A New Journal on Peer Review and Research Integrity

(Note: I have cross-posted this with my blog on Dynamic Chiropractic, given the importance of the topic).

One of the hallmarks of scientific journal publication is the peer review system. An editor cannot be knowledgeable about every possible area of research the journal he or she edits receives for consideration. So the paper is sent for review by people with expertise in the area the paper discusses, and the editor then uses those comments to suggest changes, to reject the paper or to accept it. As nost of us know, the usual response is a request to revise.
But peer review is also a human enterprise and as a result it is subject to weakness, to abuse, to gamesmanship and to other peculiarities. There have been reports of gaming peer review by people who actually review their own work, or who are friends to others who have submitted. Peer review may also prevent new ideas from receiving consideration since those ideas may stand outside an established framework in a discipline.

In the end, this is actually a question of research integrity. That’s why the new open source journal Research Integrity and Peer Review is so refreshing. It is one of the Biomed Central family of journals, and it can be found at http://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/. Its aim and scope states “Research Integrity and Peer Review is an international, open access, peer reviewed journal that encompasses all aspects of integrity in research publication, including peer review, study reporting, and research and publication ethics. Particular consideration is given to submissions that address current controversies and limitations in the field and offer potential solutions.”

It’s time that we look carefully at the processes used in the dissemination of scientific information. This is a highly volatile world that is suffering challenges it has never before had to cope with, from predatory journals to exponential growth of information, to new publishing models and the need for release of data from studies and the need for trial registries. Scientific information is evidence, used to make clinical decisions. Let’s make sure that that information is a rigorous as it can be. This journal will help do just that.

Publication Models Changing as Time Goes On

In my career I have been both an editor for chiropractic science journals and author who has published in them. And since we are now in the world of evidence-based practice, access to journal articles in rather important. But one of the challenges our graduates will face once they leave here is the loss of access to journal articles our site licenses provide them. This needs to be unraveled a bit.

First, the cost to institutions to provide those journals is staggering. Without going into details, I can attest that Palmer has to pay significant funds in order to provide our students access to a host of journals such as you can find on our journals holding list. Of course, once a student graduates he or she can access open access publications at no cost, but that can be limiting, since the top chiropractic journals are not open access (at least not for the first year after an article is published).
New models need to be developed. The traditional journal model is subscription driven. That is, users access information only after paying a fee to do so. Given the amount of information available and the number of journals in existence, it is not financially feasible for newly graduated chiropractors to subscribe to every journal that may be of help to them. One model that has been develop is that of open access, where the author of the article pays a fee to have his or her paper published. The quality controls are present in the best open access publications. Of course, for those of us in chiropractic, coming up with $1500 for publication may not be possible. However, the idea is that in many cases, tax dollars have paid for the research and the public (who provided the tax dollars) should not have to pay again to access information they already paid for.

But the challenge here has led to the existence of predatory journals. These are journals that takes you money, publish your paper and provide no quality control whatsoever. Buyer beware!

And there is the question of timeliness. How many times have we watched and waited to see if our paper was accepted by a journal? I once spent 19 months waiting for a decision on one of my papers. That is unconscionable. eLIFE is an open access journal that promises a turnaround time for decision of just a few days.

I can foresee a time where we change the model altogether. Set up a website, invite publications, allow for transparent review, allow readers to see all communications prior to publication, allow publication and then allow commentary. Remove the journal publisher.

It will be interesting to see how this changes over time.

The Classroom of the Future

I’ve been engaged over the last day in a process looking at how we might consider remodeling our classrooms, or to use a more appropriate term, our learning environments. We’ve brought together students, faculty, administrators and IT specialists in an attempt to discuss what we might do and what is is possible we can do.

Let me ask this question: if you could have the classroom of your dreams, what would you want in it? Would it have an interactive whiteboard, or perhaps a screen that runs the entire wall and can be moved via touching it? Would it link classroom computers to the AV system? Would it allow you to generate your own video clips for upload? Would it do away with the Crestron units in the classroom in lieu of something else more responsive?

