Rebecca E. Cooney MedicReS World Congress 2015

The new roles and responsibilities of medical editors in the age of Big Data

Rebecca E. Cooney, PhDNorth American Editor

The Lancet @BekRx #LancetUSA

October 19-25 | 2015 New York www.medicres.org

The Lancet • Established in 1823• Editorial offices in London, New York, and Beijing • Weekly publication • Impact factor = 45.217• 9 “daughter journals” + EBioMedicine

Diabetes & Endocrinology Global HealthInfectious Diseases Neurology OncologyRespiratory MedicineHIVHaematologyPsychiatry


The Lancet on the Web

• www.thelancet.com• www.thelancetstudent.com• usa.thelancet.com


http://www.thelancet.com/

http://www.thelancetstudent.com/

Overview

• What are the roles and responsibilities of a medical editor in general?

• The lifecycle of a publication • Evaluating a manuscript • Evaluating findings • Focus on clinical trials, protocols, reporting• Transparency• What might the future look like – IOM report, PCORI


What do editors do?


What do editors do?


The Midwife

The role of professional editors•To oversee the peer review process, facilitate effective dialogue between authors and reviewers, and ensure process is efficient and productive.•To set editorial policy and standards for the journal. •To keep abreast of advances in the field. •Editorial writing, commissioning reviews or series, attending conferences, meeting with KOLs, interacting with the media

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Manuscript Submission

Peer Review

Production

Publish and Disseminate

Edit and Prepare

Archive and promote use

The Journal Publishing Cycle

When a manuscript is submitted

• The paper is read by the editor. The editor will review the published literature to assess whether the present work represents a significant conceptual advance.

• This editor will handle the paper throughout the review process. Papers are also discussed with the team of editors at editorial meetings.

What kind of manuscript submissions are we seeing?


The Omics• Genomics

– Nucleotide genome sequences, metagenomic sequences– Gene finding, functional annotation, sequence alignment, homology determination,

comparative analysis, phylogenetic inferencing, association analysis, mutation functional prediction, species distribution analysis

• Transcriptomics– RNA expression levels, transcription factor binding, chromatin structure information– Differential expression, clustering, functional enrichment, transcriptional

regulation/causal reasoning• Proteomics

– Proteins levels, protein structures, protein interactions– Protein identification, protein functional predictions, structural predictions,

structural comparison, molecular dynamic simulation, mutation functional prediction, docking predictions, network analysis

• Metabolomics– Metabolite/small molecule levels– Pathway/network analysis


Other kinds of Big Data submissions

• Surveillance - detection of Ebola and other emerging infectious diseases

• Risk factors – trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factors

• Epidemiology – Global Burden of Disease studies published with IHME


The waterfall model


What we look for• Does the study ask an interesting and important

question?

• Does it provide a significant conceptual advance beyond what was already known? Does it change the way we think about a field, process, or particular issue in some way?

• From The Lancet author page: “advances or illuminates medical science or practice, or that educates or entertains the journal's readers”

• Are the experiments logically designed? Is this the right experiment to answer this question?

• Is the paper well presented for a broad audience?

Clinical trial reporting

• Protocol review• Consolidated Standards of Reporting

Trialshttp://www.consort-statement.org/


http://www.consort-statement.org/

The outcome of initial editorial evaluation

1) Return the manuscript to the authorswith an explanation of why the editors feel it is not likely to be a strong candidate for publication

2) Send the paper out for reviewThe editors identify appropriate reviewers, taking into consideration author suggestions and exclusions

The peer review process

• We ask reviewers to provide comments on technical competence and on whether the paper provides a sufficiently significant conceptual advance

• Reviewers can make confidential remarks to the editor as well as providing a report for the authors.

Why does it take so long?

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Stage Time (in days)Submission to editor assignment 3.2Editor assignment to reviewer invitation

6.6

Reviewer invitation to reviewer response

4.7

Reviewer agreement to review completion

12.1

Submission to first decision 42.6Stage Time (in days)Submission to editor assignment 2.4Editor assignment to reviewer invitation

13.1

Reviewer invitation to reviewer response

1.0

Reviewer agreement to review completion

17.5

Submission to first decision 34.8

Journal X

Journal Y

What we look for in a reviewer’s report

• A clear, concise summary of the conceptual ‘take home’ message of the paper, and whether this presents an exciting advance for the field

• The key technical concerns and how these could be addressed

• Any minor technical issues (if recommending revision)

• A recommendation whether further experiments that can be completed in a timely fashion would make the paper appropriate

When the reviews come back

• Reviewers don’t always agree, the ultimate decision is not a simple count of votes “for” and “against”.

• The editor evaluates the reviewers’ comments and decides in collaboration with team, and sometimes in further consultation with reviewers, whether to invite a revised version of the paper

• Our goal as editors is to communicate the decision and the grounds for the decision to the authors clearly and constructively.

When you receive the decision letter

• Focus on the scientific issues and what will help you improve the paper

• If the reviews or editorial evaluation cite legitimate limitations or lack of sufficient general interest, it is usually in your best interest to submit the manuscript to another journal.

• If the reviewers and/or the editors have misunderstood a key aspect of the paper, consider an appeal

• With resubmission, provide a detailed point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments

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Peer Review

Production


Edit and Prepare



Do pay attention to the (wo)man behind the curtain


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Journal Article Production

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Solicit and manage

submissions

Manage Peer Review

Production


Edit and Prepare



Electronic Journal Platforms

Traditional Print Journals

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Methods of Publication Dissemination

AND

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Other Methods of DisseminationAd-supported Portals Pay-per-View

Podcast/ Blogs/ Mobile

Apps

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Peer Review

Production


Edit and Prepare



What could change?


Transparency

• Data sharing plan requirement• More sophisticated deidentification • Uniformity requirements for metadata• Allowing other PIs data to allow for secondary

analyses • IOM Report on Data Sharing

https://iom.nationalacademies.org/Activities/Research/SharingClinicalTrialData.aspx


Some final thoughts

• Should editors be the gatekeepers?• How might pre-publication summary level results

and lay summaries affect traditional peer-review publishing?

• Lay summaries as part of the finished product of a publication?

• Whose responsibility will it be to store all those data? Who will have access? How do we protect patients?


Thank You !

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Rebecca E. Cooney MedicReS World Congress 2015

Data & Analytics

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