Gender diversity of editorial boards and gender differences in the peer review process at six journals of ecology and evolution.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Fox CW
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6953666 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:This paper analyses the Editorial Board (EB) distribution of Occupational Therapy journals from a gender perspective. The "Occupational Therapy" field in the Scimago Journal and Country Rank (SJR) and the "Occupational Therapy" term in the title search of the Journal Citation Report (JCR) were used to find the Occupational Therapy-specific journals. The following indicators were calculated: Editorial Board Member (EBM) gender distribution by journal, publisher, subject speciality, country, and journal quartile. Thirty-seven journals were located, including 667 individuals, 206 males (31%) and 461 females (69%). Referring to the EB positions, most members (557) were EB members, 70 were listed as Associate Editors, and 20 as Editorial Leaders. The results show that the proportion of women in the EB's of Occupational Therapy journals represents a majority. Regarding the distribution by gender of the EBMs, six journals had a female proportion below the cut-off point revealed in this study (69%). Four did not reach parity, with female representation below 50%. Additionally, the balance among the EBMs is significantly underrepresented compared to the percentage of female Occupational Therapy practitioners.
| S-EPMC9966705 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Women are underrepresented in professional spaces, particularly at leadership positions. In science, the participation in editorial boards of journals is evidence of a high reputation within a specialty or field. Therefore, female presence in editorial boards can be used as a proxy for female presence and leadership in academic spaces. Here, we assessed the gender composition in editorial boards of 31 biodiversity conservation (BC) journals included in the Web of Science and obtained information on current and past editorial boards of these journals. We found pervasive gender bias in the editorial boards of the main scientific BC journals. Current editorial boards were composed of 1251 editors, of which only 28.7% were women. Nevertheless, gender biases are becoming smaller over time. Our projections indicate that BC journals may achieve gender balance in their editorial boards by the year 2038. We argue that a diverse and inclusive editorial board has greater chances to propose innovative solutions to conservation problems. Thus, the academic community, editors and journals must take proactive measures to achieve gender balance. Given that most editors are men, hiring women still depends on them; and these men need urgently to take their share of responsibility and be actors of change. More broadly, journals and science decision-makers must commit to their importance in the movement and start, for example, to hire and support women's work.
| S-EPMC7486622 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Despite women constituting over half of new doctors, gender disparity remains an issue. Surgery has shown particularly slow progress towards gender parity. This study aimed to quantify gender representation within editorial boards of the highest ranking international general surgery journals. Surgical journals were collated using two indices: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Non-general surgery journals were excluded. Journals were contacted, requesting gender editorial team demographics. Editorial board data were collected via journal websites on 28 November 2019. The top 25 general surgery journals according to SJR and JIF ranking methods were determined, identifying 28 unique journals. Editorial board data were publicly available for 27 of these 28 surgical journals, and were examined. Women accounted for 20.2 per cent (568 of 2816) of total editorial board positions. Women constituted 11 per cent (4 of 36) of editor-in-chief positions, 32 per cent (29 of 92) of deputy editors, and 19.1 per cent (369 of 1935) of general editorial board positions. The findings demonstrate gender disparity within editorial boards of the most prominent general surgery journals.
| S-EPMC8036998 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, has been designated by the United Nations as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be completed by 2030, since gender disparity is a major impediment to scientific and economic progress. This study was carried out in an effort to address the gender gaps that can be seen in academic and scientific publications. The purpose of this study is to describe the gender distribution of editorial board members and editors-in-chief across geriatrics journals with high impact factors. Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2021 were used to guide the selection of geriatric and gerontology journals utilizing Scopus All Science Journal Classification Codes. The genders of the editors-in-chief and editorial board members were determined and analyzed using publicly accessible data. A total of 47 geriatric journals with an average impact factor of 4.27 were examined. Of the 65 editors-in-chief, 21 (32%) were women, whereas 876 female editorial members were found out of a total of 2414, which constitutes 36% in total. Despite making up 60% of the geriatric medical workforce, women are still underrepresented on editorial boards and as chief editors in well-known geriatric periodicals.
| S-EPMC9498408 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We apply a novel mistake index to assess trends in the proportion of corrections published between 1993 and 2014 in Nature, Science and PNAS. The index revealed a progressive increase in the proportion of corrections published in these three high-quality journals. The index appears to be independent of the journal impact factor or the number of items published, as suggested by a comparative analyses among 16 top scientific journals of different impact factors and disciplines. A more detailed analysis suggests that the trend in the time-to-correction increased significantly over time and also differed among journals (Nature 233 days; Science 136 days; PNAS 232 days). A detailed review of 1,428 errors showed that 60% of corrections were related to figures, authors, references or results. According to the three categories established, 34.7% of the corrections were considered mild, 47.7% moderate and 17.6% severe, also differing among journals. Errors occurring during the printing process were responsible for 5% of corrections in Nature, 3% in Science and 18% in PNAS. The measurement of the temporal trends in the quality of scientific manuscripts can assist editors and reviewers in identifying the most common mistakes, increasing the rigor of peer-review and improving the quality of published scientific manuscripts.
