Enhancing Partnerships of Institutions and Journals to Address Concerns About Research Misconduct: Recommendations From a Working Group of Institutional Research Integrity Officers and Journal Editors and Publishers.

Importance: Institutions and journals strive to promote and protect the integrity of the research record, and both groups are equally committed to ensuring the reliability of all published data. Observations: Three US universities coordinated a series of virtual meetings from June 2021 to March 2022 for a working group composed of senior, experienced US research integrity officers (RIOs), journal editors, and publishing staff who are familiar with managing issues of research integrity and publication ethics. The goal of the working group was to improve the collaboration and transparency between institutions and journals to ensure that research misconduct and publication ethics are managed properly and efficiently. Recommendations address the following: identifying proper contacts at institutions and journals, specifying information to share between institutions and journals, correcting the research record, reconsideration of some fundamental research misconduct concepts, and journal policy changes. The working group identified 3 key recommendations to be adopted and implemented to change the status quo for better collaboration between institutions and journals: (1) reconsideration and broadening of the interpretation by institutions of the need-to-know criteria in federal regulations (ie, confidential or sensitive information and data are not disclosed unless there is a need for an individual to know the facts to perform specific jobs or functions), (2) uncoupling the evaluation of the accuracy and validity of research data from the determination of culpability and intent of the individuals involved, and (3) initiating a widespread change for the policies of journals and publishers regarding the timing and appropriateness for contacting institutions, either before or concurrently under certain conditions, when contacting the authors. Conclusions and Relevance: The working group recommends specific changes to the status quo to enable effective communication between institutions and journals. Using confidentiality clauses and agreements to impede sharing does not benefit the scientific community nor the integrity of the research record. However, a careful and informed framework for improving communications and sharing information between institutions and journals can foster better working relationships, trust, transparency, and most importantly, faster resolution to data integrity issues, especially in published literature.

An international survey and modified Delphi process revealed editors' perceptions, training needs, and ratings of competency-related statements for the development of core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals.

Background: Scientific editors (i.e., those who make decisions on the content and policies of a journal) have a central role in the editorial process at biomedical journals. However, very little is known about the training needs of these editors or what competencies are required to perform effectively in this role. Methods: We conducted a survey of perceptions and training needs among scientific editors from major editorial organizations around the world, followed by a modified Delphi process in which we invited the same scientific editors to rate the importance of competency-related statements obtained from a previous scoping review. Results: A total of 148 participants completed the survey of perceptions and training needs. At least 80% of participants agreed on six of the 38 skill and expertise-related statements presented to them as being important or very important to their role as scientific editors. At least 80% agreed on three of the 38 statements as necessary skills they perceived themselves as possessing (well or very well).  The top five items on participants' list of top training needs were training in statistics, research methods, publication ethics, recruiting and dealing with peer reviewers, and indexing of journals. The three rounds of the Delphi were completed by 83, 83, and 73 participants, respectively, which ultimately produced a list of 23 "highly rated" competency-related statements and another 86 "included" items. Conclusion: Both the survey and the modified Delphi process will be critical for understanding knowledge and training gaps among scientific editors when designing curriculum around core competencies in the future.

Core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals: consensus statement.

BACKGROUND: Scientific editors are responsible for deciding which articles to publish in their journals. However, we have not found documentation of their required knowledge, skills, and characteristics, or the existence of any formal core competencies for this role. METHODS: We describe the development of a minimum set of core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals. RESULTS: The 14 key core competencies are divided into three major areas, and each competency has a list of associated elements or descriptions of more specific knowledge, skills, and characteristics that contribute to its fulfillment. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that these core competencies are a baseline of the knowledge, skills, and characteristics needed to perform competently the duties of a scientific editor at a biomedical journal.

A scoping review of competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals.

BACKGROUND: Biomedical journals are the main route for disseminating the results of health-related research. Despite this, their editors operate largely without formal training or certification. To our knowledge, no body of literature systematically identifying core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals exists. Therefore, we aimed to conduct a scoping review to determine what is known on the competency requirements for scientific editors of biomedical journals. METHODS: We searched the MEDLINE®, Cochrane Library, Embase®, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and ERIC databases (from inception to November 2014) and conducted a grey literature search for research and non-research articles with competency-related statements (i.e. competencies, knowledge, skills, behaviors, and tasks) pertaining to the role of scientific editors of peer-reviewed health-related journals. We also conducted an environmental scan, searched the results of a previous environmental scan, and searched the websites of existing networks, major biomedical journal publishers, and organizations that offer resources for editors. RESULTS: A total of 225 full-text publications were included, 25 of which were research articles. We extracted a total of 1,566 statements possibly related to core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals from these publications. We then collated overlapping or duplicate statements which produced a list of 203 unique statements. Finally, we grouped these statements into seven emergent themes: (1) dealing with authors, (2) dealing with peer reviewers, (3) journal publishing, (4) journal promotion, (5) editing, (6) ethics and integrity, and (7) qualities and characteristics of editors. DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this scoping review is the first attempt to systematically identify possible competencies of editors. Limitations are that (1) we may not have captured all aspects of a biomedical editor's work in our searches, (2) removing redundant and overlapping items may have led to the elimination of some nuances between items, (3) restricting to certain databases, and only French and English publications, may have excluded relevant publications, and (4) some statements may not necessarily be competencies. CONCLUSION: This scoping review is the first step of a program to develop a minimum set of core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals which will be followed by a training needs assessment, a Delphi exercise, and a consensus meeting.