How does an institution go about planning change? It engages is people int eh process, seeks their input and then deals with the reality of finances, infrastructure, changing personnel, and so on. One needs to think long-term with such planning.

Palmer College as it is today will not be the Palmer College we see in 10 years. The world is changing, and we need to be responsive to how people learn, what students expect and what best practices tell us about teaching healthcare. It will be an interesting journey.

DC2017 Call for Papers Coming to a Close

I’d like to use this week’s blog entry to remind you to consider submitting something to the upcoming DC2017 program. This is the program that will be held in March15-18 of 2017 in Washington, DC. The program is a combination of the traditional ACC-RAC program, with WFC and NCLC- that is, Association of Chiropractic Colleges-Research Agenda Conference, World Federation of Chiropractic and the National Chiropractic Legislative Conference. This is shaping up to be a huge conference, with more than 1000 people expected to attend.

There are still 3 days before the submission system will close. If you would like to submit, go to the submission site: https://www.openconf.org/DC2017/openconf.php

On that site, you can make a submission (or amend one you have already made, as well as upload files), you can log in as a review, or sign up to act as one. If you are interested in reviewing, please contact me and I will give you the keycode you need to log in and register.

I do hope you will consider submitting something. Thanks so much!

Issues in Higher Education

Sometimes it is good to stop and reflect upon the issues that confront higher education in general. We here at Palmer sometimes escape the issues that larger general educational institutions must address, but nonetheless there are so many issues that may arise. The American Association of University Professors list the following as some of the more important issues of the day (https://www.aaup.org/issues-higher-education).

• Academic Freedom
• Institutional Governance
• Contingent Faculty Positions
• Compensation
• Copyright
• Distance Education
• Accreditation
• Sexual Harassment and Assault
• Academic Research
• Civility
• Conflict of Interest
• Collective bargaining
• Hiring and Promotion
• Diversity
• Professional Ethics
• Workload
• Grading
• Sexual Identity and Gender Identity
• Evaluation

 

 

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DC2017 Deadline Extended to September 15

Conference Theme:  The theme for the 2017 combined conference is “Impact Spinal Health;” however, submissions may be in any of the categories listed below.

Categories:  The call for scientific submissions invites original research that promotes the dissemination and discussion of new information in the following research categories:

●       Basic Science (e.g. experimental trials, quantitative basic science research, etc.)

●       Education (e.g. classroom research, quantitative/qualitative education/administration research, etc.)

●       Clinical (e.g. clinical trials, quantitative/qualitative clinical research, cohort studies, etc.)

●       Case Studies/Reports (e.g. clinical case reports or case series)

●       Public Health (e.g. population health studies, preventive care, etc.)

●       Integration (e.g. research on integration of chiropractic services into hospital settings, etc.)

●       Conference Theme - “Impact Spinal Health” (e.g. public policy, research, clinical practice, chiropractic profession, college administration, healthcare, etc.)

Important Information:  Please note the following:

1.      Presentation of accepted work (platform or poster) is expected.  Authors must register and attend the conference to present.  An author who does not register and present an accepted work (platform of poster) may be disqualified from submitting/presenting at the next meeting of any of the sponsoring organizations.

2.      It is the author's' responsibility to find funding to register and attend the conference.  It is strongly recommended that funding is secured or confirmed in advance of abstract submission.  Once a submission is accepted, registration for the conference is required or the invitation to present will be revoked.  Only authors listed on the submission may present at the conference. 

3.      If accepted, a 195-word maximum abstract will be printed in the conference proceedings in the Journal of Chiropractic Education.  This will allow you to publish your completed paper in any journal you wish.

4.      Due to time and space limitations, a maximum of 2 poster presentations /presenter may be accepted while for platform presentations, a maximum of 3 presentations /presenter  may be accepted.

