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. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435. doi: 10.5455/aim.2016.24.424-435

The First Mediterranean Seminar on Science Writing, Editing and Publishing, Sarajevo, December 2-3, 2016

Izet Masic 1, Doncho Donev 2, Osman Sinanovic 3, Miro Jakovljevic 4, Enver Zerem 5, Dejan B Milosevic 6, Srecko Gajovic 7, Armen Yuri Gasparyan 8, Sekib Sokolovic 9, Nermin Salkic 10, Selma Uzunovic 11, Silva Dobric 12, Floreta Kurti 13, Edin Begic 14, Admir Kurtcehajic 15
PMCID: PMC5203755  PMID: 28077910

Abstract

The First Mediterranean Seminar on Science Writing, Editing & Publishing (SWEP 2016) was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina from 2nd to 3rd December 2016. It was organized by Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, running concurrent sessions as part of its Annual Meeting titled “ “Days of AMNuBiH - Theory and Practice in Science Communication and Scientometrics”. Hotel Bosnia in the city centre was the chosen venue. On the first day, nineteen presentations on various issues of science writing and publication ethics were delivered by speakers from Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and the UK (Asim Kurjak, Milivoj Boranić, Doncho Donev, Osman Sinanović, Miro Jakovljević, Enver Zerem, Dejan Milošević, Silva Dobrić, Srećko Gajović, Izet Mašić, Armen Yuri Gasparyan, Šekib Sokolović, Nermin Salkić, Selma Uzunović, Admir Kurtčehajić, Edin Begić and Floreta Kurti). Each presentation had a take-home message for novice and seasoned authors, encountering numerous problems in non-Anglophone research environment. Lecturers, who were internationally recognized editors of regional journals, generously shared their experience of adhering to the best ethical guidance. Elegant presentations by Srećko Gajović (Editor-in-Chief of the Croatian Medical Journal) and Armen Yuri Gasparyan (past Chief Editor of the European Science Editing) showcased their accomplishments that strengthened ties between authors from all over the world. Gasparyan reflected on educational resources of editorial associations, such as the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and called not just to declare the adherence to, but also to enforce their ethical guidance in daily practice.

Editors of Medical Archives, Croatian Medica Journal, Vojnosanitetski Pregled, Psychiatria Danubina, Acta Informatica Medica, Materia Socio-Medica, The Donald School Journal of Ultrasound in Obstretics and Gynecology, Acta Medica Saliniana and Medicinski Glasnik presented their editorial strategies aimed at attracting best authors and resolving problems with authorship, conflicts of interest, and plagiarism. Topical education on science writing and editing was considered as an inseparable part of continuing professional development in biomedicine.

Armen Yuri Gasparyan (UK) was offered an opportunity to interact with more than 70 participants, attending the SWEP 2016 on the second day. The lecturer talked about author contributions, disclosures of conflicts of interests, plagiarism of ideas and words, research performance and impact indicators, and targeting ethical journals. Topics were presented in a way to help non-Anglophone authors, reviewers and editors avoid common ethical problems. Dr Gasparyan stressed the importance of regularly arranging such meetings across Balkan and Mediterranean countries to eradicate plagiarism and other forms research misconduct.

The organizers of the SWEP 2016 awarded selected keynote speakers with certificates of lifetime achievement in journal editing, and decided to run the Seminar annually with support of Balkan and Mediterranean editors and publishers. The SWEP 2016 marked a turning point in the process of regional developments since all attending editors opted for nurturing enthusiasm of the organizers and launching the Mediterranean Association of Science Editors and Publishers (MASEP).

The Seminar was a great success with its impressive scientific and social activities. It attracted more than 100 students, researchers, editors, and publishers from Bosnia & Herzegovina and neighbouring countries. Proceedings, in the form of short reports, were published in Acta Informatica Medica and archived in PubMed Central. New friendships were forged between regional experts in editing and young specialists during those unforgettable two days of intensive discussions and informal interactions (a-y).

Keywords: scientific work, visibility of scientific sources

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

HOW TO PREVENT PLAGIARISM IN BIOMEDICINE

Doncho Donev

Institute of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University “Ss Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia ORCID ID: https://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-5237-443X. E-mail:dmdonev@gmail.com

Aim: To emphasize the plagiarism as a serious widespread problem in biomedicine and to point out the main directions and approaches for its prevention and elimination.

Methods: An analysis of relevant materials and documents, Internet sources and published literature and personal experience and observations of the author.

