Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics
Volume 23, Issue 2 , Pages 73-75, February 2000

Report from the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editor's Council

  • Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Councila

Mary Ann Chance and Rolf E. Peters, Chiropractic Journal of Australia; Allan Gotlib, Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association; Dana J. Lawrence, Chiropractic Technique, Journal of Chiropractic Humanities, Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation; Simon M.D. Leyson, European Journal of Chiropractic; William Meeker, Journal of the Neuromusculoskeletal System; Robert D. Mootz, Topics in Clinical Chiropractic; John Stites, Topics in Diagnostic Radiology & Advanced Imaging; Robert Ward, Journal of Chiropractic Education; Sarah Webster, Chiropractic Research Journal; and John Willis, Chiropractic History

This document is not covered by copyright. It may be copied or reprinted without permission. Anyone who wishes to obtain a single reprint may do so free of charge by sending a stamped (US postage), self-addressed envelope (American business size) to the Editor, Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 200 E Roosevelt Rd, Lombard, IL 60148-4583

Citations of this document should be: Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. Report from the 10th annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2000;23:73–5

Article Outline

 

Summaries of previous meetings of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors'Council have been published. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The 10th meeting of the council was held at the Arlington Park Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, on July 24, 1999. Members in attendance were Alana Callender for Dr John Willis, Chiropractic History; Dr Mary Ann Chance, Chiropractic Journal of Australia; Dr Sarah Webster, Chiropractic Research Journal; Dr Dana Lawrence, Chiropractic Technique, Journal of Chiropractic Humanities, Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation; Dr Simon Leyson, European Journal of Chiropractic; Dr Robert Ward, Journal of Chiropractic Education; Dr Allan Gotlib, Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association; Dr Bill Meeker, Journal of the Neuromusculoskeletal System; Dr Robert Mootz, Topics in Clinical Chiropractic; Dr John Stites, Topics in Diagnostic Radiology and Advanced Imaging.

Dr Allan Gotlib was Chair of Council for 1999. Guests in attendance for all or part of the meeting included Dr Lisa Killinger, Associate Editor (Journal of Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics); Dr Mathew McCoy (attending at the request of Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research Editor, Dr Ralph Boone); Dr Reed Philips, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Chiropractic Education and President of Los Angeles Chiropractic College; and both Drs Gary Schultz and Dan Hansen, Associated Editors for Topics in Clinical Chiropractic.

Back to Article Outline

Minutes of the 1998 Meeting 

The meeting was called to order by Dr Allan Gotlib. The minutes of the ninth annual meeting were approved with a minor amendment (Dr Maxine McMullen was not present at the ninth annual meeting).

Presentation to council 

Dr Claire Johnson (Palmer College of Chiropractic-West) and Dr Lisa Caputo (Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College) made a brief presentation to Council regarding the establishment of a new website called ChiroEd.net that will be online by the end of summer, 1999. ChiroEd.net will be a forum for chiropractic educators and researchers world-wide to discuss issues and exchange ideas and resources related to chiropractic and health-profession education and research. The site will feature a discussion forum for chiropractic college faculty members, a series of practical tools for educators, such as evaluation forms and short papers, and a section of links to other websites of interest. Although the main site will be open to anyone, access to the discussion forum will be limited to faculty, staff, and administration from chiropractic colleges so that issues common to all chiropractic institutions can be discussed with some measure of openness.

Drs Johnson and Caputo's purpose for presenting at the meeting was to provide information about the proposed site and to invite journals that are currently online to connect their journal site to ChiroEd.net's list of web links. This would require the journal editor to send the appropriate link to Dr Caputo. Drs Caputo and Johnson will manage ChiroEd.net; however, the site and resources to run it are being generously donated by Don Peterson and Dynamic Chiropractic.

Changes in editors 

Council welcomed 2 new editors, Dr Sarah Webster, PhD, Editor for the Chiropractic Research Journal, and Dr Robert Ward, DC, Editor for the Journal of Chiropractic Education. Dr Dana Lawrence informed the Council that he has submitted his resignation as Editor from the Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation, and to his knowledge, a new editor has not been appointed.

Matters arising from ninth annual meeting 

1.The Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council (CRJEC) membership criteria and the criteria defining a research journal as established in the sixth annual meeting report of the CRJEC were reaffirmed after an amendment that deleted subsection III in Resolution 1, which reads “The journal does not publish the same manuscript simultaneously with other journals.” The reader is referred to the Report from the sixth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council6 as the source document. This measure is designed to avoid duplication of printed articles, preserving the originality of the source work and its citation. There was a significant exchange of ideas related to the conflict of interest issue. The “Instruction to Authors” section should be reviewed by each journal to ensure this issue is adequately addressed. Dr Dan Hansen agreed to provide the Council with a detailed form. This measure is promoted to ensure that any possible conflict of interest is declared by the author at submission and notified to the reader at publication. Journal editors must be in a position to judge if there are any possible conflicts of interest that might influence peer review or subsequent publication. Dr Dana Lawrence informed Council that the Journal of Chiropractic Humanities will now be available online only.

