Supplementary written evidence submitted
by BioMed Central (PR 74a)
"What training does BioMed Central
provide for its editors and how often is this refreshed?"
TRAINING OF
EDITORS AT
BIOMED
CENTRAL
In-house professional editorial staff who make decisions
on manuscripts, including the Editors responsible for BMC Biology,
BMC Medicine, Genome Biology and Genome Medicine, are trained
as scientists or clinicians, usually educated to PhD or MD level,
and have extensive editorial experience with decision-making on
peer-reviewed content. They work closely with editorial boards
and leading scientists across various biomedical disciplines in
order to stay abreast with key scientific developments and initiatives
that might affect editorial policies, including for example data
deposition policies. Junior editors on those teams are trained
and closely supervised by experienced colleagues on an ongoing
basis; decisions on manuscripts on the basis of referees' advice
usually involve several members of the team.
BioMed Central's academic Editors-in-Chief usually
have had previous editorial experience with other journals before
they are recruited to lead a journal within the so-called independent
journal portfolio; some might have been editors of their journals
for some time before they were transferred to BioMed Central from
another publisher. Training for academic editors is provided in
the form of extensive written guidelines detailing basic steps
and criteria that need to be applied in order to ensure a thorough
peer-review process (see www.biomedcentral.com/independent/develop/peerreview
for a general overview of basic criteria), as well as various
documents illustrating BioMed Central's editorial policies. These
documents are continuously updated, and changes in editorial policies
or the availability of new guidelines, such as those developed
by the Committee of Publication Ethics, of which BioMed Central
is an active member, are communicated regularly to external editors
via their contacts within the in-house editorial teams. The in-house
editorial staff also support and advise external editors on specific
issues, such as ethical concerns, arising during the peer review.
An annual conference for external editors offers presentations
and workshops that provide further training; presentations and
training material developed at this conference are made available
to all editors after the conference.
Dr Michaela Torkar
Editorial Director
BioMed Central
June 2011
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