Results: There are considerable differences in policies and approaches for education on ethics in science and publishing, prevention and punishment of plagiarism and fraud in publishing in biomedical scientific journals (1, 2). Beside raising awareness and educating the scientific community in terms of research and publication ethics, journal editors, ethical committees, competent state bodies and relevant institutions have important complementary roles to play in prevention and elimination of plagiarism and research and publication misconduct in general. Journal editors are responsible for everything they publish. They should alert relevant institutions and bodies to cases of possible plagiarism and fraud even they shouldn’t attempt to investigate the cases of misconduct. The relevant institutions are responsible to investigate cases of possible plagiarism and to inform journal editors if they have published plagiarized and misleading articles for to be retracted or corrected.

Conclusion: Education of scientific community in research and publication ethics and integrity is essential for creating ethical environment and tradition to prevent scientific and publishing dishonesty, fraud and plagiarism. Main responsibility for detection and reporting of unethical behavior and plagiarism in biomedicine goes to the editors of scientific journals, ethical committees and competent state bodies, as well as to other relevant institutions.

Keywords research and publication ethics and integrity, scientific misconduct, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publications, retraction of published articles, education on ethics.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Masic I. Plagiarism in Scientific Research and Publications and How to Prevent it. Mater Sociomed. 2014;26(2):141–6. doi: 10.5455/msm.2014.26.141-146. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR IN SCIENCE PUBLISHING

Osman Sinanovic

1Department of Neurology, University Clinical Center, Tuzla, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-5456. E-mail: osman.sinanovic@ukctuzla.ba

There are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research. First, norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. Second, since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed prematurely. Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public. Unethical behavious in science and publishing or research misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in publishing research results. Concern is that research misconduct has become more frequent during the past two decades. It is difficult to be certain whether this perceived increase is a true increase in the number of misdemeanours commited, but there is no doubt that the mumber of serious cases of research misconduict that have been detected has increased during this period.

It is vital that scientists engaged in biomedical research should be fully informed of the ethical framework in which they should be operating.

Key issues in publication ethics, includ data analysis and presentation, autorship, conflicts of interest, peer review, redundant publication, plagiarism, duties of editors, media relations and adversting and research misconduct.

Research misconduct represents a spectrum ranging from errors of judgement (inadequate study design), bias, self delusion, inappropriate statistical analysis) through misdemeanours, so called “trimming and cooking” (data manipulation, data exlusion, suppression of inconvenient facts to blatant fraud (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism). Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them. Falsification is manipulating research materilas, equipment, or process, or changing or omitting data ot results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. Plagiarism is the appropiration of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.

Keywords science, publishing, unethical behaviour.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

PSEUDOSCIENCE AND EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE IN SCIENTIFIC MEDICAL/PSYCHIATRIC JOURNALS

Miro Jakovljevic

1Psychiatric Clinic, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia, ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-5456. E-mail: jakovljevic.miro@yahoo.com

Like editors of many medical journals, editors of psychiatric journals have to face with the problem of distiunguishing scientific from pseudosientific research and articles. It is a striking fact that as much as 90% of the research published by academic laboratories cannot be confirmed what raises a hot question how to differ real science from pseudoscience. From time to time big scandals attract public attention showing how easy can be for some scientists to publish fabricated data even in the most prestigous journals. Psychiatry was depicted by Thomas Szasz as „the science of lies” or pseudoscience. The forms, causes and frequency of scientific misconduct have become an important issue related to the scientific journals and producing evidence-biased medicine. Science and scientific thinking in medicine and psychiatry are expected to model scientific decision making and prevent errors against human health. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) requires that clinicians be guided by the best available evidence. Scientific observations, results and claims must be objective: testable, repeatable and confirmable by other scientists. The antithesis of EBM is practice based on pseudoscience, tradition, fashion, marketing and authority (eminence-based practice). Pseudoscience, fabrication, falsification, spin, and plagiarism are serious forms of scientific misbehavior that jeopardize the image of scientific journals and scientific community. While fabrication (making up data, results or cases) is evidently fraudulent scientific mispractice, pseudoscience lies somewhere between scientific fraud, bias, misunderstanding and simple careless, and it is not easy to define it. With regards to scientific fraud and spin, the intention to deceive is a key element. Falsification is defined as wilful or deliberate modifications of study results, while spinning is related to the some kind of wishful thinking and subjective differences in research designing or interpreting. Researchers have great latitude in how they process data and report their results in the psychiatric literature. Three common types of spin can be identified: 1. spinning by selective reporting (e.g. not reporting a disappointingly negative findings), 2. spinning using rating scales (e.g. evaluating outcome using multiple rating scales, or unpublished scales), 3. meta-spinning (reviewer’s pessimistic or optimistic looking on inconsistent results of clinical trials). The distinction between real and artifact, true and false results and their interpretations is not an easy task. It is related to the applied mehanicistic, formistic, contextual or systemic thinking or information-processing strategies.

