BRIF and journal editors

Hi everybody,

So, now that the system is working, I am posting here the brief note about tasks, timing etc, written along with Elena, Paola and Anna Maria (my colleagues at ISS who are members of this subgroup).
It is important to trace down the different steps we should follow.
Please feel free to comment, improve etc.

Task: Sensitizing journal editors to BRIF issues and modifying editorial guidelines

Objectives
The subgroup will study and agree on a proposal to submit to international associations, committees and other organisations of scientific editors, with the aim to sensitize them on BRIF issues and proceed to amend their editorial guidelines accordingly.

Priorities
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are internationally recognized as associations of utmost importance in the biomedical editorial field. Therefore, as a first step, they should be both contacted by this BRIF subgroup for the amendment of:
• Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URM) (http://www.icmje.org/)
• COPE guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/).

The BRIF subgroup should elaborate and agree on a document to submit to ICMJE and COPE:

1. describing BRIF as a project and the aim of this subgroup
2. sensitizing on the problems concerning the difficulty of tracing citations related to bioresources in biomedical journals
3. including a practical proposal (sentences, paragraphs, to insert in specific sections of both guidelines).

Other associations of scientific editors like the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Council of Science Editors (CSE) etc. or other relevant assoicaitons such the European Science Foundation (ESF), the International Council for Science (ICSU), the European Research Council (ERC) etc. could also be contacted afterwards on the basis of the feedback from the ICMJE and COPE.

Preliminary time schedule

1. members of the subgroup should agree with Objectives and Priorities (by the end of March)
2. the ISS working group shall elaborate a document (by the end of April)
3. the document will be forwarded for discussion and approval within the subgroup and to the whole BRIF group according to the general procedure of all subgroups (by the end of May)
4. the final version will be sent to ICMJE and COPE (June)
5. further discussion and feedback

Hi Gudmundur
thank you for your suggestions!

Actually we just started commenting on this page and are still getting used to the system.
Cheers
Federica

The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals are available at http://www.icmje.org/

Below is a first draft of proposed insertions which regard, for the moment, only two sections:"Contributors listed in the Acknowledgements" and "Methods".

II. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE CONDUCT AND
REPORTING OF RESEARCH
II A. Authorship and Contributorship

II. A. 2. Contributors Listed in Acknowledgments
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship
should be listed in an acknowledgments section.
Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a
person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance,
or a department chairperson who provided only general
support. Editors should ask corresponding authors to
declare whether they had assistance with study design, data
collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation. If such
assistance was available, the authors should disclose the
identity of the individuals who provided this assistance and
the entity that supported it in the published article. Financial
and material support should also be acknowledged.
Groups of persons who have contributed materially to
the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship
may be listed under such headings as “clinical investigators”
or “participating investigators,” and their function
or contribution should be described—for example, “served
as scientific advisors,” “critically reviewed the study proposal,”
“collected data,” or “provided and cared for study
patients.” Because readers may infer their endorsement of
the data and conclusions, these persons must give written
permission to be acknowledged.

SENTENCE TO INSERT: ” Biobankers should always be acknowledged for their contribution in providing samples or data useful for the conduct of the study and the name of the Biobank and/or of the providing institution should also be reported here in extense"

Because readers may infer their endorsement of
the data and conclusions, these persons must give written
permission to be acknowledged.

IV. MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION
IV. A. Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a
Biomedical Journal

IV. A. 6. Methods
SECTION TO INSERT:

IV.A.6.d Bioresources

Describe precisely the type of sample and/or of data provided by a Biobank. Include a brief description of the Biobank itself containing all information useful for its correct identification.

When possible …….

Avoid…..

[please help to complete this section, make inclusions/suggestions, also on terminology (just remember that we are in the “Methods” section of the paper]

Hi Elena.
I appreciate your comments. Indeed we lacked that information. Now that the work is taking shape, I would suggest to work on a single document including all suggestions to make easier to follow all possible amendments. I will try to make it in the wiki area, but I am not sure if I succeed.
Best wishes
Paola

I thank Anne Cambon - Thomsen for her precisation.
I perfectly agree about the concept that we shall consider not the OECD biobank definition, but better the genetic research databases HBGRD. The important item is to have a definition, which also the uniform requirement can refer to.
If the actual definition is in a differnt part of the document, we will refer to it. You will to us where we can find this definition.

I also thank Paola, for the idea to have a unique document. Of course, we will have a unique document, defined by us, but I believe that at this point that the discussion is so open, we should insert our comments as they come to us. Then we will reorganize all the suggestions by others and by us in a unique document.

Dear Collegues, I actually share the exigency reported from my subgroup and Federica that to continue our work on BRIF and journal editors we shall refer somehow to a definition of “bioresource”. I expect that that BRIF-work will produce a complete and more precise definition of “bioresources” in other sections of the final document. However, to carry on our bit on “BRIF and journal editors” we will “temporarily” include a very short ( that can be , anyway modified, when all documents will be harmonized) definition of “bioresource”.
As we are going to re-organize our document, tomorrow I expect that prompt reply will help us on this point, however, my preliminary suggestion for this subgroup could be: “Bioresources include both biological samples with associated data (medical/epidemiological, social) and biomolecular research tools. The biosamples and biomolecular resources include any “physical” specimen derived from biological organisms, as well antibody, affinity binder collections, clone collections, siRNA and microarrays libraries. Research tools include any data, directly or indirectly derived from biosamples such as databases, locus/imagine specific-databases, registries of disease patients and any specific tools for molecular characterization of biobanked samples”.
Thanks, Elena

Hello Anne and all,
I will be at ESHG and would be happy to be involved.
Susan

Dear Anne, dear all.
the national Nodes and BioShare have a restrict meeting the days of ESHG, then I will not be present. However, Federica organized a meeting last week and we planned the reorganization of our documents, that we will post soon.