WAME Grant Writing and Online Syllabus

As you may know, now that WAME is incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, we are eligible to apply for grant money to fund our activities. Our first project is to develop and make available without charge an on-line training course for medical journal editors, especially editors of smaller, more regional journals in developing countries.

The first step in applying for grant money is to develop a concept paper that clearly identifies the need for this training. To that end, we need to collect the arguments, and possibly data, about how such training would benefit the journal, the journal's readers, the patients served by the journal's readers, and so on.

The purpose of this e-mail is to ask you to send me any ideas you have on this topic. Although it is important to know that medical journal editors want such training, the fact they want it is not enough. We have to make the case that this training is needed to 1) solve an important problem or 2) take advantage of new opportunities to improve existing circumstances.   

Also, if any of you would like to serve on the committee that will write the concept paper and eventual proposal, please let me know.

As always, thank you for your time and consideration.

Tom Lang
Treasurer, WAME Board of Directors
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In writing such a grant proposal, may I tentatively suggest we question our use of phrases like “editors of smaller, more regional journals in developing countries.”

I think there’s no need to polarize so much.

In her first posting, Valerie Matarese made the very good point that some countries do not consider themselves to be on any sort of “periphery,” and some of them are far from “developing.” In my experience, editors in those countries assume that advice couched in such terms isn’t directed at them. They turn a deaf ear. Yet editorial practices that are associated with less-than-satisfactory standing are rampant in their journals (Matarese 2007). We need to keep their attention.

Mary Ellen Kerans
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I am Associate Editor of the Journal of Infection in Developing Countries (JIDC) http://www.jidc.org/ and I would like to let you and the WAME Board of Directors know I am very happy about the online training course for medical journal editors. I think it is very significant to editors of smaller and regional journals in developing countries. It would be really wonderful to have this course with the close support and guidance of WAME. The expertise of the more experienced WAME members in the goals, development and implementation of this interesting course will be greatly appreciated.

I believe one of the arguments in the concept paper would be the lack of proper expertise and knowledge of editors from small/regional journals in developing countries on current editorial policies and ethical issues. This training will benefit enormously the journal editorial work, improve the communication of medical research by developing countries investigators and eventually will have an impact in patients’ assistance.

The training of local/regional editors is relevant if we take into consideration local authors very often start publishing in these local/regional journals. If authors interact with well carried-out editorial work, it will be more likely their research work would be improved and eventually publish in high impact journals in the future. In this context, I quote Meneghini et al. Plos One 2008 that describes articles by Latin-American authors tend to be under-cited in high impact journals.

Regarding the concept paper writing, I would be pleased to serve in the WAME committee that will write the paper and the eventual grant proposal to apply for funding this wonderful WAME initiative.

Looking forward to hear from you very soon.

Daniel Limonta Velazquez
Associate Editor, Journal of Infection in Developing Countries
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I would like to suggest training on Web publishing. One of the major limiting factors to the sustainability of African journals is production and printing. The Web and online publishing, despite its own cost implications, at least offers a cheaper modality to printing and additionally allows for on-time publication, which is an important criteria for indexing in Medline. Some may perceive Web publishing in African settings unrealistic given poor access to computers and the Internet, but a lot of institutions (academic, research, medical, etc…) are fast catching up. A Web publishing course could provide information on the benefits of Web publishing, XML, Web development and management.

Muza Gondwe

Editor, Malawi Medical Journal
Managing Editor, TropIKA Reviews
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Could we be confusing two issues? I think that the determinants of a good journal (eg, editorial leadership, peer review, authorship, ethics, conflict of interest) are the same worldwide, whereas the challenges that a scientific community faces in producing quality reports vary enormously and depend on language, culture, financial resources... and even medical specialty.

If such a course is to focus on aspects of good editorial leadership, then it could be (should be) valuable to editors from all countries. This would fit in with the goals of truly "world" professional association.

I'm not sure if WAME could succeed in making one course that addresses the challenges faced by the different scientific communities: The individual editors will understand these challenges themselves.

Valerie Matarese
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Why doesn’t WAME strengthen, support, and concentrate on capacity-building globally as far as journalology is concerned? It should cover editorial leadership, peer review, authorship, ethics, conflict of interest, Web publishing and all other aspect so that we can be a "quality journal for all" like WHO is striving to achieve "Health for All". By this venture, many small journals like ours will be improved and a good research environment will prevail, which is of utmost importance for progress in medical science and the health status of the human race.

Sadhu Charan Panda
Editor, Journal of Community Medicine
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I believe the syllabus for the proposed training addresses most of the topics you mentioned.