management gap. We quantified the representation of natural resource managers on the editorial boards of 79 conservation and applied natural resource journals. We found that 65% of editors were affiliated with universities, 13% with research institutions, 12% with government agencies and 3% with NGOs. On average, 9% of editors were affiliated with an agency or organization responsible for managing or regulating natural resources. The proportion of managers on editorial boards did not differ significantly between natural resource fields or with journal impact factor. Potential benefits of greater integration of managers into the research and publishing process include selection of research topics with greater relevance for management, clearer statements of the management implications of research studies, and more frequent publication of research evaluating the effectiveness of management interventions. Further study is needed to evaluate whether greater participation of managers in the editorial review process may contribute to achieving these benefits.

UIC Research Journal Policy

The UIC RESEARCH JOURNAL is a bi- annual refereed journal published by the Research and Publication Center of the University of the Immaculate Conception, which is wholly committed to empower researchers within the academic community to realize their full potential in intellectual inquiry through the publication of their research output and other scholarly articles. The UIC RESEARCH JOURNAL is open to the global community of scholars. Being a member of prestigious international research organizations, the journal requires its contributors to have each an open researcher and contributor’s ID which warrants inclusion of the research in the ORCID database and also shows a contributors track record of publications in the ORCID database. Articles submitted for review with the UIC Research Journal go through a double- blind review process to assure academic quality. The efficiency and effectiveness of the editorial review process are critically dependent upon the actions of both the research authors and the reviewers. An author accepts the responsibility preparing the research for evaluation by independent reviewers. The responsibility includes subjecting the manuscript to evaluation by peers and revising prior to submission. The review process is not used as a means of obtaining feedback at early stages of developing the research paper. The editors, research committee members and reviewers hail from a variety of fields and disciplines and have established track records in research. Aside from notable Filipino researchers, the journal has enlisted the expertise of scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Australia on its roster of international reviewers.

20 YEARS OF ANNALS OF KEMU (1995 � 2015)

The Annals of KEMU was first published in 1995, and Prof. Abdul Majeed Ch. was the first editor. I was appointed as editor on 15th May 2007, the responsibility which I will be completing on my retirement on 9th December, 2015. A brief report of Annals of KEMU from 15-05-2007 to 09-12-2015 is stated below for kind information of the authors, reviewers and readers of the Annals. The title of Annals of KEMC was changed to Annals of KEMU, new editorial board was constituted and editorial policy was made and approved on 14th June 2007. According to editorial policy 2007, the editorial process was divided into six (6) steps; 1-Manuscript Submission, 2-Plagiarism Check with Turnitun, 3-review of manuscript by two reviewers, 4-acceptance/rewriting/rejection, 5-publication and 6-circulation. As a result of high quality, the Annals was recognized by PMDC in 2009. The HEC recognized Annals first in category Z and later on raised the category to Y and in July 2015 to highest category X. Annals of KEMU has been indexed with; 1-Pak MediNet (1996), 2-EMRO Indexus of WHO (1997), 3-Directory of Open Access Journals-DOAJ (2007), 4-ICJME Database(2010), 5-PKP Harvester Database, 6-Open J Gate Database (2010), 7-Google Scholar. From June 2007 to November 2015, thirty five (35) issues of Annals of KEMU were published. Five hundred and sixty (560) manuscript were received, four hundred and thirty eight (38) manuscripts were accepted and published, forty three (43) were rejected, and four (04) manuscripts were withdrawn by authors. Until December 2015, seventy five (75) manuscripts are in editorial review process. Total income of the Annals from June 2007 to December 2015 was Rs. 12,52,280/- (Grant from HEC Rs. 6,12,280, collection from authors at rate of Rs. 1,000 for processing each manuscript Rs. 5,60,000 and from advertisements Rs. 80,000. During this period the expenditures of Annals have been Rs. 12,80,215 (publication cost Rs. 11,36,215 and correspondence and circulation Rs 1,44,000). In this way the cost to KEMU treasury has been Rs. 27,935/-. The credit for the achievements of; maintaining good quality (plagiarism below 19% and approval by two reviewers of same specialty), achieving PMDC recognition and highest HEC rank, having Annals indexed with 7 databases and just cost of Rs. 27, 935 to KEMU treasury for publishing of 35 Issues goes to our able editorial board, authors, reviewers and the staff. I take this opportunity to thank all of them, espe-cially the editorial secretaries, Mr. Asim Saeed and Mr. Muhammad Afzal (Assistant Annals of KEMU), who have worked very hard.