Pseudoscience and evidence biased medicine represent a serious threat to psychiatric practice and mental health service users. The boundaries and indicators separating science from pseudoscience and evidence-biased medicine are very fuzzy. Pseudoscience is like pornography: we cannot define it, but we know it when we see it. According Karl Popper the scientific status of a theory is based on its falsifiability, refutability and testability. Term pseudoscience refers to a field, practice, or body of knowledge claimed to be consistent with the norms of scientific information processing and research, but in reality fails to meet these norms. Pseudoscientific article seems to be scientific but that actually violate the criteria of science. Science and pseudoscience each has different motivation for research and different approach to information processing. According to the relevant literature pseudoscience can be characterized by the next features:

  1. over-use of ad hoc hypotheses to account for negative research findings and to plug holes in the theory in question (after-the-fact escape hatches or loopholes); however, it may be a legitimate strategy);

  2. avoidance of peer review that is the best, although not ideal, mechanism for self-correction in science identifying errors in the reasoning, methodology, analyses, and explanations;

  3. emphasis on evidence that supports an hypothesis and failing to take into account;

  4. evidence that refutes it (confirmation bias - weighing hits more than misses);

  5. lack of connectivity with basic or applied research, and other scientific disciplines;

  6. over-reliance on anecdotal evidence which can be very useful in the early stage of scientific research, but usually not enough for satisfactory and fruitful research;

  7. thinking in false dichotomies; simplistic, mechanistic and reductionistic thinking; illusory correlation and causation, and other errors of logic;

  8. tendency to place burden of proof on opponents so that proponents of pseudoscience neglect the principle that the burden of proof in science is primarily on the scientist making a claim, not on the opponent;

  9. use of vague, exaggerated or untestable terms, or impressive sounding jargon and nonscientific language that gives an illusion of the science and false scientific legitimacy;

  10. absence of borderline conditions because the well-supported scientific theories possess well-articulated boundary conditions, while pseudoscientific phenomena are suggested to operate accross wide range of conditions;

  11. mantra of holism because proponents of pseudoscientific claims in medicine and mental health often resort to this mantra to explain away negative findings.

The greater the number of such features, the more likely is pseudoscience in action, but these indicators are only probabilisticaly related to pseudoscientific studies. It is important to have in mind that the frontier lines between science and pseudoscience are disputed and difficult to determine strictly. Scientific journals have an important role in ensuring the integrity of scientific research and promoting evidence-based medicine. Improving scientific integrity in publishing and minimising the number of scientific misbehavior is very important part of editorial policy. Psychiatric journals have an important mission to promote contemporary psychiatry as powerful art based on science.

Key words: pseudoscience, evidence-biased medicine, medical/psychiatric journals

REFERENCES

  • 1.Fanelli D. How many scientists fabricate and falsify research?A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. Plos ONE. 2009;4(5):e5738. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005738. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005738. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

THE POSSIBILITY OF RESEARCH AND PUBLISHING IN BOSNIAN CLINICAL MEDICINE

Enver Zerem

Department of Gastroenterology, Medical Faculty, University of Tuzla, 75000 Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Department of Medical Sciences, The Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bistrik 7, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6906-3630. E-mail: zerem@live.com

ABSTRACT

It is known that the productivity of scientific publication is greatly conditioned by national income and its’ contributions towards scientific research projects; international evaluation criteria, academic advancement and international scientific communications. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a small, poor country. The logic of scientists working in small countries, who know in advance that in comparison with colleagues who work in large scientific centers with hundreds or thousands of scientists, is that they can not achieve quantitatively measurable results. However it is still crucial to do scientific research and publish in poor countries since science teaches us honesty, evaluates our clinical practice according to internationally recognized criteria and each of our clinical results is only of local importance and unestablished quality unless it has managed to pass through the fine peer-review sieve in order to get published in a scientific journal. In order to be able to do scientific research and get published a clinician should posses solid general medical knowledge, expert knowledge in one field of medicine and enthusiasm in continuous application of that knowledge at a high-quality level, as well as intuition and knowledge of scientific methodology and ability to evaluate the results of such work in accordance with the scientific methodology. Our academic community often acentuates the problems which occur in the process of scientific research and publishing and most often attributes them to the lack of: financial resources, space, staffing, equipment and such, whilst the failure to implement internationally recognized criteria in the process of acquiring scientific and academic titles has never been identified as the core problem. Moreover, addressing the relevance of scientific publications and the need to have them evaluated according to the international criteria is considered almost rude and even premature within the academic circles. However, without the introduction and application of internationally recognized scientific criteria in the evaluation of scientific research, and the coordination of academic progress in accordance with these criteria, even the current, pitiful investments in the science are essentially useless expenditure of the poor taxpayer’s money.