5.      If the submission does not meet the submission requirements (e.g. not a completed research study, missing items, etc.), it will not be accepted for review.  The WFC Congress, ACC-RAC, NCLC peer review chair will not contact authors if any submission does not meet the requirements.  Notification will be sent out as a rejection notice.  Concept submissions and incomplete works will be rejected.

6.      The corresponding author will be the contact person responsible for submission of all required materials and all correspondence.  Please do not send communications through a third party, staff member, or co-author.

7.      The peer review board may request additional information for any item that is submitted.  This may be for internal quality control purposes or to check on materials if a concern is raised.

8.      If the peer review board confirms that there is an inappropriate submission, it will be disqualified.  Examples of inappropriate submissions include, but are not limited to, submissions that have been previously submitted at WFC Congress, ACC-RAC, NCLC, incomplete submissions, previously published works, concept submissions without complete data and analysis, duplicate submissions, lack of  ethics/subject approval where necessary, non-authors listed as authors, plagiarized work, etc.

9.      Only submissions made to the Open Conference website for the WFC Congress, ACC-RAC, NCLC peer review committee chair will be considered.  No faxed, mailed, or hand delivered submissions will be considered.

Evaluation:  All submissions will be evaluated by the peer review committee based upon the following criteria:

●       Originality and/or innovation

●       Quality of the project as written and interpreted

●       Significance

●       Clarity

Instructions:   To be considered, please submit all of the following items no later than September 15, 2016. Please submit all of the above to the following website: www.OpenConf.org/DC2017.  Submissions that do not meet the requirements will not be accepted.  The submission consists of three parts.

Part 1: Abstract

●       Word Count - 195 word limi

●       Title

●       Authors

●       Affiliations

●       Content - Please include subheadings in the abstract. 

●       For research studies, use the subheadings Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. 

●       For case reports, use the subheadings Objective, Clinical Features, Intervention and Outcome, and Conclusion. 

●       For literature reviews, use the subheadings Objective, Data Sources and Selection, Results and Conclusion.

●       Please do not include references, pictures, tables, or figures in the abstract.

●       Blinding – Please blind author information, institutional affiliations, and/or references that would identify the authors in the abstract.

Part 2: Signature Form

●       Required Signatures - Primary author must collect and submit signed authorship forms for all authors. Signatures can be provided on one single page or on multiple pages if necessary.

●       Commitment - The presenting author must register and attend the conference.  Funding should be confirmed in advance of submission.  Submission is a commitment from authors to present accepted submissions at the conference. 

 Part 3: Ethics Materials

●       Human Subjects Research - Studies involving human subjects (surveys, observational, and any research studies) must be approved by proper ethics boards/committees.  Questions should be directed to your institution’s board/committee.  Submit a copy of the signed approval, expedited review, or exemption letter from the ethics board/committee. For studies not involving human subjects (e.g. literature review), this document is not required. 

●       Animal Research- Studies involving animals (basic science) must be approved by proper Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) or country-specific committees of equal stature. Questions should be directed to your institution’s committee.  Submit a copy of the signed approval, expedited review, or exemption letter from the IACUC or equivalent.

●       Case Studies - Case studies (case reports) require consent of the participant(s) to publish the case as well as complete participant anonymity within the submission., Submit a copy of the signed consent and/or, your institution’s IRB/REB/Ethics review.  For case studies, submit a patient consent to publish form from your institution, a journal, or other consent form.

Process:  Once all items are submitted, the submission will be evaluated after the submission deadline by a blinded, peer-review committee, and these results will be sent to the WFC Congress, ACC-RAC, NCLC planning committee for review and final decision.  If accepted, abstract presenters must register and attend the conference whether or not their work is accepted as a platform or poster.   

Notification:  Contact authors will be notified of peer review results by Mid-November 2016.  For accepted submissions, the presenting author is required to register and present the work at the conference no later than December 15, 2016. 

If you have questions or concerns about this process, please contact:

Dana J. Lawrence, DC, MMedEd, MA

WFC Congress, ACC-RAC, NCLC Peer Review Chair

dana.lawrence@palmer.edu

(563) 884-5302