© 2005 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
Special Report |
Learning from a Visit to the JNCI Editorial Office
1 Managing Editor of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2 Statistical Advisor of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology and 3 Biometric Research Section, Statistics and Cancer Control Division, Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, National Cancer Center, Tokyo, Japan
For reprints and all correspondence: Katsumi Hashimoto, Editorial Office of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan 104-0045. E-mail: kahashim{at}info.ncc.go.jp
Received January 25, 2005; accepted January 26, 2005
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INTRODUCTION |
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We, the Managing Editor and Statistical Advisor of the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology (JJCO), had a chance to visit the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) editorial office in Bethesda, Maryland, in the USA. As is generally known, JNCI is acclaimed as the source for the most up-to-date information in the field of cancer research. It is also the most-cited academic journal in oncology. Whilst there we took the opportunity to interview the Executive Editor, Dr Rebecca Chasan, and the Managing Editor, Mr Mark Leader (Fig. 1). They graciously spent more than 3 hours with us. As the information that they shared with us is highly valuable for both editorial staff and authors, we have summarized the major points from the interview and draw comparisons between JNCI and JJCO.
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OVERVIEW |
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JNCI is published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It is not affiliated with the United States National Cancer Institute (NCI), although originally JNCI was founded at NCI as a government publication. OUP took over ownership in 1997 mainly to develop an online version of the journal. JNCI accepts papers that give insight into mechanisms and processes involved in cancer prevention, development, screening, and treatment.
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REVIEW PROCESS |
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Figure 2(a) and (b) indicate the review process for initial submission of manuscripts for JNCI and JJCO. At both journals, the Editor-in-Chief rejects some manuscripts on initial submission, the remainder are forwarded to Associate Editors. The Associate Editors reject some manuscripts and send others to reviewers for peer review. Those which are peer-reviewed can be rejected or provisionally accepted, depending on the outcome of the peer review process. A notable difference between JNCI and JJCO is the existence of Senior Editors. Senior Editors do not exist at JJCO. The JNCI senior editors, all of whom have PhD degrees, are involved in the entire review process to help the Editor-in-Chief of JNCI, but their main function is to edit manuscripts to ensure that the presentation is as clear and logical as possible. They are concerned not only with scientific issues but also with the wording and presentation of the manuscript. As the journal's target audience is relatively broad, it is not necessary that the Senior Editors be medical doctors. Most have a background in molecular biology.
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ONLINE JOURNAL AND ONLINE SUBMISSION/REVIEW SYSTEM |
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JJCO is published in electronic form on the Internet. Full-text articles can be accessed through HighWire Press (http://jjco.oupjournals.org/). The online version of JNCI, JNCI Cancer Spectrum (http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/), contains not only the full content of the printed journal but also weekly updated news and useful cancer information including cancer statistics, drug information, and NCI's Physician Data Query (PDQ).
Recently, the number of medical journals that employ an online submission and peer review system has increased substantially. The online system reduces the time and correspondence expense required in the reviewing process. At JNCI an online submission and peer review system was launched in January 2004. Since the start of online submission, the number of submissions has increased by approximately 20%. The transition from conventional paper submission to online submission was very smooth, and JNCI now receives very few conventional submissions. At JJCO the online submission system started in 2003. The number of submissions has dramatically increased by 50% since the online system launched.
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COMMENTS FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR OF JJCO |
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I have been Managing Editor of JJCO for 3 years, which is my first experience as a journal editor. I have learned how to be a journal editor through trial and error and with the help of other more experienced staff; however, I have not had many opportunities to discuss editorial processes and difficulties. An interview with the editorial staff of a first-class scientific journal was a tremendous opportunity for me to assess the editorial process of JJCO. JNCI receives a much larger number of submissions than JJCO and the review process is much more complicated. Nonetheless, the editorial review process at JNCI runs smoothly without any noticeable bottlenecks. Overall, I found, through the interview, that the approach I took in managing JJCO was appropriate. For example, as is the case with JJCO, the editorial staff of JNCI emphasize the importance of receiving comments from assigned reviewers in a timely manner.