Keywords universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, internationally recognized criteria, methods of rankings, recommendations.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

SCIENCE WRITING AND EDITING IN PHYSICS

Dejan B. Milosevic1,2

1Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2 Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-5060-3318. E-mail: milo@bih.net.ba

From the point of view of a physicist it is explained what are the elements of a good scientific paper. The emphasize is on necessary ingredients of any paper and its organization and structure. The paper should give both the „big picture” (context and main result, and how it fits into the literature) and the technical information (what exactly has been done, and anything needed for readers to reproduce the work). Ground rules for communication with editors are also explained. Finally, the role of a referee is clarified. The referee is a vital part of the peer review system and her/his work is essential for maintaining the standards of a journal and for keeping the journal a valuable resource for readers.

Keywords science editing, science writing, peer review system, physics.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

IMPACT OF THE PUBLISHED MEDICAL RESEARCH ON THE PERSON-CENTERED HEALTH CARE

Srecko Gajovic1,2

1Croatian Medical Journal, Zagreb, Croatia

2University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Croatian Institute for Brain Research. ORCID ID: http://www.org/0000-0001-8668-5239. E-mail: srecko.gajovic@cmj.hr

The current approach to health care organization is oriented to empower the patients and to situate them in the center of the medicine. This is result of widespread recognition of patient autonomy in particular in making decisions about own health, but as well of technological advances, which influence the workflow to be directed individually and to achieve efficient therapy without side-effects (i.e. precision medicine).

Still the empowering of patients, which suffer from disease and are in need for help, is not at all an easy concept. This includes different responsibilities of both patients and doctors, but as well the widening of responsibilities to a range of stakeholders even beyond the health system itself. It should be stated that disease is a part of a delicate web of interdependencies including a patient, medical professionals, family, patient’s professional environment, and which extends as well to the virtual reality of the on-line world.

Recently, the concept of knowledge landscapes was proposed to describe the patient’s quest for the relevant health-related knowledge (1, 2, 3). This quest includes off-line and on-line resources and it is accompanied with significant distortions, impasses and confusions, which influence patients’ decisions, and the disease course and outcome.

The medical journals represent a comprehensive collection of medical knowledge. They particular mission is to provide novelties, innovations and improvements to be applied from bench to bedside. The targeted readership are medical professionals, and the direct knowledge transfered to the patients is not of particular concern for the medical journals. Still, the person-centered care and empowering the patients should include those in the center of the system to approach the knowledge essentially dedicated to them.

Several improvements in medical publishing can be envisaged to reach this goal. Open Access of the published research, which was primarily motivated to provide access to the published information to the researchers and students across the world, should bear in mind patients as new potential users. The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation comprises that patients should be included in designing and performing medical research. The role of patients extends as well to the publishing as Patient Editors. Similar to graphical abstracts, the future publication could have patients-dedicated manuscript sections, assuring the distribution of the relevant health knowledge and the impact of the performed research.

Keywords medical research, person centered health care.

REFERENCES

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

IMPORTANCE OF ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Izet Masic

Faculty of medicine, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-5456. E-mail: imasic@lol.ba

Most of biomedical journals in nowdays has a electronic version, available over public networks (printed and electronic versions need not to be simultaneously published). Electronic version of a journal can be published a few weeks before the printed form. Electronic form of a journals may have an extension that does not contain a printed form, such as animation and 3d display (or may have available full-text, mostly in PdF or XMl format, or just the contents or a summary). Access to a full text is usually not free and can be achieved only if the institution (library or host) enters into an agreement on access. Many medical journals, however, provide free access for some articles, or after a certain time (after 6 months or a year) to complete content (the search for such journals provide the network archive as High Wire Press, Free Medical Journals.com). On- line medical journals published only in electronic form can be searched over on-line databases. Scientific contest in modern scientific world is available throw scientific biomedical literature databases (Current Contents, ISI Web of Knowledge, PubMed/Medline, PubMed Central, Ovid/EMBASE, EBSCO, Index Copernicus, etc.) (1, 2). Scientific internet social networks are also good source of knowledge (allowed free access to the scientific content (Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Mendeley, Kudos). On-line databases present great tool for developing of scintometrics, even there is a lot of space for their improvement.

Keywords: medical journals, on-line databases.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Masic I, Milinovic K. On-line biomedical databases- the best source for quick search of the scientific information in the biomedicine. Acta Inform Med. 2012;20(2):72–84. doi: 10.5455/aim.2012.20.72-84. doi 10.5455/aim.2012.20.72.84. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Masic I. How to Search, Write, Prepare and Publish the Scientific Papers in the Biomedical Journals. Acta Inform Med. 2011;19(2):68–79. doi: 10.5455/aim.2011.19.68-79. doi:10.4555/aim.2011.19.68.79. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OF EDITORIAL ASSOCIATIONS

Armen Yuri Gasparyan

Departments of Rheumatology and Research & Development, Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, Teaching Trust of The University of Birmingham, UK ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8749-6018. E-mail:: a.gasparyan@gmail.com

Science editors are currently encountering numerous problems with the digitization and quality of websites of scholarly journals, optimization of open access, visibility of their authors and editorial board members, peer review, relationship with sponsors and conflicts of interest, plagiarism detection, and retractions. They are also entering tough competition with the growing number of journals in their subject area, which requires improving editing skills and publishing trustworthy materials.

