1 African Journal Partnership Project/AJPP
Regional Workshop on Journal Management Venue: Harmony Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Date: 03-04Oct. 2013
Participants
1. Prof. Yemane Berhane (Presenter), Ethiopian Journal of Health Development
2. Prof. Abrahem Hailamlak (Organizer, Presenter), Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 3. Mr. Tekle Ferede (facilitator), Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences
4. Prof. Edwin/Frank, Ghana Medical Journal
5. Dr. Sunkutu/Wezi Ppatrick Mutale, Medical Journal of Zambia 6. Prof. Kayembe/Ntimba, Annales Africaines De Medicine
7. Dr. George/Tomashi Re Anita Yeheusi, Serra Leone Journal of Biomedical Research 8. Prof.Bandawe/Chiwoza Rutendo, Malawi Medical Journal
9. Dr. Dejene Girma, Ethiopian Journal of Law
10. Mr. Wudu Melese, Ethiopian Journal of Education and Science
11. Dr. Debela Hunde, Ethiopian Journals of Agriculture Sciences and Technology 12. Mr. Tariku Belay, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences
13. Dr. Tsedeke Asaminew, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 14. Dr. Demisew Amenu, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 15. Dr.Seid Tiku, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences
16. Mr. Fikadu Balcha, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 17. Dr. Seifu Alemu, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 18. Mr. Eyu’el Gessese, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 19. Mr. Zewdie Berhanu, Ethiopian journal of Health Sciences 20. Prof. Ahmed Ali, Ethiopian journal of Health Development 21. Dr. Fikre Enquselassie, Ethiopian Medical Journal
2
Agenda
1. Plenary
2. How to Start a Journal
3. Scientific Journals and Roles and Stakeholders
4. How to Make a Journal Better?
5. Publication Ethics
6. Online Systems for Increased Journal Visibility
7. Assessment and Reflections
1. Plenary
The plenary session that started with the official opening of the workshop by Professor Abraham Hailamlak included the following activities. Firstly, participants were given chanceto get to know each other or reinforce acquaintances. Accordingly, each attendee self-introduced to others which helped establish a viable social atmosphere for the activities and discussions that went on later. The second plenary activity involved participants in expressing expectations they believed would be obtained from the workshop, and these were generally met in the end. These preliminary activities then led to the actual conduct of the workshop that began with a presentation on how to start a journal.
2. How to Start a Journal
On the first day of the workshop, the first presentation was made by Professor Yemane Berhane on how to start a journal. This presentation particularly focused on the need for establishing a new journal, essential pillars to be considered in launching a journal, decisions on the focus of the new journal, decisions on publication methods, issues of promotion/marketing and challenges in starting a new journal.
Regarding the why of a new journal, Professor Yemane emphasized that the need arises from the crucial roles a journal plays in providing a new and unique perspective to scholarly activities; granting scholarly recognition of the publishing institution; enhancing career development through participation in the creation and sharing of new ideas or knowledge; contributing to the economic and cultural development of countries; closing the “knowledge gap” between the well-funded and powerful voices from the north and the often-overlooked ideas, innovations and
3 discoveries from the south; enriching local research agenda and supporting the goals of research and academic institutions.
As emphasized in the presentation, whilst the above benefits justify the launching of a journal, they cannot be realizable unless the essential pillars of a journal are carefully thought of and established. These pillars include: 1) an effective editorial board which offers the journal with energy, enthusiasm and clear direction; ensures high-quality content; fosters dissemination of the journal to a wider audience; fastens inclusion of the journal in indexing services and builds funders confidence, 2) high caliber authors and dependable reviewers, and 3) sustainable financial models. Therefore, as Professor Yemane stressed, it is vital that these pillars are effectively established so that the would-be journal can be of high quality and sustainable.
Other decisions in planning to start a journal concern the focus and publication methods. Focus pertains to matters like broadly-focused (multidisciplinary) vs. narrowly-focused (discipline-specific), national vs. international coverage and association vs. university center of attention. It was thus empathized during the presentation that making reasoned decisions regarding the focus of the journal requires one to take account of readers, contributors (authors), reviewers and editors. On the other hand, publication methods include print publication, electronic publication or both. In this connection, the presenter underlined that decisions on the choice of publication methods must be taken by carefully analyzing the merits and limitations of each method. In addition, the choice of a method should be in tailored to the available resources.
In planning to start a journal, one has to envisage ways of promoting/marketing the journal in order to ensure wide readership through a successful dissemination. Therefore, as pointed out by the presenter, it is useful to know and choose from the mechanisms of increasing journal visibility which include:
a) Marketing: traditional advertising-announcing through list services, blogs,…, call for papers, adding link to the journal on hosting institution or agency’s website, marketing the journal’s site on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo;
b) Indexing: such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) or PubMed; c) Library links;
4 d) International Standard Serial Number: Think of obtaining ISSN that identifies your
journal;
e) Digital Object Identifiers: Plan acquiring standard identifiers for electronic publications; f) Impact Factor: Plan measuring impact factor and demonstrate growth.