Successful authors’ views on the editorial review processes of accounting journals

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to report successful authors’ views about the editorial review processes of a set of 42 accounting journals. The two main objectives are: to enlighten editors and journal publishers in their quest to improve their journals’ editorial review processes and to inform prospective authors about the past experiences successful authors have had with the 42 accounting journals.Design/methodology/approach– A Webmail survey was used to collect data about authors’ experiences with publishing in one of the 42 accounting journals. A total of 856 responses (40 per cent response rate) was received. Various statistical analyses were used to explore a range of editorial review process features, including the timeliness of editorial feedback, timeliness of publishing accepted manuscripts, quality of the feedback provided and performance of the editor.Findings– Authors were found to be generally quite satisfied with the editorial review processes of the journals in which they published. There were, however, notable leaders and laggards observed among the 42 journal titles. The survey findings also revealed that many journals use the practice of basing their editorial decisions on the comments of a single reviewer. In fact, this practice is most prevalent among the journals that are commonly perceived as the field’s “top” journals. These and other editorial review results – for example, comparisons between journal-tiers, geographical locations of editorial review offices and journal specialties – are discussed.Originality/value– This paper extends and moves well beyond Adler and Liyanarachchi (2011), by exploring such additional author perceptions of the editorial review process as the performance of journal editors, the use of multiple reviewers and reviewers’ reporting of the typical faults/weaknesses in the papers they read. Exposing to public scrutiny an academic discipline’s editorial review processes is quite common in some fields of research, most notably medicine. Doing so in the accounting discipline addresses a need that many of the respondents felt was highly necessary and long overdue. While authors will benefit from the paper’s insights, editors and publishers are expected to as well.

Physiology in Perspective: Why Do We Continue to Ignore Sex Differences?

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report in which they highlighted the importance of exploring sex differences in biomedical research and medical practice. The IOM report recognized the obvious biological fact that sex, as defined by the presence

Letter From the Editor

Letter From the Editor

If At First You Don't Succeed: The Fate of Manuscripts Rejected by Academic Emergency Medicine.

The purpose of this study was to characterize the publication fate of a recent 2-year sample of manuscripts declined by Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), the journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. This was a retrospective analysis of manuscripts submitted to AEM in 2010 and 2011 that were declined by the AEM editorial review process. An online search was conducted for each declined paper, to determine whether or not it was published in another clinical/scientific journal after being declined by AEM. The investigators used Scopus and Google Scholar, using the submitting author's name, the verbatim title, and key words and phrases from the title, to search for subsequent publication of each paper. Of 1,542 manuscript submissions to the journal in 2010 and 2011, 1,052 papers were declined. Of these, 693 (65.9%) were subsequently published elsewhere, in a total of 229 journals: 362 papers in 22 different EM journals, 81 in 14 EM subspecialty journals, 237 in 185 non-EM journals, and 13 in eight nursing journals. Papers were published a median of 16.7 months (interquartile range [IQR] = 11.8 to 22.0 months) after being declined at AEM. Of the 229 journals, 19 do not have h-indices. The median h-index of the remaining 210 journals is 36 (IQR = 17 to 64; maximum = 229; AEM's h-index is 78). Thirty of these 210 journals, publishing 43 papers, have higher h-indices than AEM; the other 650 papers were published in journals either with lower h-indices than AEM's (n = 180 journals) or in journals without h-indices (n = 19 journals). U.S. and non-U.S. authors had similar rates of subsequent publication (65.3% vs 66.6%, p = 0.69) for papers initially declined by AEM. Papers in the educational advances category were less likely to be subsequently published than those in the original contributions (p < 0.0001) and brief reports (p = 0.0137) categories. Nearly two-thirds of manuscripts declined by SAEM's journal are eventually published elsewhere, in a large number and wide variety of both EM and non-EM journals, in a median of 16.7 months. Authors of manuscripts declined by AEM should consider submission elsewhere, as subsequent publication of these manuscripts in another journal is probable.