Scholarly journals are platforms for distributing professional information of interest to relevant readership. Responsible editors are obliged to define specific scope of interest of their journal and invite professionals to form editorial board and actively contribute to the peer review and related quality checks. Ideally, editors should represent interests of professional societies and secure healthy flow of submissions from the most active members. Professional societies may, in turn, benefit from acquiring the quality journals as their official organs and invest resources in educating journal editors.

To date, there are no any certified and globally recognized courses for science editors, and they are traditionally learning by trial and error. In such an environment, some editors embark on unethical editing and publishing practices and boost their publication activity at the expense of their reputation. Importantly, unethical practices may affect journals with open access and subscription models all over the world.

Global editorial associations take the lead and offer some educational documents for editors, though there are no schemes for enforcing the editorial guidance and upgrading the journal instructions. The most updated editorial guidance is provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which is the most influential organization, uniting highly influential journal editors and offering guidance on authorship, conflicts of interest, and many other topics. The latest recommendations of the ICMJE (2015) highlighted the issue of ‘predatory’ publishing, which is of great interest to editors of biomedical and other rapidly developing scientific disciplines.

A number of documents are available from the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE). These documents can help journal editors to avoid problems with authorship, conflicts of interest, peer review, plagiarism, retractions, etc. COPE members are journal editors from all over the world, who are supposed to adjust their editorial strategies in accordance with the ethical guidance.

Another influential editorial organization is the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) with the largest network of biomedical editors and unique educational resources of interest to authors, reviewers, and editors. One of the exemplary statements of the WAME relates to the concept of editorial independence, which is a big issue across university-affiliated journals. WAME has an e-list forum, where numerous issues of science writing, editing, publishing, and indexing are continuously discussed.

Along with the established editorial associations, several new regional and national organizations have emerged over the past few years. Their role in educating science editors and unique scope of interest are still uncertain.

Undoubtedly, science editors need support of the editorial associations, but they also need to know what types of educational resources are offered by the associations. Based on available evidence, science editors all over the world are in dire need of topical courses on authorship, conflicts of interests, peer review, citing and referencing, measuring scholarly impact, research misconduct, post-publication communication, corrections and retractions, and predatory publishing. All these courses can form basis of educational activities of the established and emerging editorial organizations.

Keywords Science Communication, Periodicals as Topic, Professional Societies, Publication Ethics.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

INDEXES FOR EVALUATION OF THE JOURNAL’S AND SCIENTIS’S WORK

Izet Masic

Faculty of Medicine, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-5456. E-mail: imasic@lol.ba

Scientometrics deals with a quantitative analysis of a journal, or with work of one scientist. Rating of journal is primarily determined by impact factor (if the journal is indexed in the Web of Science database) and echo factor. Google Scholar platform offers assessment of magazines by h5 index (h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years) and h5 median (h5-median for a publication is the median number of citations for the articles that make up its h5-index). Scientometric analysis of the work of scientist is determined by number of publications (may be differentiated by the number of publications which are indexed in a particular database), the average number of citations and the sum of all citations (number of citations is tracked throw online databases – ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Scopus – not credible information–different source show different number of citations (Figure 1), h index, i10 index and g- index. The issue of valuation work on the basis of co-authorship remains an open question. Self citation is another parameter that must be taken into account in the evaluation one work. A growing number of authors with the same name is a big problem for scientometric analysis, so the introduction of the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), should become a requirement when publishing a paper, and obligatory for every scientist.

Keywords scientometrics, scientometric analysis, ORCID.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Masic I. H-index and how to improve it. Donald School J Ultrasound Obstret Gynecol. 2016;10(1):83–9. [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Masic I, Begic E. Scientometric Dilemma: Is H-index Adequate for Scientific Validity of Academic work? Acta Inform Med. 2016 Aug;24(4):228–32. doi: 10.5455/aim.2016.24.228-232. doi:10.5455/aim.2016.24.228-232. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

THE SCIENCE WRITING AND EDITING IN MEDICINE

Silva Dobric

Faculty of Medicine of the Military Medical Academy, University of Defence, Belgrade, Serbia. ORCID ID: http://www. orcid.org/0000-0003-0493-8525. E-mail: silva.dobric@gmail.com

As most scientific papers, those intended to be published in medical journals, are prepared according to a format called IMRAD. The term represents the first letters of the words Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, And, Discussion. It indicates a pattern or format rather than a complete list of headings or components of research papers; the missing parts of a paper are: Title, Authors, Keywords, Abstract, Conclusions, and References. Additionally, some papers include Acknowledgments and Appendices.