Finally, Professor Yemane noted the need to consider the challenges that can be faced in the journal management process and to devise ways of minimizing their effects. These challenges include shortage of time, financial constraints, difficulties of finding the right, voluntary people (authors, reviewers, and editors), challenges of soliciting submissions from the best and brightest researchers, high cost of producing and distributing a print journal and lack of basic technological infrastructure-including internet connectivity for publishing and distributing electronic print.
Following Professor Yemane’s presentation, the participants raised thoughtful questions; added informative inputs and reflected on the major components of the presentation. This gave additional life to the session and could possibly have resulted in better understanding of the basics that one should take account of in setting out to start a new journal.
3. Scientific Journals and Roles of Stakeholders
The second presentation during the first day of the workshop was the one delivered by Professor Abraham Hailamlak on the theme of scientific journals and roles of stakeholders. Here, the presenter stressed the pivotal role scientific/scholarly journals play in the field of health sciences where up-to-date information is critically needed. He brought to focus that scholarly journals, the quickest peer-reviewed scholarly communication mechanisms published by scholarly publishers, play the role of making new knowledge/evidence available via scientific papers to a particular academic community. Having made this remark, Professor Abraham moved on to the roles of stakeholders where he discussed the functions and responsibilities of five parties: editors, reviewers, authors, subscribers/readers and publishers.
Likewise, it the presenter noted that editors have a key responsibility in the endeavors to boost the quality and reach of journals. Accordingly, as he maintained, editors should1) control the quality of contents, 2)assume accountability for everything published in their journals, 3) strive
5 for meeting the needs of readers and authors, 4) work diligently to constantly improve their journals, 5) implement procedures to assure the quality of the materials they publish, 6)champion freedom of expression, 7) prevent intentions from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, 8) always be willing to entertain corrections, clarifications, and retractions, 9)forward apologies when needed, and10) work for advancing knowledge in their fields, increasing visibility of their journals, creating prestigious journals, fostering the potential impact of the journals and obtaining trust and support of publishers.
Similarly, the role of peer reviewers was also emphasized in the presentation. Thus, the presenter noted that reviewers are expected to 1) filter what is published as “science”, 2)certify the legitimacy of manuscripts, 3) only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess timely, 4) respect the confidentiality of peer-review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, 5)avoid using information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to the disadvantage or discredit others, 6) declare all potential conflicting interests, 7)avoid allowing their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, the nationality or gender and other characteristics of the authors, religious or political beliefs as well as commercial considerations, 8) be objective and constructive in their reviews-refrain from being hostile or inflammatory, 9) provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a true representation of their expertise, 10) recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered as serious misconduct, and 11) be concerned with appropriateness of research methods, rigor of the interpretation of the data, and ethical standards of search procedures.
In his presentation, Professor Abraham also underscored the role of authors/scholars and subscribers/readers. That is, authors must a) submit original, carefully written, ethically sound and high quality manuscripts, b) present research results clearly and honestly, c) take collective responsibility for submitted and published works, d) explicitly and accurately state individuals’ contributions to the work and e) disclose funding sources and potential conflicts of interest. Subscribers/readers on their part play the role of purchasing journals and providing access to the scholars in their community. That is, they subscribe/purchase the most prestigious journals and make them available for readers (e.g. faculty or students).
6 In the final part of this presentation, the roles of publishers were taken up, and the presenter elaborated that these parties play the roles of a) promoting scientific communication, b) getting journals into the marketplace, c) promoting the publishing institution, d) communicating journal policies, e) reviewing journal policies periodically, f) maintaining the integrity of the academic record, g) assisting the parties responsible for the investigation of suspected research and publication misconduct and, where possible, facilitating the resolution of these cases, h) entertaining corrections, clarifications, and retractions, and i) publishing issues timely.
Like the first presentation, this one was also enriched through questions, answers, experience-sharing and reflections. It was with these the first day of the workshop was concluded.
4) How to Make a Journal Better
In the first session of the second day, Professor Yemane Berhane appeared with another presentation in which he discussed ways of improving a journal. As he explained, in order to make a journal better, the following components are vitally important:
• dedicated editorial board, competent authors, dependable reviewers and sustainable funding;
• improved relevance (high impact problems, timely information, quality research, new ideas/originality, increased visibility);
• editorial professionalism (impartial decisions, willingness to reconsider issues when appropriate, commitment to improve not only the quality of manuscripts but also the quality of research in the field, preparedness to deal with errors and allegations of misbehavior, efforts to maintain editorial independence and to ensure editorial freedom of authors, absence of undesirable relationships, i.e. personal, financial etc., the negatively affect editors’ responsibilities, and dedication for the future of the journal);
• strong mechanism of handling conflicts of interest;
• policy on duplicate publications (editorial decisions-automatic rejection or refusal of further submissions; informing other journals of the infringement committed);
• high quality papers (good number of submissions; improved performance of authors, reviewers, and editors-careful-selection, training, feedback, checklist/instructions, incentives); and
7 • strategic plan for sustainable funding, maintaining relevance, expanding reach and
improving quality.
