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Editorial staff from 17 journals attended the
meeting in the Ippokampos Hotel on the island of Hydra. Our
hosts were the editor-in-chief of Exartisis, Gerassimos Notaras,
and Anna Tsiboukli, publisher. Staff of KETHEA and editorial
board members from Exartisis joined us. Here is a summary
of the proceedings.
The launch of ISAJE's first publication, Publishing Addiction
Science: a guide for the perplexed, with interesting introductions
by the editors and some of the chapter authors, was followed
by discussion on how the book could be used in support of
our series of training workshops for authors. Collaborative
activities with the World Health Organization, one of the
book's sponsors, will be developed over the next months. There
is also the opportunity to hold a workshop in association
with the 10th European Conference on Rehabilitation and Drug
Policy (Crete, 10-14 May 2005). Our ongoing collaboration
with the US National Institute of Drug Abuse continues, and
ISAJE has been invited to conduct a session for participants
of their international program. Richard Pates (JOURNAL OF
SUBSTANCE USE) coordinates ISAJE's training and education
activities.
Isidore Obot (AFRICAN JOURNAL OF DRUG AND ALCOHOL
STUDIES) presented a number of ways in which ISAJE can support
the low and middle-income (LAMI) countries. Ideas up for future
discussion are a young author's award scheme; a one-day training
workshop for the French-speaking African countries (with WHO);
links to 'free' databases on the web for students with limited
access to research material; a 'cv bank' of potential reviewers
from the LAMI countries which journals could use to expand
their list of referees; a mentoring scheme where authors with
work in draft form could be linked with a panel of peer reviewers
who could provide preliminary feedback and guidance; and twinning
of journal subscribers in the first world with those in the
developing world.
ISAJE's special interest groups met separately
during the two day conference to discuss and develop their
future workplans, and all gave accounts of their activities
in the plenary sessions. ISAJE's Language Group, under the
leadership of Amador Calafat (ADICCIONES) and Kerstin Stenius
(NAT) is considering four possible research projects, two
of which have been developed in detail. A further example
of work that could be undertaken is the study of terminology
and concepts across the cultural barriers, leading to a published
lexicon of standard terms with equivalents in various languages.
The prime function of the group is to improve dissemination
of scientific findings from non-English speaking countries,
or those in which the research community is not yet well-developed.
Getting funding for translations is therefore important.
The translations will ultimately be mounted
on ISAJE's new website, parint.org, the design and implementation
of which is being funded, at least for the first year (2005)
by NIDA under contract. With the present level of funding,
some of the proposed interactive elements of the site and
sophisticated search functions have been put on hold. However,
it is full steam ahead for the core sections for authors,
editors and referees and it is hoped that the site will also
be of use to the educated lay public. Good ideas for publicising
the new site and graphical content to increase its attractiveness
are being sought and some useful suggestions were noted from
participants at the meeting. Someone to help develop the content
of the site is also wanted. Ian Stolerman (DRUG AND ALCOHOL
DEPENDENCE) is leading this project.
Next steps for ISAJE's Ethics Group include
'raising consciousness' about ethical issues in publishing
and it is hoped to encourage individual journal editors to
write editorials sharing these matters with their readers.
The Ethics Group will synthesize the policies and proposals
for sanctions against misconduct which were kindly supplied
by a number of member journals, into a set of model procedures.
Special attention will be given to the responsibilities of
editors and owners/publishers. The principles of editorial
independence will also be laid out in draft form for scrutiny
by ISAJE members. The Ethics Group is chaired by Tom Babor
(ADDICTION). Tom McGovern (ALCOHOLISM TREATMENT QUARTERLY)
and Gerry Notaras (EXARTISIS) led a most interesting discussion
on the role and responsibilities of journals in the wider
scientific community.
In the Indexing and Impact Factors Group, suggestions
are now complete for minimal English-language information
needed for entry into the international indexing services
(click on menu button 'Non-English Language Journals'). A
new task will be for each member of the group to summarise
from his or her national viewpoint the relevance and impact
of the current indexing systems. Further, the criteria for
entry applications will be researched and presented. Once
this preliminary work is done, the group will be ready to
formulate an action plan to strengthen the position of ISAJE
member journals vis-à-vis the powerful indexing and
abstracting databases. Gerhard Bühringer (SUCHT), leader
of the group, reported preliminary findings from a questionnaire
organised by Robin Room (CONTEMPORARY DRUG PROBLEMS) on perceptions
and experiences of member journals with indexing systems and
impact factors. From the replies so far received (33%) it
was clear that there is at present no real rival to the ISI
Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Every major publisher however
is a member of COUNTER - a group dedicated to finding alternative
standard measures of quality such as counts of full-text downloads.
Elaine Stott (Blackwells) warned that journals can be excluded
from an indexing service if it already has good coverage in
that particular subject area, and a journal applying for inclusion
would then have to show very many international references
to stand a chance.
At the annual general meeting, ISAJE's outgoing
president, Kerstin Stenius, gave a report on behalf of the
management board and outgoing treasurer Rick Seymour presented
the accounts for the period to 31 December 2003. Kerstin then
stepped down from the board and Ian Stolerman took her place
as president. Gerhard Bühringer (SUCHT) and Terry Chambers
(JOURNAL OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS) were elected unopposed, as
vice-president and treasurer respectively. Their contact details
and a full list of board members for the 2004-2006 term may
be found elsewhere on this website. The board was asked to
prepare a paper for next year on widening access to the organisation,
particularly for publishers and owners through the medium
of associate membership. Also, to prepare a paper on ISAJE's
future financial management.
We were happy to welcome to our meeting a scientific
journalist, Nana Daoudaki of Ta Nea, vice-president of JUADN
(Journalists' Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers), and a
member of KETHEA's Council. Nana spoke of the challenges of
bringing academic research into the media spotlight. While
the journalist is the intermediary between scientists and
the lay public, he or she will not share the same agenda as
the scientist. Scientists advance their careers by achieving
salience for their work. Editors want to promote their journals;
and journal owners, whether commercial publishers or not-for-profit
learned societies, also have their own agenda. The journalist
is driven by the need to sell papers, and the national and
generalist press in particular will simplify a story to serve
this end. Some members pointed to political interference with
media output, a further complicating factor. Nana's talk initiated
a lively discussion on how to get publicity for the researcher,
the research, and the journal it is published in.
Ana Marušic, editor-in-chief of the Croatian
Medical Journal and a former president of the World Association
of Medical Journals (WAME), was unfortunately prevented from
joining us by travel difficulties. She would have spoken on
Success for Small Journals. She has kindly made available
to ISAJE electronic offprints of a series of her articles
on the challenges of publishing 'outside the mainstream'.
Also available (in MS Powerpoint) is a brief introduction
to the work of WAME. Please ask Susan Savva if you would like
copies of these.
Due to sudden illness, David Tempest, one of
our invited speakers, was also unable to be present. David,
a specialist in bibliometrics at Elsevier, was to have presented
Quality and its Measurement. We were very sorry he could not
deliver his authoritative statement in person. However, this
is a topic which preoccupies everybody in journal publishing
and it ran like a thread through many of the discussions,
formal and informal, over the two days. We were fortunate
to have expert input from our two publishing representatives,
Phil Bishop (Elsevier) and Elaine Stott (Blackwell Publishing).
Susan Savva
ISAJE Executive Officer
December 2004
susan@addictionjournal.org
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