The Introduction explains the scope and objective of the study in the light of current knowledge on the subject; the Materials and Methods describes how the study was conducted; the Results section reports what was found in the study; and the Discussion section explains meaning and significance of the results and provides suggestions for future directions of research. However, there is no standard or uniform style that is followed by all journals. Each journal has its own style, and own Instructions to Authors (or other word combinations to mean the same thing). Once you select a journal to which you wish to submit your manuscript, follow the journal`s instructions to authors. As these instructions may be subjected to change with time, it is advisable to review the latest ones while preparing the manuscript. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. There are other research reporting guidelines to ensure accurate reporting such as Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) for clinical trials, Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology for observational studies (STROBE) and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyis (PRISMA). Most medical journals follow these recommendations and guidelines so it is advisable that you follow them, too.

When writing of your manuscript is finnished, its careful evaluation including elimination of spelling errors, punctuation mistakes, grammatical and synax errors, is obligatory before finnaly submitting it to the journal. Poorly presented abstract and title, flawed study design, innappropriate research question and hypothesis, poor selection of statistical tests, being too verbose about study results, disorganised writing style with grammatical and syntax errors and poor presentation of tables and figures are some of the main flaws which are responsible for rejection of the manuscript. You must remember, the best way to learn to write journal papers is to read journal papers.

Keywords scientific writing, publishing, medical journal.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Masic I. How to Search, Write, Prepare and publish the Scientific papers in the Biomedical Journals. Acta Inform Med. 2011;19(2):68–79. doi: 10.5455/aim.2011.19.68-79. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

REVIEWING THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Sekib Sokolovic

Clinic for Heart, Blood Vessel and Rheumatic Diseases, University Clinical Center Sarajevo. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6321-4186. E-mail: sekib@bih.net.ba

The responsobilty of reviewer is to simply provide decision whether scientific paper is accepted or rejected, and also may request minor or major corrections from the paper submitting author. This is hard work since every sentence in a paper should be read from reviewer and analysed. Always there is a timeframe and deadline from editor that every reviewer should meet. Usually reviewers are anonymous and can be blind or double blind. In order to make good review, papers should be read at least three times and comments should be written immediately after the last reading. These comments are general, specific but also confidential to editor. In general comments, reviewer should summarize it up to the three sentences. In specific comments, all paper structures should be commented starting from introduction, results, discussion and references. Also comments should me made on wryting style, spelling, mistakes, tables and figures. The confidential comments to editor is only seen by editor that is oftenly required by many journals. Each reviewer should consider the correctness, significance, innovation and possibility of the fraud in the submitted papers for publication. The important analysis is also to check if there is commerciality in the drug trials. The final decision is based on at least three reviewer comments.

Keywords peer review, reviewer, scientific paper

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR BOSNIAN RESEARCHERS TO PUBLISH A PAPER IN GOOD JOURNAL

Nermin Salkic

Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Clinical Center Tuzla, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-4727-9267. E-mail: snermin@gmail.com

Bosnia and Herzegovina, as many other developing countries, unfortunately belongs to the scientific periphery. Each year over 80 billion USD is spent on healthcare research worldwide. Only 10 percent of this is devoted to the health problems of 90 percent of the world’s population residing in undeveloped countries. Many problematic medical issues inherent to developing countries are under-researched and mostly never reported or reported in local journals with modest readership. Furthermore, physicians-researchers in developing countries are faced with numerous obstacles in both conducting medical research and publishing results in prominent medical journals. Some of those obstacles are specific only for settings with limited resources but they are nevertheless, real. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the prototype of a country struggling to have its voice heard in medical scientific community. It this short review we discuss the main reasons for current visibility of medical research coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina and major issues for publication in prominent international journals.

Keywords: Bosnian researchers, international journals.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

SCIENCE EDITING AND SCIENCE EDITORS - AN EXAMPLE OF THE JOURNAL MEDICINSKI GLASNIK

Selma Uzunovic

Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Institute for Health and Food Safety Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-1852-1572. E-mail: selma_kamb@yahoo.com

An editor essentially is responsible for what appears in his or her journal. Resposibilities and rights of editors (review and publication process) are in accordance with the text: Council of Science Editors. Editors of scientific journals should be aware about an importance of strong adherence of all ethical principles declared by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in order to make nice, good and respectable scientific journal. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final. Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the material they publish. Editors should ensure that research material they publish has been approved by an ethics committee, have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the content of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, the journal’s readers and the scientific community, the owners/publishers of the journals, and the public as a whole. To establish and maintain high-quality journal content, an editor should, prior to accepting a position, receive an explicit written statement from the journal’s owner that defines the editor’s responsibilities and autonomy–editorial freedom.