Following the presentation, like in earlier presentations, questions, suggestions, concerns and reflections were entertained.
5) Online Systems for Increased Journal Visibility
The second presentation on the second day was on using online systems for enhancing journal visibility. This was delivered by Mr. Eyu’el Gessese who explained the benefits of Online Journal Management Systems (Uploading to Journals Management Systems, Open Source Solutions and Developing Special Purpose Websites),Web Forums, Search Engine Indexing Tools (Google Analytics, Yahoo Analytics and Bing Webmaster Tools), Social Medias (Facebook, Twitter, Google and LinkedIn) that help increase visibility of a journal in XML, HML, PDF or Podcast (Recorded Video Online) versions. Mr. Eyu’el also introduced the benefits of Search Engine Optimization which lets users track productivity of social engagement, helps measure the impact of mobile browsing, enables users to know the source of the traffic, the key word terms used to get a particular webpage, the demographic location of the traffic sources as well as the bounce rate, and allows for monitoring the performance of online advertisements. 6) Ethics of Peer Review
The last presentation that focused on ethics of peer review was conveyed by Professor Abraham. Here, Professor Abraham first gave brief explanations on the constraints in peer review that include slow reviewer action, conflicting views (confronting conflicting theory bias), personal views (objective vs. personal edits), fraud (data manipulation and invention), intrusion of chance, ineffective review, bias (geographical, language, institutional prestige, etc.). Then, he summarized the qualities expected of reviewers. Accordingly, peer reviewers need to:
• possess expertise in one or more areas, • make sound and objective judgments;
• critique effectively (accurate, clear, helpful to authors and editors); • be reliable in returning reviews within the allotted time frame;
8 • strictly follow review form, give comments to editors and provide feedback to authors
(general comments and/or specific recommendations);
• serve as a consultant to the journal and adhere to journal policy;
• work to maintain the standard of the journal and that of the field of study;
• support and encourage the publication of work in high quality and challenge flawed work;
• work hard to detect and deal with ethical flaws concerning human subjects;
• distinguish other pitfalls (e.g. duplicate publications; plagiarism; integrity of the data, analyses and conclusions) and deal with them appropriately;
• write accurate, clear, concise, informative and constructive comments in a collegial tone; • provide comments supported with citations to specific areas in the text of the paper; • keep a copy of the review until he/she is certain that the review has been received by the
journal and that the editor has no questions;
• destroy this copy and all working notes in a way that ensures confidentiality; and • continue confidentiality even after the review is complete.
7) Assessment and Reflection
Finally, while the workshop was drawing to a close, the participants were requested to express their evaluation of the workshop and reflect on their experiences of the two days. Following this, most of them articulated that the workshop was informative, wonderful, intellectually inspiring, practically alerting, interactive and successful. In addition, they put forward ideas for future considerations. The following are the main ones:
a) Collaboration among AJPP journals and between AJPP journals and other bodies needs to be enhanced.
b) A lot should be done to encourage African scholars to publish in AJPP journals. Thus, AJPP journals need to market themselves. It is also necessary to sensitize authors including students to publish in our journals.
c) Publication ethics must still be taken seriously.
9 e) We should strive to conduct similar workshops since doing so facilitates
experience-sharing and professional development.
This presentation was also followed by relevant questions, suggestions, concerns and reflections after which the official conclusion of the workshop was announced.
10 Fig. 2: Workshop assessment, reflections and parting shots
11
Financial Summary
The costs spent on the different facets of the workshop are described below (1-11): a. Local currency
No Expense Category Cost (ETB) Remarks
1 Air tickets for AJPP member participants 99,248
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18.
7224
ETB
2 Air tickets for non-AJPP participants 13878 3 Bus ticket for non-AJPP participants 403.90 4 Perdiem for non-AJPP participants 24,600
5 Cost for fuel 2050.20
6 Honorarium for presenters 20,000
7 Payment for facilitators and driver 10,000
8 Print service 16
9 Hotel expenses 154,783.70
10 Other costs (Expenses for purchasing printer tonners and speakers to equip the EJHS editorial office)
33,567.01
Total 358,546.81*
* Therefore, 358,546.81 ETB is equivalent to 19150.68634363116 USD b. Foreign currency
S. No
Expense category Days persons Unit cost (USD)
Total (USD)
1. Visa - 5 20 100
2. Per Diem 5 5 72 1800
3. Air ticket (reschedule) - - 169 169
4. Ground transport for 1
AJPP participant - - 80 80
Total 2149*
• The USD buying exchange rate during the workshop was 1 USD = 19.1042 ETB. Therefore the expense in local currency was 41,054.93 ETB
The total expense (a+b) for the workshop was 399601.74 ETB equivalent to 21, 363.4791 USD (taking the deposit time exchange rate 1 USD=18.7049 ETB)
References
Stranack K.Starting a New Scholarly Journal in Africa. Public Knowledge Project. 2008. pkp.sfu.ca/files/AfricaNewJournal.pdf