2.CRJEC Position Statement #1: Mandate and Objectives, and CRJEC Position Statement #2: Methodologic Audit Trails (Informatics) and Systematic Literature Reviews were deferred to the next Council meeting, pending further consideration. Drs Allan Gotlib and Robert Mootz will incorporate additional provisions and definitions related to the types of reviews (narrative/descriptive [nonsystematic] vs systematic) and make their recommendations to Council.

3.The CRJEC website will be developed initially by Dr Allan Gotlib and hosted by the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Under consideration are plans to help budding authors and editors become familiar with the problems associated with the publication arena. Links to other websites will give visitors the opportunity to review this area quickly and methodically.

4.Dr Dana Lawrence will develop an editors' workshop in concert with the next Council meeting and incorporate issues that will attract young researchers and potential editors. Field practitioners should also be encouraged to write case reports. Dr Dana Lawrence will provide a slide presentation for use by editors.

5.Drs Dana Lawrence and Robert Mootz addressed the Council on the issue of editorial autonomy and reviewed the Lundberg case with respect to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Both stressed the absolute necessity for editors to be unfettered in carrying out their duties as editors. Council members reaffirmed this position.

6.Dr Simon Leyson reported to Council that the development of a CRJEC logo is in progress.

7.Dr Mary Ann Chance provided an extensive summary of the 10-year CRJEC history about the many discussions, policies, and decisions that CRJEC has considered and taken positions on. The issues included but were not limited to structured abstracts, accreditation, advertising, authorship criteria, conflict of interest, ethics, indexing, informed consent, Declaration of Helsinki, letters to the editor, membership, peer review, adherence to the “Uniform Requirements,” acknowledgments, transmittal documents, audit trails, acronyms, standards, statistics, subject headings, quality control, and autonomy of editors.

Back to Article Outline

New agenda items 

Canadian Chiropractic Protective Association 

The Canadian Chiropractic Protective Association (CCPA) has provided a grant in the amount of Can $10,000 to the CRJEC. These funds will provide for travel expenses so that the members can continue to meet annually and the CRJEC can administrate its mandate. The CCPA has taken a leadership role in supporting the scientific chiropractic milieu by promoting the awareness of scholarship and a safe, effective, and competent practice through responsible journalism. This cannot be accomplished any other way than through peer-reviewed publications. The support of the CCPA minimizes conflicts of interest and the perceived apprehension of bias and enhances the absolute need for scholarly journal editors to remain completely independent from political influence. The issue of Dr George Lundberg, past editor of JAMA, provides an excellent example of this dilemma.

Scientific and scholarly journal editing requires shared expertise and mentoring currently unavailable through any other means within the chiropractic profession. Council expressed its sincere gratitude to the CCPA for providing the means for this group to carry out its duties.

Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals 

Council reaffirmed this document, which also incorporates provisions for the Declaration of Helsinki and standards related to animal experimentation and care.10

Scientific misconduct 

Dr Allan Gotlib raised the issue of scientific misconduct and the duties and obligations imposed on scholarly journal editors. Although the likelihood of this issue arising at the present time is remote, editors were apprised of potential obligations and procedures available with respect to an author's institutional affiliation, funding agency, and jurisdictional regulatory agency.

Index Medicus 

Drs Robert Mootz and Bill Meeker updated Council on this issue. With increased retrievability of literature through numerous online sources, Index Medicus (IM) retrievability may be of less relevance in the future. However, because IM continues to be the premier choice for biomedical literature searches, several chiropractic journals will probably continue to pursue such indexing. IM seems to be adding new journals with only high quality, rigorous original research at present. Journals with narrative reviews, reprints of previously published material, and nonrigorous original data studies (eg, case studies) remain of little interest to IM. The increased attention to alternative care at the National Institutes of Health may have some influence on inclusion of alternative care literature in the future.

Journal exchange 

All editors agreed to exchange journals among members.

Chiropractic literature 

Dr Mary Ann Chance stressed the need to encourage all chiropractic academics to contribute more to the chiropractic literature versus the medical literature. Chiropractic authors must be more realistic in terms of identifying who their targeted readership is and in maximizing the dissemination and uptake of their research findings.

New chairman of the CRJEC 

Dr John Stites accepted the position for the year 2000.

Next meeting of the CRJEC 

No date was set for the next meeting. Several venues are being considered. The meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with one of the following possibilities: 2nd Canadian Chiropractic Research Symposium (Trois-Rivières), American Chiropractic Conference (San Antonio, Tex), International Conference on Spinal Manipulation (Minneapolis, Minn), or Research Agenda Conference V (Washington, DC).

Back to Article Outline

References 

  1. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1991;14:1–4
  2. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the second annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1992;15:1–3
  3. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the third annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1993;16:1–2
  4. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the fourth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1994;17:1–4
  5. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the fifth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1995;18:1–4
  6. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the sixth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1996;19:1–5
  7. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the seventh annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1997;20:1–4
  8. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the eighth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1998;21:1–4
  9. Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council . Report from the ninth annual meeting of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1999;22:2–3
  10. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors . Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Ann Intern Med. 1997;126:36–47

PII: S0161-4754(00)90070-8

Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics
Volume 23, Issue 2 , Pages 73-75, February 2000

Article Tools