Ringing the changes: some resolutions for the new year and beyond

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.1 In case you hadn't noticed, Medical Education has a new design for 2004. Of course, I rather hope that you had noticed, and that you like it. The editorial team involved in this overhaul of the journal's appearance certainly approves; we find it more modern, more pleasing to the eye and more easily accessible than the old design, with its red cover, and we are delighted to be able to use full colour images on the cover for the first time. ‘But,’ I hear some of our readers say, plaintively, ‘We were quite happy with the old design! Why did you have to change it?’ Well, it could be argued that change is, in itself, good for keeping us all on our toes, especially at the start of a new year. But change can be a difficult and unsettling process and is often resisted, so the editorial team thought carefully about its reasons for making what it considers to be improvements, both to the appearance of the journal and also to the policies, frameworks and guidelines that we use in our everyday editorial work. Although the previous style was attractive and effective, we work in an ever-changing environment and Medical Education is dedicated to matching the pace of progress in the field. The new image is a visible sign of our determination to continue to make the print version of the journal more accessible for teaching and research. We are showing, in a graphic way, that we do not intend to stand still, but will continue to strive to make the journal increasingly useful and readable to our subscribers. Various new documents on policy have been reprinted in this issue as part of our drive to make our processes clearer to and more easily understood by our readers. The 2004 Guidelines for Authors2 reflect technical changes taking place within publishing; electronic submission and review, early online publishing of accepted papers, electronic offprints and the provision of E-mail proofs are all addressed more clearly in the new Guidelines. We have great sympathy with Tim Albert's appeal in this issue3 for authors in medical journals to make their work easier to read. It is something we ourselves have been trying to promote for many years in editorials,4,5 as well as in our Guidelines for Authors. The new 2004 Guidelines2 reflect the journal's intention to continue this process by requiring authors to be more succinct and organised in presenting their work. Word limits for papers have been reduced and authors will be encouraged to make more use of subheadings to break up their text for readers. The old ‘key learning points’ box is to be scrapped during the course of 2004 in favour of an ‘overview’ box based on a pattern pioneered by the British Medical Journal. Authors will be expected to organise their overview into brief points explaining what is already known on the topic addressed by the paper, what their paper adds to the existing literature, and offering suggestions for further research. In addition to the revised Guidelines for Authors, this issue also includes revised Guidelines for Reviewers,6 containing more specific guidance on constructive and responsible review, as well as a new document, which we have called our Editorial Policy Statement.7Medical Education has always had internal documents dealing with such issues as how we handle complaints, appeals and allegations of misconduct, but we are, for the first time, making these public so that readers and contributors can see for themselves how we handle the grey areas of editorial practice. It is our intention to keep these documents under regular review so that our standards and policies will remain among the highest in the field. In line with our commitment to improving standards and increasing openness, we are undertaking and encouraging scrutiny from inside and outside the journal of our policies and practice. We have established a group within the Editorial Board which will keep our procedures under review and which will monitor and advise on matters that concern the whole community of our readers and contributors, including bias, best practice within the review process, how we deal with work from inexperienced reviewers and so on. This group will have an active input into our ongoing programme of research. Some of the early results from part of this programme are published in a paper in this issue,8 which deals with the implications for the journal of its claim to be an international journal and looks at what international status means in practice, in terms of the papers selected for publication and citation. Although a journal's place is, quite rightly, at the heart of the academic community, there is a school of thought that suggests that journals should confine themselves to reporting research and debate within their field. Reportage is, of course, a vital part of a journal's function, and we make good use of professional writing within the commentary section. But we also take the view that we have a vital role to play in raising the quality of research, review and writing in the field and are happy to take any opportunity to keep these issues at the top of the medical education agenda. We enjoy organising workshops on review and writing for publication; we give as much feedback as we can in an effort to raise standards among our contributors, and we will keep on writing and advising about it as long as anyone is there to listen. The journal is longer this year – by an extra 8 pages an issue. How do we intend to fill those extra pages? We will continue to select for publication those research papers that best help us to fulfil our mission statement: ‘to publish material of the highest quality reflecting worldwide or provocative issues and perspectives’. All papers submitted are judged on the following 3 criteria: educational importance, originality and academic rigour. Prospective authors need to understand that all 3 criteria are equally important. All but the most junior researchers can readily understand that a paper may be original and important, but if its methodology is weak it is unable to defend its position and, for all its originality and significance, it is fatally flawed. They would expect such a paper to be rejected. But it is also important to look at this triad of qualities from an editor's point of view. Prospective authors need to remember that although the research in a paper may have been beautifully designed and elegantly reported, the piece is unlikely to be accepted if it is not original and does not add to what we know already. It will also fail if it is of little importance to the educators who are expected to read it and attempt to apply its message. A paper by Prystowsky and Bordage in Medical Education in 20019 demonstrated that too many assessment papers fall down on the matter of educational importance. Such papers may describe interesting work but they tend not to consider the quality and cost implications that make the work they describe of immediacy and relevance to educators. In a recent editorial, Michael Whitcomb10 expressed the desire that Academic Medicine should publish work that actually makes a difference to the readership of his journal. We strongly support this view and will ourselves be tightening up the application of our criteria for all papers, including those that deal with assessment matters. We will apply all 3 criteria to papers submitted during 2004 and will select for publication those that we feel best meet them all: educational importance, originality and academic rigour. Consequently, authors should also be warned that we will not look kindly on ‘show and tell’ papers – simple modifications and evaluations of interventions already described elsewhere. Medical Education receives many such papers each year and we usually suggest to authors that they try resubmitting them as 500-word reports for our Really Good Stuff sections in November and May, rather than as original research. Finally, whatever you think about the changes we have introduced, or indeed, if you have views on any matters raised within the journal, we would encourage you to continue to send opinion pieces in the form of letters and commentaries. We consider it the hallmark of a responsible journal to encourage – to borrow a phrase used recently by Michael Farthing of the BMJ –‘postpublication review’ of issues raised within its pages. Such published letters and comments form part of the scholarly archive and help to influence, develop and – in some cases – change our thinking on how we go about our daily business. They enable criticisms, alternative viewpoints and even factual corrections to form part of the body of information that is the tool of our trade as educators and researchers. I look forward to hearing from you. The Editor would like to thank Julie Brice, who assisted with the preparation of this manuscript.