Asian Council of Science Editors Majid Moridani, PharmD, PhD Director, Professor Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Toxicology Medical College of Wisconsin Wisconsin, USA

Asian Council of Science Editors To support and represent the interests of scholarly and scientific publishing community in Asia in: – Scientific – Technical – Medical – Scholarly disciplines.

ACSE Share Knowledge and Experience - Provide a forum for the exchange of information and experiences related to OA/Not OA delivery of scientific content. Develop Uniform Standards and Guidelines – Develop and promote a uniform definition and standards in the scholarly publishing, best practices for maintaining and disseminating scholarly communications, and ethical standards. Advance Publishing Models - Support the development of business and publishing models that support journal and book publishing. Promote Ethics In Publishing – Promote journals, publishing the scholarly contents with transparent editorial workflow and ethical manners. Advocate for Scholarly Publishing – Promote the scholarly publishers who follow the Good Practices in scholarly publishing. Provide Training – Provide the training to the personnel involved in the scholarly publishing community to prepare them for the future challenges by offering short courses and meetings on the issues of current concerns to enhance the capability and visibility of the scholarly publishers. Promote Innovation in Publications - Contribute to the development and dissemination of innovative approaches to scientific communications and of related activities.

Board of Directors – Half of the board from influential editors in the West, – the other half from influential editors in the Asia or Regional Focus Group Chairs – A tremendous opportunity to shape the scientific publishing in Asia

Board of Directors: Regional Focus Group – Arab Focus Group – Farsi Focus Group – Turkish Focus Group – Central Asia Focus Group – Chinese Focus Group – Indian Focus Group – Pakistan Focus Group – Malaysia Focus Group – Bangladesh Focus Group – Korean Focus Group – Etc

Committees – Annual Programming Committee - ACSE – Guidelines Committee Member of focus group have representative The final guidelines go to the board of directors for approval – Regional Workshop Committee – review and approve the proposals by focus group Focus group propose and ACSE review and approves The review process four times a year The proposal should arrive 6-12 months in advance The regional meeting can use ACSE logo to promote the meeting A report needs to be generated and published The details can be worked out by the committee – Establish a new Journal

Group Discussion Day 2: Friday, August 15, Regional Focus Group – formation – 1 hour 2.Committees – 1 hour – Annual Programming Committee ACSE – Guidelines Committee – Regional Workshop Committee – review and approve the proposal by focus group 3.Journal – formation of a new journal for this society – a quarterly journal

Authors, Reviewers, Editors, Publishers, and Subscribers: Roles and Responsibilities Majid Moridani, PharmD, PhD Director, Professor Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Toxicology Medical College of Wisconsin Wisconsin, USA

Scientific language English as scientific language Local language as scientific language Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Hindi, English, Pashto, Urdu An independent citation system for open access for local language Negotiate with PubMed to include journals published in foreign language

We have open access journals, Google, PubMed and various search engines, and I can find and identify many great resources for learning, teaching, and research just with a few strokes on a keyboard at my desk at work and home or even in bed using my iPad.

Imagine a world without internet, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Skype, Viber, and PubMed. We will all perish as a modern scientific society. If it weren’t for the dedicated scientists, and their willingness to share and teach through publications we would be still living in the dark ages of the past.

Stakeholders 1.Authors 2.Editors 3.Reviewers 4.Publishers 5.Subscribers

1. Authors: roles and responsibilities Authors should plan and execute their research and experiments to the highest standard possible They should ask their colleagues to provide critics to their hypothesis, experiments, methods, results, discussions and conclusions Team work is essential. They should pay close attention to statistics Follow the standards, rules, and regulations when using animals and humans in their research Be truthful in their work. All authors have equal responsibilities in the preparation of the manuscript

1. Authors: roles and responsibilities The work needs to be original, accurate and free of plagiarism. Keeping accurate records of the methods and results and subsequently make an effort in publishing them Should follow ethical codes in all stages of discovery and communication Should select a journal for their publication. They should carefully read the instruction sections for authors, and follow them through Pay attention to typographical errors. If English is not their first language, they should ask someone to proofread the content and references for accuracy before submitting it to the journal Teach the next generation how to write

2. Editors: roles and responsibilities Editors share many responsibilities with authors in many aspects as mentioned in previous slide. In addition, they need to: Be independent from bias and free from the influences of publisher Promote free thinking Encourage controversial subjects Critically evaluate the data and article Recruit the best scientists and medical practitioners and professionals to submit articles to their journal Select carefully reviewers Deal effectively with plagiarisms Reject articles with low quality

2. Editors: roles and responsibilities Provide editorial guidance to readers on articles published in the current issue of the journal Provide editorial guidance for authors on future topics of importance Organize special issues 1-2 years in advance Be fair and impartial Interact with publishers to enhance the standards and quality of publishing materials in the journal Assist in indexing the journals on PubMed and other data bases Should have ultimate responsibility to reject and accept an article for publication Formulate a checklist for reviewers to evaluate, accept and reject the article

3.Reviewers: roles and responsibilities Reviewers share some of the responsibilities with Editors. However, a few roles and responsibilities are of more importance: They should review critically the article under consideration Check the content for novelty, accuracy, organization, and plagiarism Check the statistics, animal care and human research section Review if the statistics are satisfactory and used appropriately in the publication Offer ways to improve the paper

3.Reviewers: roles and responsibilities Check for duplications of publications Write at least a page why they accept or reject a paper No article should be accepted at first submission. There is always room for improvement. This does not necessary mean asking for additional information or experiments. Occasionally, it may require removal of redundant materials. The goal should be to improve the article. Sometimes that can be achieved by rejection only.

4. Publishers: roles and responsibilities Publishers share many responsibilities similar to editors. However, they will need to provide: Freedom to editors to have the final say in accepting or rejecting an article for publications in the journal. Publishers may have many motives: – financial and non-financial. The financial ones are obvious. Publishing is a business and needs to survive. The costs need to be low and profit needs to be made. This is a necessity. Many publishers have higher purpose besides making a living. Publishers have an important role. They are instrumental in dissemination of the knowledge created by scientists.

4. Publishers: roles and responsibilities Publishers should: Recruit visionary editors and provide them with support to perform their work Allow editors to be independent Assist and act quickly to make the publications available as soon as possible Make it possible that the articles to be indexed on PubMed or similar data base

4. Publishers: roles and responsibilities Keep the cost of publishing low as well as making a profit. For authors should be important that their publishers make a profit and stay in business. It is not desirable that the journal disappears after a few issues or years. Therefore, making a profit is not only a necessity but also is a responsibility.

4. Publishers: roles and responsibilities Publishers should promote the journals in scientific community, a shared responsibility with editors Should have succession plan for editors Should set up workshop for authors, reviewers, editors, and for in-coming editors Enhance the standard of publishing and quality of work published in the journal Support the editors by providing tools and administrative supports they need to evaluate the acceptability of article for its publication

5. Subscribers: roles and responsibilities Subscribers are the consumers. This could include libraries or the readers of a journal or article. With open access journals, readers do not pay any longer to purchase the article. Subscribers ultimately decide the importance of the work – by either reading them or – citing them in their own future work. They have responsibilities by writing letters to editors to criticize the quality of the work with specifics. English have several interesting proverbs. One of them is: “You are what you read”. Hence, one of the major responsibilities of the reader is that if the quality of the work is questionable, they should not spend their times and resources to acquire and read them or cite them.

Asian Council of Science Editors Majid Moridani, PharmD, PhD Director, Professor Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Toxicology Medical College of Wisconsin Wisconsin, USA