Substantive editing means ensuring that authors have said what they want to say as clearly and correctly as possible. Technical editing involves the detailed preparation of manuscripts for the printer’s information and for the reader’s ultimate benefit. Substantive and technical editing together constitutes copy-editing. Copy editors verify that written material, before it is set into type, has no errors in grammar, spelling, usage, and style (i.e., adheres to the company’s or publication’s guidelines for consistency in how words, phrases, typographical elements, etc., are to be used—or not used) and that any content inconsistencies in factual errors are either corrected or brought to the writer’s attention for correction. Copy editors work on manuscript copy before it goes for final typing or typesetting. Quality of editing is hard to measure but editing aims to make articles accurate, unambiguous, easy to read, attractive to the eye, consistent. Benefits of consistency: visible sign that editing has been done, makes readers feel confident, visually attractive, doesn’t annoy nit-pickers/editors, the process may increase accuracy.

Keywords: copy-editing, CSE, ICMJ, editor’s freedom.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

FROM IDEA TO FINAL VERSION OF ARTICLE - EDITOR’S VIEW

Izet Masic1, Edin Begic2

1Faculty of Medicine, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-5456. E-mail: izetmasicgmail.com

2Faculty of Medicine, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author Kathryn H. Jacobsen in her book “Introduction to health research methods: A practical guide” states that any research process consists of five steps (1). The first step is identifying the problem that we want to explore and the second is to choose the research manner. Once the goals are set, the other three steps involve study design and data collection, data analysis, and writing conclusions (2, 3). Scientific researchers in the field of medicine interact through published articles or presentations presented. When writing an article, the author should take care that it is the right time for the publication of the article, or whether his topic is current in the scientific community. In the implementation of any research on human and animal subjects, the author must have permission of ethical committee of appropriate institution. The issue of co-authorship of articles, must be clearly defined, and must clearly indicate the contribution of authors who are signed on the article. After structuring the article (the best option is to use IMRAD (Figure 1) structure of article), fulfillment of the instructions of the journal (and before that choosing the journal that will directly cover the topic of article), the proposal of the reviewers, the author should upload their work in certain journals. Style of writing must be administrative and scientific. Text has to be explicit, simple, natural, language style should not be pathetic, bombastic, should be concise, coherent, and should avoid constantly repeating the same words, by using many synonyms. First person singular and plural should not be used. Numbers to ten should be written in letters, while above ten by numbers. Conclusion must be clear, concise and has to give a clear and precise answer to the aim of the work. The author should have their ORCID number in order to avoid doubts about the author, because some authors have same name and surname and that is very important in the analysis of each article, and many other indicators of work of a single author. References (choose type of citation according to journal instructions–citation by the principle author – date, numeric type of citation and mixed type) in the articles must be correctly written, which is of great importance in scientometric analysis of the article.

Keywords article, ORCID number, scientometric analysis.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Masic I. Medical publication and scientometrics. J Res Med Sci. 2013;18:516–21. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE – A POWERFUL TOOL IN THE HANDS OF AUTHORS

Edin Begic1, Zijo Begic2, Amra Dobraca3, Izet Masic4

1Faculty of Medicine, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Bosnia and Herzegovina. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6842-262X. E-mail: edinbegic90@gmail.com

2Pediatric Clinic, University Clinical Center Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

3PhD student, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina

4Faculty of Medicine, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

With the development of science, and the increasing availability of scientific content, group analysis of papers (traditional narrative review, systematic review of literature, meta-analysis) (Figure 1) have become an unavoidable thing in the scientific community.

A systematic review of the medical literature summarizes the scientific evidence, and it can be quantitative and qualitative (basically, a systematic literature review is a qualitative method). Systematic reviews can point out flaws about certain issues, which can be used to guide future studies. Systematic reviews are usually done in the field of clinical trials (diagnosis, screening and forecasting), public health, adverse effects (of treatment or of procedures), economic evaluation (cost), and of specificity and sensitivity of particular test or procedure.

A meta-analysis is quantitative type of systematic review, and in order to obtain conclusions, statistical method to synthesize research results is used. Meta-analysis (The core of meta-analysis is its systematic approach to the identification and abstracting of critical information from research reports (1)) refers to the analysis of the analysis; statistical analysis of a large collection of results from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the results (strong quality of evidence (Figure 2).. A meta-analysis in a strict sense is a meta-analysis of the patient or individual meta-analysis (meta-analysis requires of authors excellent knowledge on the topic of an article and awareness of research postulates). All kind of studies that are included in the meta-analysis must have clearly defined inclusion criteria (if more than ones hypothesis is tested, each hypothesis should have clearly defined inclusion criteria). Inclusion criteria are set at the beginning of writing of meta-analysis. Searching and locating relevant studies and determination of the final set of studies is important and one of the biggest problems is selectiveness in selection of studies (based on studies registered with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it is found that 97% of the positive studies were published vs only 12% of the negative ones (2)).

