[Predatory journals: What are they and how to avoid them?] / Las revistas depredadoras: ¿qué son y cómo evitarlas?

Currently, a large number of predatory journals have proliferated. Their purpose is to obtain fraudulent profits by promising the rapid publication of scientific works, without fulfilling the services of quality review. These publishers have managed to copy the models of open access journals, which is why they are increasingly difficult to identify, coupled with the fact that many of them have opened spaces in the most important indexes of scientific journals, such as Medline, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Embase, among others. These publishers cheat not only the authors of the research they intend to publish but also the readers and general public with publications that have not been reviewed and evaluated properly by a system of peers or academic experts. Therefore, the aim of this work is to make known some of the most common practices of predatory journals, so that anyone interested in the editorial process, whether as an author, editor or reader, has the elements to identify these fraudulent journals, and this bad practice in the editorial process.

Actualmente han proliferado una gran cantidad de revistas depredadoras, cuyo fin es obtener ganancias fraudulentas mediante la promesa de la publicación rápida de trabajos científicos, sin cumplir con los servicios de una revisión de calidad. Estas editoriales han logrado copiar los modelos de las revistas con acceso abierto, por lo que cada vez son más difíciles de identificar, aunado a que muchas de ellas se han abierto espacios en los índices más importantes de las revistas científicas, como Medline, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Embase, entre otros. Estas editoriales defraudan no solo a los autores de las investigaciones que intentan publicar sino también a los lectores y al público en general con publicaciones que no han sido debidamente revisadas y evaluadas por un sistema de pares o expertos académicos. Por lo tanto, el objetivo de este trabajo es dar a conocer algunas de las prácticas más comunes de las revistas depredadoras para que toda persona interesada en el proceso editorial, ya sea como autor, editor o lector, tenga los elementos para identificar estas revistas fraudulentas y esta mala práctica en el proceso editorial.

Practical guide to writing cover letters and response letters for scientific journals.

Communicating with scientific journals is a central part of the publication process, yet sparsely covered in the medical literature. A cover letter to the editor(s) should always accompany new submissions, whereas response (or rebuttal) letters relate to revisions and replying to referees' comments following peer review. This review describes the two types of letters, focusing on content, style, and structure, and provides helpful tips for handling challenging reviewer scenarios.

CAse-BAsed REview sTandards (CABARET): Considerations for Authors, Reviewers, and Editors.

The publication landscape for case reports has undergone a significant shift, with many high-impact journals deprioritizing or ceasing their publication altogether. This trend has led to the emergence of case-based reviews as an alternative to traditional case reports. Several factors drive this shift. Case-based reviews offer a more comprehensive synthesis of the literature compared to single case reports. They employ systematic search methodologies, reducing the risk of excluding relevant data, and providing robust evidence. From a publisher's perspective, case-based reviews have a greater potential for citation. While recommendations exist for writing traditional case reports, such as the CAse REports (CARE) guidelines, there is a lack of published recommendations for composing case-based reviews. This review aims to address this gap by providing guidance on drafting high-quality case-based reviews.

"Best Paper" awards lack transparency, inclusivity, and support for Open Science.

Awards can propel academic careers. They also reflect the culture and values of the scientific community. But do awards incentivize greater transparency, inclusivity, and openness in science? Our cross-disciplinary survey of 222 awards for the "best" journal articles across all 27 SCImago subject areas revealed that journals and learned societies administering such awards generally publish little detail on their procedures and criteria. Award descriptions were brief, rarely including contact details or information on the nominations pool. Nominations of underrepresented groups were not explicitly encouraged, and concepts that align with Open Science were almost absent from the assessment criteria. At the same time, 10% of awards, especially the recently established ones, tended to use article-level impact metrics. USA-affiliated researchers dominated the winner's pool (48%), while researchers from the Global South were uncommon (11%). Sixty-one percent of individual winners were men. Overall, Best Paper awards miss the global calls for greater transparency and equitable access to academic recognition. We provide concrete and implementable recommendations for scientific awards to improve the scientific recognition system and incentives for better scientific practice.

Structured peer review: pilot results from 23 Elsevier journals.

Background: Reviewers rarely comment on the same aspects of a manuscript, making it difficult to properly assess manuscripts' quality and the quality of the peer review process. The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate structured peer review implementation by: 1) exploring whether and how reviewers answered structured peer review questions, 2) analysing reviewer agreement, 3) comparing that agreement to agreement before implementation of structured peer review, and 4) further enhancing the piloted set of structured peer review questions. Methods: Structured peer review consisting of nine questions was piloted in August 2022 in 220 Elsevier journals. We randomly selected 10% of these journals across all fields and IF quartiles and included manuscripts that received two review reports in the first 2 months of the pilot, leaving us with 107 manuscripts belonging to 23 journals. Eight questions had open-ended fields, while the ninth question (on language editing) had only a yes/no option. The reviews could also leave Comments-to-Author and Comments-to-Editor. Answers were independently analysed by two raters, using qualitative methods. Results: Almost all the reviewers (n = 196, 92%) provided answers to all questions even though these questions were not mandatory in the system. The longest answer (Md 27 words, IQR 11 to 68) was for reporting methods with sufficient details for replicability or reproducibility. The reviewers had the highest (partial) agreement (of 72%) for assessing the flow and structure of the manuscript, and the lowest (of 53%) for assessing whether interpretation of the results was supported by data, and for assessing whether the statistical analyses were appropriate and reported in sufficient detail (52%). Two thirds of the reviewers (n = 145, 68%) filled out the Comments-to-Author section, of which 105 (49%) resembled traditional peer review reports. These reports contained a Md of 4 (IQR 3 to 5) topics covered by the structured questions. Absolute agreement regarding final recommendations (exact match of recommendation choice) was 41%, which was higher than what those journals had in the period from 2019 to 2021 (31% agreement, P = 0.0275). Conclusions: Our preliminary results indicate that reviewers successfully adapted to the new review format, and that they covered more topics than in their traditional reports. Individual question analysis indicated the greatest disagreement regarding the interpretation of the results and the conducting and the reporting of statistical analyses. While structured peer review did lead to improvement in reviewer final recommendation agreements, this was not a randomized trial, and further studies should be performed to corroborate this. Further research is also needed to determine whether structured peer review leads to greater knowledge transfer or better improvement of manuscripts.

Research integrity in Instructions for Authors in Japanese medical journals using ICMJE Recommendations: A descriptive literature study.

BACKGROUND: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has published Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. These provide a global standard for writing and editing medical articles, including research integrity. However, no study has examined the research integrity-related content of Japanese medical journals' Instructions for Authors. We therefore compared research integrity content in ICMJE member journals with those in the English- and Japanese-language journals of the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences (JAMS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a descriptive literature study. We obtained Instructions for Authors from English- and Japanese-language journals listed on the JAMS website and the ICMJE member journals listed on the ICMJE website as of September 1, 2021. We compared the presence of 20 topics (19 in the ICMJE Recommendations plus compliance with ICMJE) in the Instructions for Authors, and analyzed the content of the conflict of interest disclosure. RESULTS: We evaluated 12 ICMJE member journals, and 82 English-language and 99 Japanese-language subcommittee journals. The median number of topics covered was 10.5 for ICMJE member journals, 10 for English-language journals, and three for Japanese-language journals. Compliance with ICMJE was mentioned by 10 (83%) ICMJE member journals, 75 (91%) English-language journals, and 29 (29%) Japanese-language journals. The ICMJE Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Form was requested by seven (64%) ICMJE member journals, 15 (18%) English-language journals, and one (1%) Japanese-language journal. CONCLUSIONS: Although the topics in the JAMS English-language journals resembled those in the ICMJE member journals, the median value of ICMJE-related topic inclusion was approximately one-third lower in JAMS Japanese-language journals than in ICMJE member journals. It is hoped that Japanese-language journals whose conflict of interest disclosure policies differ from ICMJE standards will adopt international standards to deter misconduct and ensure publication quality.

[Scientific, transparent and applicable rankings of Chinese pathological guidelines and consensus published in the medical journals in 2022].

The STAR tool was used to evaluate and analyze the science, transparency, and applicability of Chinese pathology guidelines and consensus published in medical journals in 2022. There were a total of 18 pathology guidelines and consensuses published in 2022, including 1 guideline and 17 consensuses. The results showed that the guideline score was 21.83 points, lower than the overall guideline average (43.4 points). Consensus ratings scored an average of 27.87 points, on par with the overall consensus level (28.3 points). Areas that scored above the overall level were "conflict of interest" and "working groups", while areas that scored below the overall level were "proposals", "funding", "evidence", "consensus approaches" and "accessibility". To sum up, the formulation of pathology guidelines and consensuses in 2022 is not standardized, and the evidence retrieval process, evidence evaluation methods and grading criteria for recommendations on clinical issues are not provided in the formulation process; the process and method for reaching consensus are not provided, the plan is lacking, and registration is not carried out. It is therefore suggested that guidelines/consensus makers in the field of pathology should attach importance to evidence-based medical evidence, strictly follow guideline formulation methods and processes, further improve the scientific, applicable and transparent guidelines/consensuses in the field, and better provide support for clinicians and patients.

[How to: correctly read scientific articles : Research design and methodology]. / How to: einen wissenschaftlichen Artikel richtig lesen : Forschungsdesign und Methodik.

Criteria for assessment of the significance of scientific articles are presented. The focus is on research design and methodology, illustrated by the classical study on prehospital volume treatment of severely injured individuals with penetrating torso injuries by Bickell et al. (1994). A well-thought out research design is crucial for the success of a scientific study and is documented in a study protocol beforehand. A hypothesis is a provisional explanation or prediction and must be testable, falsifiable, precise, and relevant. There are various types of randomization methods, with the randomized controlled trial being the gold standard for clinical interventional studies. When reading a scientific article it is important to verify whether the research design and setting align with the research question and whether potential sources of error have been considered and controlled. Critical scrutiny should also be applied to references, the funding and expertise of the researchers.

Variability of Guidelines and Disclosures for AI-Generated Content in Top Surgical Journals.

Background: When properly utilized, artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC) may improve virtually every aspect of research, from data gathering to synthesis. Nevertheless, when used inappropriately, the use of AIGC may lead to the dissemination of inaccurate information and introduce potential ethical concerns.Research Design: Cross-sectional. Study Sample: 65 top surgical journals. Data Collection: Each journals submission guidelines and portal was queried for guidelines regarding AIGC use.Results: We found that, in July 2023, 60% of the top 65 surgical journals had introduced guidelines for use, with more surgical journals (68%) introducing guidelines than surgical subspecialty journals (52.5%), including otolaryngology (40%). Furthermore, of the 39 with guidelines, only 69.2% gave specific use guidelines. No included journal, at the time of analysis, explicitly disallowed AIGC use.Conclusions: Altogether, this data suggests that while many journals have quickly reacted to AIGC usage, the quality of such guidelines is still variable. This should be pre-emptively addressed within academia.

Publish and perish: New issues in publication ethics.

The expression "Publish or perish," first appeared in 1942. It signified the rising importance of publication as a means to obtain research funds and establish a secure academic career. The expression is still highly relevant, but increasingly problematic. Perhaps it should be revised to read "Publish and Perish". We have reached a point where researchers, especially in non-English speaking countries, are no longer able to afford to publish their research. There seems little point in undertaking research if we can no longer disseminate or, indeed, apply the wisdom gained from it.