The Editorial Review Process

Peer review is a critical part of the publishing process at most science journals. Yet for many authors, the editorial review process might seem intimidating, maybe even a bit mysterious. Because there are many variations on the basic peer-review paradigm, in this chapter I will explain in some detail how the process works at the Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS (JM 3 ). It is typical of other peer-review processes as well. Peer review is defined as “the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are usually not part of the editorial staff.” It supports the scientific process by providing authors with constructive criticism of their work and by filtering out less valuable work, thus providing a “stamp of approval” from editors and peers for published scientific work. The mere prospect of peer review prompts authors to improve both the science and its presentation in a submitted manuscript.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Editor's Comments: Developing our Authors

The author, editor of the publication, looks at the developmental approach to peer review of academic articles, described as practices which focus not only on evaluating or identifying weaknesses in an article but on providing guidance to the original author on how the article can be improved and on how he or she can become a better scholar. She contrasts effective developmental reviewing with practices she considers ineffective including ghostwriting the article. Other topics include the role of developmental reviewing in expanding inclusion and diversity in an academic field and its benefits for long-time as well as young scholars.

Role of editorial and peer review processes in publication bias: analysis of drug trials submitted to eight medical journals.

BackgroundPublication bias is generally ascribed to authors and sponsors failing to submit studies with negative results, but may also occur after submission. We evaluated whether submitted manuscripts on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with drugs are more likely to be accepted if they report positive results.MethodsManuscripts submitted from January 2010 through April 2012 to one general medical journal (BMJ) and seven specialty journals (Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, British Journal of Ophthalmology, Gut, Heart, Thorax, Diabetologia, and Journal of Hepatology) were included, if at least one study arm assessed the efficacy or safety of a drug and a statistical test was used to evaluate treatment effects. Publication status was retrospectively retrieved from submission systems or provided by journals. Sponsorship and trial results were extracted from manuscripts and classified according to predefined criteria. Main outcome measure was acceptance for publication.ResultsOf 15,972 manuscripts submitted, 472 (3.0%) were drug RCTs, of which 98 (20.8%) were published. Among submitted drug RCTs, 287 (60.8%) had positive and 185 (39.2%) negative results. Of these, 60 (20.9%) and 38 (20.5%), respectively, were published. Manuscripts on non-industry trials (n = 213) reported positive results in 138 (64.8%) manuscripts, compared to 71 (47.7%) on industry-supported trials (n = 149), and 78 (70.9%) on industry-sponsored trials (n = 110). Twenty-seven (12.7%) non-industry trials were published, compared to 27 (18.1%) industry-supported and 44 (40.0%) industry-sponsored trials. After adjustment for other trial characteristics, manuscripts reporting positive results were not more likely to be published (OR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.61 to 1.66). Submission to specialty journals, sample size, multicentre status, journal impact factor, and corresponding authors from Europe or US were significantly associated with publication.ConclusionsFor the selected journals, there was no tendency to preferably publish manuscripts on drug RCTs that reported positive results, suggesting that publication bias may occur mainly prior to submission.