By summarizing evidences, systematic reviews can help busy physicians to understand the latest developments in the medical literature. They offer information how well the latest developments can be applied in everyday clinical practice. Conclusions of systematic reviews, are more reliable than conclusions of individual studies. Systematic reviews reduce the highest number of forms of bias that led to certain conclusions (statistical power and precision are high). Selecting a base through which literature is examined has to be reliable. Scopus and Medline are best to be used as source base. Google Scholar (due to its non-selectivity), Academia.edu, or ResearchGate and similar platforms, continue to be avoided in systematic reviews.

Systematic reviews are powerful tool in Evidence Based Medicine view of medical research, but have not yet been sufficiently exploited in our region, so there is plenty of room for its implementation in the Bosnian Herzegovinian scientific community. It is imperative that researchers, policy-makers, and clinicians be able to critically assess the value and reliability of the conclusions of meta-analyses (2, 3).

Keywords systematic review, meta-analysis.

REFERENCES

  • 1.Walker E, Hernandez AV, Kattan MW. Meta-analysis: Its strengths and limitations. Cleve Clin J Med. 2008 Jun;75(6):431–9. doi: 10.3949/ccjm.75.6.431. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

CLINICAL IMAGING AS A WAY OF PUBLISHING IN CURRENT CONTENTS BASE – NEW APPROACH. HOW TO CHOOSE BEST TARGET JOURNALS

Admir Kurtcehajic

ZU Plava Poliklinika / Blue Polyclinic, Tuzla/Sarajevo, Bosna and Hercegovina. E-mail: admircg@hotmail.com

Introduction: Most medical journals in CC base does not publish more case report, it has become the part of the science history. In the last time the mentioned form of publishing should be replaced with the form intresting / clinical imaging.

Methodology: During 2016. yr. we have published 3 works in CC journals with high IF (EJGH, AJG, JHBPS) in the form of: i) letter to editor, in this work instead our own references we used images as a result our daily/clinical practice,

ii) image of the month (here we used clinical, endoscopy and pathology images), we presented chronic colitis as unique case in Multicentric reticulohistiocytosis (MRH), iii) interesting image (we used CT images and MRCP images), we reported portal vein aneurysm (PVA) as a cause of portal biliopathy.

Conclusion: Results of our daily clinical practice should be write, the publishing stays mandatory. If scientists want to reach high IF / CC base they should develop new approach, where clinically manifested pathology (instead 1000 words) should be support by radiology, endoscopy and pathology imaging followed with the short text until 100 words.

Keywords clinical imaging, Current Contents, target journals.

Acta Inform Med. 2016 Dec;24(6):424–435.

PUBLICATION OF THESIS AND DISSERTATIONS; GOALS AND CHALLENGES IN OUR EXPERIENCE

Floreta Kurti, Vjollca Shpata

Faculty of Medical Technical Sciences, University of Medicine, Tirana, Albania. ORCID ID: http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3577-6004. E-mail: floretakurti@googlemail.com

Aim: To evaluate the current situation in the research field in our Faculty and University in the process of Master’s graduation and doctoral programs.

Material Methods: We evaluated 240 master theses during the past academic year and 320 doctoral projects 2010-2013 (80 doctoral projects during the year 2010, 80 doctoral projects during 2011, 100 doctoral projects during 2012 and 60 projects during 2013).

Results: According to our Law for Higher Education and Research in the Republic of Albania, the procedure for publication and formalisation of graduation theses submitted for the application of professional higher education diplomas, bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees are considered graduation theses, and dissertations submitted for the application of doctoral degrees are called dissertation theses.

According to our “Doctoral Study Regulation”, a dissertation thesis is defended in front of a jury on the basis of several numbers of publications (3 articles, published in pub med and in impact factor journals and 3 abstracts presented in national and international meetings).

In our experience, doctoral dissertations are individual projects, not part of big research project, and are usually self financed by doctoral students. On the other hand, so many doctoral projects mean many findings, articles, publications and presentations. The question is: do we really produce so many research findings and discoveries?

Conclusions: A National Research database is immediately needed, and is currently a challenge for us. Doctoral dissertations should be part of big research projects, with a real impact on sharing research findings and discoveries, with the hope of improving healthcare. Regional projects might be a good starting point.

Thesis, dissertations, publishing, scientific results.

Footnotes

• Authors’s contribution: all authors of the abstracts approved their abstracts before final editing and printing.

• Conflict of interest: none declared.

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Articles from Acta Informatica Medica are provided here courtesy of Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

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