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Editorship in the
EMRO Region:
Challenges and possible solutions
Excerpts from the presentation by Dr. Farhad Handjani MD*
A vast majority of owners and
proprietors of the biomedical journals published from the Eastern
Mediterranean Region have high expectations but little knowledge of
various activities involved in publishing. Financial constraints and
lack of any organizational set up create further problems. Most often
they are interested in final outcome and not the path. Different
problems faced by Editors include financial constraints, lack of trained
manpower, inadequately trained authors, paucity of good quality peer
reviewers, problems with indexing, visibility, lack of proper work flow
plan, lack of adherence to timelines, human resources with knowledge of
computer software and other capabilities. Some of them have small
offices with limited space. In addition they also face lack of
professional support team i.e. associate, assistant editors, managing
editors, technical and copy editors etc
Most of the editorial boards are ceremonial, make little or no
contributions and it is difficult to get together all of them. Different
journals envisage different roles for the Editors. Most of the Editors
are part time, lack proper training, work honorary, are busy with many
other activities and mostly it is one man show. Authors are not patient
and in order to get published early, indulge in simultaneous submission,
rejection of manuscript is taken as personal, authors are not trained in
research methodology, ghost authorship and gift authorship are quite
common in our region, falsification, and fabrication and plagiarism are
on the rise due to pressure related to academic promotions.
Readers are often neglected, the number of readers is often considered
unimportant. Most journals have no attraction for the readers. It is not
clear how much real impact the publications have on improvement of
patient care and on the medical community. Again most of the journals
have no real marketing strategies and lack initiatives to increase their
subscriptions. Since most of those selected to peer review the
manuscripts do it honorary, the peer review process is very slow. It is
extremely difficult to have a good pool of reviewer’s database. The peer
reviewers have no incentive hence at times some of them do not pay
adequate attention and the quality of review is of variable quality.
Since most of the reviewers have inadequate training in peer review,
often they learn as they do it. In view of inconsistency, most often
editors feel the need for a final reviewer before the manuscript is
accepted for publication. International indexing and the Impact Factor
have put lot of pressure on Editors and their journals. At times the
national policies regarding biomedical journals are not in agreement
with the current trends of indexing.
Possible Solutions
* Editors should be full time
having a strong professional team to support them.
* Editors should be appointed or selected from those who are
experienced.
* Editors professional honesty and integrity should be unquestionable
who cannot be influenced under any circumstances.
* There is a need for proper planning before starting a journal. The
pre-requisites include having a proper office space, minimum essential
personnel, equipment and adequate funding.
* Proper advertising strategies to promote the visibility of the journal
through different means.
* Improvement in the quality of paper used and printing is important.
* Editorial Board members and editorial team should be selected from
those who have some experience and are also interested to contribute.
* If possible and if funding allows, the journals must offer some
incentive to the reviewers.
* All journals must have a good reviewer’s database consisting of
national and international experts.
* Each country must have some training programme for authors, reviewers
and the Editors of biomedical journals.
* For a traveler, there is no path, since paths are made by walking.
(Antonio Machado). The journals should try to appeal to the authors and
readers of their region. This will enable them to pool together their
resources and increase their visibility while still addressing their key
local issues.
* Efforts should be made to strengthen the credibility of local and
regional indexing systems.
* The journals must use innovation in designing different sections of
the journal moving away from the routine generics to attract readers.
* From time to time the journals must assess their local and regional
health impact of what they have published because it will be their real
Impact Factor.
* Associate Professor of
Dermatology,
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,
Shiraz, Islamic Republic of Iran.
Secretary General
Eastern Mediterranean Association of Medical Editors (EMAME)
E-Mail: hanjanif@yahoo.com
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