Data Validation and Structural Classifications in Powder Diffraction File

The new Powder Diffraction File™, housing more than 760,000 diffraction patterns and 200,000 crystal structures, has a wealth of information that a materials scientist can take advantage of in various ways, from materials identification, characterization to design. Various structural and chemical classifications implemented in the database will be presented in detail. These classifications are important in data mining studies and optimizing pattern search/match methods. While using any database in materials characterization, it is important to know the quality of the crystal structure or diffraction pattern found in the database. With varying quality of published data in the literature, database editorial review processes had to adopt rigorous data evaluation methods to classify data based on its quality. Every entry in the Powder Diffraction File™ has a quality mark and editorial comments describing the error and the correction. Results of the analysis of the quality of the crystal structures (~500,000) published over the years will be discussed along with the most common errors found. The recent developments in Powder Diffraction File will be presented.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

Populating the wilderness: crowdsourcing database of the smokies

Purpose – Researchers at the University of Tennessee Libraries experimented with crowdsourcing to determine if contributions by members of the public could be utilized to add citations and subject tags to a new online bibliography, Database of the Smokies (DOTS: dots.lib.utk.edu). The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The database is built in Drupal, an open source platform that provides a crowdsourcing mechanism. The public was offered the opportunity to create accounts and add content to DOTS. After three months, the project team performed a transaction log analysis of user submissions in order to determine whether an editorial process was necessary. Findings – This analysis revealed that 18 percent of database content was the result of crowdsourcing and that much of the content submitted by participants was either obscure or difficult to locate. The analysis also showed that while contributors added valuable citations, an editorial review process was necessary to ensure this crowdsourced content could be published in the database. In addition, contributor supplied subject tags were not of significant uniqueness or quantity to substantially influence the existing taxonomy. Finally, the publicity of the crowdsourcing feature allowed other institutions to contribute to the project and add rare material. Originality/value – This paper offers a model for utilizing crowdsourcing to entice a sophisticated user group to help build a bibliographic database.

Publishing and Pushing: Mixing Models for Communicating Research Data in Archaeology

We present a case study of data integration and reuse involving 12 researchers who published datasets in Open Context, an online data publishing platform, as part of collaborative archaeological research on early domesticated animals in Anatolia. Our discussion reports on how different editorial and collaborative review processes improved data documentation and quality, and created ontology annotations needed for comparative analyses by domain specialists. To prepare data for shared analysis, this project adapted editor-supervised review and revision processes familiar to conventional publishing, as well as more novel models of revision adapted from open source software development of public version control. Preparing the datasets for publication and analysis required significant investment of effort and expertise, including archaeological domain knowledge and familiarity with key ontologies. To organize this work effectively, we emphasized these different models of collaboration at various stages of this data publication and analysis project. Collaboration first centered on data editors working with data contributors, then widened to include other researchers who provided additional peer-review feedback, and finally the widest research community, whose collaboration is facilitated by GitHub’s version control system. We demonstrate that the “publish” and “push” models of data dissemination need not be mutually exclusive; on the contrary, they can play complementary roles in sharing high quality data in support of research. This work highlights the value of combining multiple models in different stages of data dissemination.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

Evidence-Based Management and the Trustworthiness of Our Cumulative Scientific Knowledge: Implications for Teaching, Research, and Practice

The promise of evidence-based management (EBMgt) is that educators and practitioners can access cumulative scientific information to guide their teaching and decision making. We argue that the EBMgt movement may be unable to live up to this promise to the extent that our cumulative scientific knowledge is not trustworthy. We review why the management discipline may not have trustworthy evidence and how this widens the divide among educators, practitioners, and researchers. Next, we review the implications of untrustworthy cumulative knowledge, focusing on how educators can critically assess evidence and teach this process in the classroom. We close with recommendations for improving the trustworthiness of our literature to enhance teaching and practice from an evidence-based perspective. Suggestions include increasing the reproducibility and replication of primary studies, changing the editorial review process, and focusing on the production and dissemination of practically relevant and actionable knowledge.

Study Design, Publication Outcome, and Funding of Research Presented at International Congresses on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication

The first International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication (PRC) was organized in 1989 to “subject the editorial review process to some of the rigorous scrutiny that editors and reviewers demand of the scientists whose work they are assessing.”1 Since then, peer review research was introduced as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH),2 and the number of indexed articles has been continuously increasing. To evaluate the development of peer review research in biomedicine, we analyzed research presented at all PRCs since 1989.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION