How and why eLife selects papers for peer review.

When deciding which submissions should be peer reviewed, eLife editors consider whether they will be able to find high-quality reviewers, and whether the reviews will be valuable to the scientific community.

Ethical requirements of instructions for authors of complementary and alternative medicine journals: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Medical research in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has increased recently, raising ethical concerns about the moral status of CAM. Medical academic journals are responsible for conducting ethical review (ER) of manuscripts to protect the interests of human subjects and to make ethical results available before deciding to publish. However, there has been no systematic analysis of the ER in CAM journals. This study is aim to evaluate the current status of ethical requirements and compliance in CAM journals. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. We reviewed instructions for authors (IFAs) of CAM journals included in the Journal Citation Reports (2021) ( https://jcr.clarivate.com ) for general information and requirements for ER. We also browsed the manuscripts regarding randomized controlled trials published by CAM journals in Q1 and Q2 section from January to June, 2023, to check the actual situation of ethical requirement. Descriptive statistics and Fisher's exact test were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: 27 journals and 68 manuscripts were ultimately included. 92.6% (25/27) IFAs included keywords of ER, indicating the presence of ethical considerations. However, no specific ER was required for CAM (n = 0). We categorized journals by Geographic origin, JCR section, Year of electronic JCR, Types of studies, % of OA Gold to explore the factors that could influence CAM journals to have certain ethical review policies. The results showed there was no statistical significance in certain ethical review policy in any classification of journals (p > 0.05). All RCT manuscripts included in the study generally met the requirements of the published journals for ethical review. CONCLUSIONS: All IFAs discussed ER, but the content was scattered, unfocused, and there were no specific ER requirements regarding CAM. Although the manuscripts basically met the requirements of the journal, it was not possible to get closer to the process of ER in the manuscript. To ensure full implementation of these policies in the future, CAM journals should require authors to provide more details, or to form a list of items necessary for CAM ethical review.

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.