Revues prédatrices : une vraie menace pour la recherche médicale. 2 Evaluer leurs conséquences et engager une riposte

The deleterious consequences of “predatory” journals are numerous, whether the researcher submitted his work to them naively or knowingly: work little or not read by the international community in the absence of indexing and disappearance of any digital trace in the absence of archiving. The reputation of researchers but also of universities and research organizations and the credit of science for citizens can be sustainably damaged. These open access journals, with the author who pays as model, represent as many resources unavailable for legitimate journals. A joint mobilization of all the actors involved is necessary: researchers, universities and faculties of medicine, sections of the national university council, publishers of legitimate journals, research organizations, learned societies, ethics committees, funders, media and political decision-makers. Publishing in a predatory journal is now a scientific misconduct.     

Research misconduct, retraction, and cleansing the medical literature: lessons from the Poehlman case

The scientific literature is a record of the search for truth. Publication of faked data diverts this search. The scientific community has a duty to warn people to ignore an article containing faked data and must try to prevent inadvertent citation of it. The scientific community accomplishes these tasks by publishing a retraction and linking it to the fraudulent article's citation in electronic indexes of the medical literature, such as PubMed. This mechanism is far from perfect, as shown by a case history of scientific fraud perpetrated by Eric Poehlman, PhD. His institution notified 3 journals that they had published tainted articles. Two journals failed to retract. The third journal retracted immediately, but other authors continued to cite the retracted article. Another duty of the scientific community is to verify the integrity of other articles published by the author of a fraudulent article. This task falls to the author's institution and requires coauthors to vouch for their article's integrity by convincing institutional investigators that the suspect author could not have altered the raw scientific data from their study. Two universities are currently investigating Poehlman's published research. Maintaining the integrity of the scientific literature requires governmental institutions that have the authority to investigate and punish guilty scientists and requires that research institutions investigate alleged fraud. It requires journal editors to issue a retraction when they learn that their journal has published a tainted article. It requires research institutions to accept their responsibility to investigate every article published by a scientist who has published even 1 fraudulent article. Finally, it requires authors to take pains to avoid citing retracted articles and to issue a correction when they inadvertently cite a retracted article.     

Information assimilation and distribution challenges and goals for real and virtual journals

The distribution of biomedical information was transfigured over three centuries ago with the introduction of scientific journals. This enabled the widespread dissemination of data to global audiences and greatly facilitated not only the advance of science but amplified the interaction between investigators despite their different locations. This process continued to expand in a linear fashion prior to the emergence of the Internet. The latter system has prompted a phenomenal augmentation of information accessibility, and its ever-expanding use has resulted in an exponential increase in the demand for digital technology and online resources. This technology has achieved unprecedented acceptance in the scientific domain and enabled publishers to expeditiously produce and distribute journal contents online. Such unparalleled access to information has sparked incendiary debate within the scientific community and among journal publishers in regard to numerous issues. It is thus much debated as to who has the right to "own" or control intellectual property, whether information should be made freely available to the online global community, how to gauge the legitimacy and authenticity of published research, and the need to reexamine the feasibility and profitability of paper journals in consideration of the digital, online formats that continue to gain popularity. To assess the current status of the situation, a meeting of journal editors, research scientists, and publishing executives was held in Constance, Germany, on June 26, 2004, to discuss these issues and formulate strategies and recommendations for the future of biomedical publishing. Herewith we provide a summation (manifesto) of the meeting's proceedings and provide a consensus opinion with the aim of illuminating the subject and also proposing some putative solutions for the major challenges that currently confront the scientific and publishing community.     

Beyond the Ingelfinger Rule: the intellectual property ethics after the end of biomedical journals' monopoly

According to the so-called Ingelfinger Rule (IR), biomedical journals do not accept for publication papers which have already been publicized elsewhere. This rule was subjected to fierce criticism which was mainly based on the fact that authors transfer the intellectual rights of their work to the journals. With the emergence of the Internet, the scientific community has a golden opportunity to re-evaluate the IR concept. Scientists no longer have to depend on the debatable benefits (i.e. publicity and review) stemming from journal publications; rather they can be free to explore novel communication opportunities and, subsequently, to tackle the emerging intellectual property issues. This approach should take into account the tight bond between applied research and the world economy, the need for teamwork instead of individual effort for effective scientific research, and the added value of journal publications. Based on such an analysis, it would appear that the inherent characteristics of the Internet promote a re-assessment of the intellectual property theory on three levels: the cognitive (the way in which knowledge is made up from its building blocks), the morphological (the use of hypertext) and finally the sociological (the formation of virtual scientific communities). It is concluded that publishing on the Internet necessitates a different approach to the question of intellectual property based on the primal values of science. This can be achieved only if the scientific community embraces and nourishes the academic nature of the Internet as well as laying down the rules to control the dissemination of ideas without the intervention of non-scientific third parties.     

Article and journal impact factor in various scientific fields

BackgroundWe tried to provide the scientific community with data to answer the following simple question: What proportion of publications in the various scientific fields is published in journals with impact factor above the median and mean values of the distribution of journal impact factor?MethodsWe analyzed and compared the distribution of the impact factor data reduced to the unit of science publication, the article. We calculated the proportion of articles published in journals with impact factor above the journal mean impact factor, journal median impact factor, and article mean impact.ResultsFor all categories examined, at the article level, the mean impact factor was higher than the median (by 13.7% to 500% for the various scientific categories). The mean impact factor of journals was considerably lower than the mean impact factor of articles (by 0.3 to 6.4 units). The proportion of articles that were published in journals with impact factor above the journals’ median impact factor was well above 50% in 17 of 19 scientific fields examined (all except mathematics and computer science).SignificanceOur analysis shows that in most scientific fields examined, it is quite easier to publish an article in the top 50% of journals (based on impact factor calculations) than it is for the article to be included in the top 50% of published articles (based on the assumption made regarding the article’ impact factor).     

A common standard for conflict of interest disclosure in addiction journals

This paper presents a common standard for conflict of interest disclosure. The common standard was drafted by the authors, following consultation with a multi-disciplinary group of journal editors, publishers, bioethicists and other academics. It is presented here for the benefit of authors, editorial managers, journal editors and peer reviewers to stimulate discussion and to provide guidance to authors in reporting real, apparent and potential conflicts of interest. It is particularly relevant to addiction specialty journals because of the potential conflicts of interest associated with funding from the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical and gambling industries. Following an appropriate period of vetting the common standard within the scientific community, it is recommended that journal editors adopt journal policies and reporting procedures that are consistent across journals.     

Funding source and conflict of interest disclosures by authors and editors in gastroenterology specialty journals

INTRODUCTION: Declarations of conflicts of interest have received considerable scrutiny in recent years. AIM: To determine if the leading gastroenterology journals had a formal conflict of interest disclosure policy and the extent to which this policy was followed by reporting of funding sources and potential conflicts of interests of the authors and editors of published studies. METHODS: We examined original articles and editorials in 12 leading journals (determined by impact factor) devoted to gastroenterology and hepatology. We examined the editorial policy of the journal (if available) on the Web site of the journal or in print versions of the journal and contacted the journal for further information on editorial policies. RESULTS: A total of 1,114 original articles and 154 editorials were evaluated from 12 journals. The source of funding for a study was disclosed in 19-99% of the articles examined with only one journal reporting the funding source (or absence of funding) in over 90% of articles studied. A potential conflict of interest was present in 0-13% of original articles and 0-33% of editorials. Only 2 of 12 (17%) journals publicly disclosed the conflicts of interest of the editors to the reader and only 3 (25%) had a formal method for handling editors' conflicts of interest. CONCLUSIONS: Editors of gastroenterology and hepatology journals have been slow to implement guidelines for the disclosure of their own conflicts of interest. Disclosure of funding sources and conflicts of interest of authors is variable despite the presence of conflict of interest policies at most journals.     

American Diabetes Association – http://www.diabetes.org

Scientific journals traditionally feature book reviews. Books are, after all, the traditional vehicle for collating, referencing and disseminating knowledge. While this remains essentially true, the advent of the internet as a widely used resource has radically modified the manner in which we seek, access and use information. It seemed only fitting for a journal born in the midst of the information revolution to draw attention to these new sources. Some of the sites reviewed will already be known to you, but perhaps their content will be less well known. This regular feature of the journal is intended to help you discover new sites of interest, but also to provide a rapid and convenient means of revealing what you always knew was there but never had the time or inclination to look at. Finally, if you have any information about sites you think are worthy of being more widely known, the editor would be pleased to hear from you at diabetes@wiley.co.uk     

A Changing Landscape in Cardiovascular Research Publication Output: Bridging the Translational Gap

The concern about predominance of basic discovery research and lack of translation into clinical medicine, and segregation between these research communities, led the authors to study these research communities through mapping networks of publications and cross-references. Cardiovascular research from 1993 to 2013 was published in 565 journals, including 104 new journals. Only 50% were published in core cardiovascular journals, such as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, whereas one-half of cardiovascular publications were found in broader biomedical/multidisciplinary journals. The growth of the clinical journal community and merging into one broad journal community suggests a decreasing dichotomy between basic/preclinical and clinical research, potentially contributing to bridging the translational gap.     

Indexes for the evaluation of scientific publications: what they are and what they are used for]

Today, medicine lives the paradigm of Evidence-Based Medicine, which integrates the most recent discoveries of Research in day-to-day Clinical Practice. Simultaneously, there is an exponential growth in biomedical scientific knowledge, and, with it, of the number of scientific papers and biomedical journals. Currently, the assessment of the quality of biomedical scientific information is based on the peer review method, which also has different types of bias. In this setting, quantitative indexes are increasingly being used to assess it. Three of these indexes are the quotation rate, the impact factor and the Immediacy Index that, despite their objectivity, have several limitations. The impact factor, which is a valid tool to estimate the quality of a scientific journal, is not suited to evaluate single articles, scientists or research groups. In these cases, the best methodology is quotation analysis. No method, however, can replace the individual reading and study of the contents of the scientific work. Of the new potentialities of biomedical information, the possibility of discussing scientific articles before their publication is particularly promising. With this purpose, the netprints servers, which are new sites on the Internet, were created. Other sites where we can have access to databases with summaries of guidelines have also been created in an attempt to reduce the gap between research and clinical practice.     

《中华心律失常学杂志》2003年至2006年载文被引文分析

目的 分析<中华心律失常学杂志>2003至2006年载文被引情况,评价该期刊的学术水平和载文质量.方法 依据中国知识资源总库(China national knowledge interact,CNKI)的中国引文数据库,以"中华心律失常学杂志"作为"被引文献来源"进行检索,利用文献计量学和引文分析法对总被引频次、自被引率、被引时差、关联期刊等进行分析.结果 该刊2003至2006年共载文576篇,311篇共被引用1020次,单篇平均被引频次为3.28次.引证文献分布在211种期刊以及31所大学院校的研究生论文.引用该刊文献10次以上的期刊共14种,占总被引频次的39.90%.结论 该刊载文质量较高,引证来源较广,载文的连贯性和稳定性好,是学术水平较高的专业期刊.     

Medline-based bibliometric analysis of gastroenterology journals between 2001 and 2007

AIM： To analyze the MEDLINE-indexed publications in gastroenterology specialty journals from 2001 to 2007. Special attention was paid to specific types of articles, the number of publications for individual authors and the author count in each journal.
METHODS： The bibliographic entries of papers belonging to journals listed under the subject heading of＂gastroenterology＂ were downloaded from MEDLINE on the PubMed web site. The analysis was limited to journal articles published between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2007. The analytical dimensions of an article included journal, publication year, publication type, and author name （the last name and initials）.
RESULTS： According to MEDLINE, 81561 articles were published in 91 gastroenterology journals from 2001 to 2007. The number of articles increased from 9447 in 2001 to 13340 in 2007. Only 12 journals had more than 2000 articles indexed in MEDLINE. The ＂World Journal of Gastroenterology＇ had the largest number of publications （5684 articles）, followed by ＂Hepato-Gastroenterology＇ （3036） and ＂Gastrointestinal Endoscopy＂ （3005）. Of all the articles published, reviews accounted for 17.2% and case reports for 15.4%. Only 3739 randomized controlled trials （4.6% of all articles） were published and their annual number increased from 442 in 2001 to 572 in 2007. Among 141741 author names appearing in the articles of gastroenterology journals, 92429 had published only in one journal, 22585 in two journals, 9996 in three journals, and 16731 in more than three journals. The ＂World Journal of Gastroenterology＂ had the greatest number of authors （17838）,followed by ＂Gastroenterology＂ （12 770）, ＂Digestive Diseases and Sciences＂ （11395）, ＂American Journal of Gastroenterology＂ （10889）, and ＂Hepatology＂ （ 10 588）.
CONCLUSION： Global gastroenterology publications displayed a continuous growth in the new millennium. The change was most striking in certain journals. Regular bibliometric analyses on the trends and specific topics would help researchers publish more efficiently and allow editors to adjust the policy more accurately.