| S-EPMC4756748 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionThere is a notable under-representation of women in leadership positions in ophthalmology despite the increasing number of women as ophthalmologists. Gender inequality in editorial boards of ophthalmology journals has not been investigated on a global scale. This study will aim to evaluate the representation of women as editorial board members in ophthalmology journals across different regions, journal subspecialties and impact factors.Methods and analysisThis will be a cross-sectional study describing the gender composition of editorial boards in ophthalmology journals globally. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and SCImago Journal & Country Rank will be used to comprehensively identify journals indexed with the keyword, 'ophthalmology'. All journals with active websites and lists of editorial boards will be included. Journals will be categorised according to the World Bank's 2021 classification of countries by income and region, and classified into ophthalmology subspecialties based on publication scope. Impact factors will be obtained from Journal Citation Reports. The gender and academic degrees of each editorial board member will be determined based on journal profiles, institutional websites or name query feature on an online interface. The research impact of each editorial board member will be ascertained from the author records on Web of Science. The gender proportion will be presented for all journals combined, and then for journals grouped by regions, subspecialties and impact factors. Editorial board member characteristics including academic degrees and research productivity measures will be compared between men and women. These comparisons will be made using the χ2 test for categorical variables and the independent samples t-test for continuous variables.Ethics and disseminationThis study did not require research ethics approval given the use of publicly available data and lack of human subjects. The results will be presented at scientific meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals.
| S-EPMC9045046 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Despite women earning similar numbers of graduate degrees as men in STEM disciplines, they are underrepresented in upper level positions in both academia and industry. Editorial board memberships are an important example of such positions; membership is both a professional honor in recognition of achievement and an opportunity for professional advancement. We surveyed 10 highly regarded journals in environmental biology, natural resource management, and plant sciences to quantify the number of women on their editorial boards and in positions of editorial leadership (i.e., Associate Editors and Editors-in-Chief) from 1985 to 2013. We found that during this time period only 16% of subject editors were women, with more pronounced disparities in positions of editorial leadership. Although the trend was towards improvement over time, there was surprising variation between journals, including those with similar disciplinary foci. While demographic changes in academia may reduce these disparities over time, we argue journals should proactively strive for gender parity on their editorial boards. This will both increase the number of women afforded the opportunities and benefits that accompany board membership and increase the number of role models and potential mentors for early-career scientists and students.
| S-EPMC4145067 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Scholarly journals are often blamed for a gender gap in publication rates, but it is unclear whether peer review and editorial processes contribute to it. This article examines gender bias in peer review with data for 145 journals in various fields of research, including about 1.7 million authors and 740,000 referees. We reconstructed three possible sources of bias, i.e., the editorial selection of referees, referee recommendations, and editorial decisions, and examined all their possible relationships. Results showed that manuscripts written by women as solo authors or coauthored by women were treated even more favorably by referees and editors. Although there were some differences between fields of research, our findings suggest that peer review and editorial processes do not penalize manuscripts by women. However, increasing gender diversity in editorial teams and referee pools could help journals inform potential authors about their attention to these factors and so stimulate participation by women.
| S-EPMC7787493 | biostudies-literature
Project description:INTRODUCTION:Despite dealing with scientific output and potentially having an impact on the quality of research published, the manuscript peer-review process itself has at times been criticised for being 'unscientific'. Research indicates that there are social and subjective dimensions of the peer-review process that contribute to this perception, including how key stakeholders-namely authors, editors and peer reviewers-communicate. In particular, it has been suggested that the expected roles and tasks of stakeholders need to be more clearly defined and communicated if the manuscript review process is to be improved. Disentangling current communication practices, and outlining the specific roles and tasks of the main actors, might be a first step towards establishing the design of interventions that counterbalance social influences on the peer-review process.The purpose of this article is to present a methodological design for a qualitative study exploring the communication practices within the manuscript review process of biomedical journals from the journal editors' point of view. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:Semi-structured interviews will be carried out with editors of biomedical journals between October 2017 and February 2018. A heterogeneous sample of participants representing a wide range of biomedical journals will be sought through purposive maximum variation sampling, drawing from a professional network of contacts, publishers, conference participants and snowballing.Interviews will be thematically analysed following the method outlined by Braun and Clarke. The qualitative data analysis software NVivo V.11 will be used to aid data management and analysis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:This research project was evaluated and approved by the University of Split, Medical School Ethics Committee (2181-198-03-04-17-0029) in May 2017. Findings will be disseminated through a publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presentations during conferences.
| S-EPMC6196803 | biostudies-other
Project description:The editorial materials in top medical and public health journals are opportunities for experts to offer thoughts that might influence the trajectory of the field. To date, while some studies have examined gender bias in the publication of editorial materials in medical journals, none have studied public health journals. In this perspective, we studied the gender ratio of the editorial materials published in the top health and medical sciences journals between 2008 and early 2018 to test whether gender bias exists. We studied a total of 59 top journals in health and medical sciences. Overall, while there is a trend of increasing proportion of female first authors, there is still a greater proportion of male than female first authors. The average male-to-female first author ratio during the study period across all journals was 2.08. Ensuring equal access and exposure through journal editorials is a critical step, albeit only one step of a longer journey, towards gender balance in health and medical sciences research. Editors of top journals have a key role to play in pushing the fields towards more balanced gender equality, and we strongly urge editors to rethink the strategies for inviting authors for editorial materials.
| S-EPMC7444434 | biostudies-literature