As mentioned above, the number of manuscripts submitted to JJCO has increased strikingly since online submission started, while the number of editorial staff has remained the same. The sudden growth in submissions has led to an increase in the volume of work that the editorial office has had to handle at various stages of the review process. One of the important tasks in the review process is the selection of reviewers. At JJCO, Associate Editors generally choose two reviewers from among 160 Editorial Board Members for each manuscript. This sharp rise in submissions has imposed a heavy burden on the Associate Editors and Editorial Board Members of JJCO. Therefore, the number of reviewers needs to be increased to reduce the burden. Also, a wide variety of experts' comments are important for the fair evaluation of manuscripts. JNCI has adopted an external reviewer system for peer review, and as they have a huge database of external reviewers, they are able to obtain a broad range of opinion. At JJCO we have decided to increase greatly the number of reviewers in order to improve the reviewing process. We expect to solve the workload problem to some extent in this way; however, a number of issues still remain to be considered.
The JNCI staff introduced us to a useful organization, the Council of Science Editors (CSE) (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/index.cfm) to help find ways to alleviate our problems and to improve our skills. Members of CSE include editors of many prestigious scientific journals such as JNCI, Lancet, Nature, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. CSE improves communication in science by educating authors and editors. Also, CSE promotes effective communication practices in publishing. On a personal level I have to engage in a special effort to improve my skills as an editor through communication and experience.
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COMMENTS FROM THE STATISTICAL ADVISOR OF JJCO |
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Editorial work on a scientific journal needs a very broad knowledge base. During our visit to the JNCI editorial office I asked the Executive Editor about the difficulties associated with dealing with broad areas of science. She stressed the importance of the participation of multidisciplinary reviewers and added that the requirement of a very broad knowledge base, by the Editor-in-Chief, about cancer research is important. This is refelected by the fact that the Editor-in-Chief, and a JNCI, Dr Barnett S. Kramer, is also the Editor-in-Chief, and a member of several PDQ editorial boards. One reason that the editorial office of JNCI works very effectively seems to be related to their system, which is established so as to directly implement the Editor-in-Chief's ideas.
Another point I was curious about is the role of the Senior Editor. Senior Editors play a very important role in the JNCI system. A similar function is used at Science and at the New England Journal of Medicine, though it is not very common at other journals, including JJCO. As noted above, the Senior Editor serves as a bridge between authors, reviewers, and other editors. The Senior Editor's role is not only administrative, but also scientific.
I'd like to introduce my experience with the Senior Editor when our paper was published in the JNCI (J Natl Cancer Inst 2003;95:906–13). For example, my original manuscript included the following statement:
Among the contents of soybeans, isoflavones, a group of phytoestrogens has been hypothesized to have a protective effect against the development of breast cancer.The Senior Editor changed this as follows:
Soybeans contain isoflavones, a group of phytoestrogens, that have been hypothesized to have reduce the risk of breast cancer.The reason for the wording change was explained as the journal avoids use of the phrase "protective effect" unless the results are derived from a randomized, controlled trial.
In another example the original sentence said:
Other possible mechanisms enabling soybean isoflavones to be anticarcinogenic are inhibition of protein tyrosine kinases and other enzyme activities, stimulations of sex hormone binding globulin production, antioxidant effects, and inhibition of angiogenesis.The change by the Senior Editor included some questions to authors as follows:
Other possible anticarcinogenic mechanisms associated with soy or isoflavones include inhibiting protein tyrosine kinases and other enzyme activities that [Au: do what? interfere with cell growth and survival?], stimulating sex hormone-binding globulin production that [Au: does what?], antioxidant effects protecting DNA from damage [Au: correct?], and inhibiting angiogenesis.
As shown in these examples, the role of the Senior Editor is to make sure that the manuscript is readable by the general audience. Her suggestions were generally very reasonable and improved the quality of my manuscript. Of course, some points she made were not correct in a strict scientific sense, but we were able to communicate with each other via e-mail and reached agreement without a significant time lag, which was surprising since we have a 13-hour time difference. I was very glad to meet the Senior Editor, Dr Joanna Watson (Fig. 3), who dealt with my manuscript, when I visited the JNCI editorial office.
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The quality of JNCI is kept high by this efficient system and by the continuous effort of editorial staff. The visit was very fruitful in that we got to personally experience the system employed on this quality journal. It also confirmed to us that the system used on JJCO is appropriate. It is the intention of the editorial staff of JJCO to provide a high level of service to both readers and authors through the continued publication of a quality journal involving collaborative efforts with readers, authors, and the editorial staff of other journals.
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