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Department of Cardiology, Westmead Hospital, University of SydneyDepartment of Cardiology, Blacktown Hospital, Western Sydney UniversityEditor-in-Chief
This issue marks the last in the 25th volume of Heart, Lung and Circulation (HLC), and the close of Heart, Lung and Circulation's 25th anniversary year. It has been a year not only of reflection and celebration but also of further development, including the routine adoption of plagiarism software in assessing submissions, the phasing-out of the case report as an “article type”, and the proposed introduction of a new annual Best Research Prize for the “best original article” published in print in a calendar year.
HLC's silver jubilee year of 2016 launched with a series of thoughtful editorials from the Journal's Editor-in-Chief and Section Editors. Many of these contributions succinctly yet comprehensively covered a quarter of a century of developments; [
]. The crescendo of special contributions from Australasia and around the world reached a peak in August 2016 within the 25th anniversary Special Issue.
The August 2016 edition proved to be an issue of “hits”, and in more ways than one. Sylvia Priori and colleagues’ narrative review about the clinical challenges in catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia was the subject of a Twitter post that recorded nearly 5 times more social media engagement than average, with Likes, Retweets, and Clicks on the post taking the user through to the article [
]. A CSANZ Position Statement, “Update on the Diagnosis and Management of Familiar Long QT Syndrome” continues HLC's tradition of publishing “key opinion leader” guidance — in this instance, aimed at presenting sudden death associated with a familiar condition [
The icing on the cake was the contemporaneous publication of Heart, Lung and Circulation's inaugural digital collection (25thAnniversary Digital Collection) which directly links to several of these most popular articles, including a perennial favourite — Franklin Rosenfeldt and colleagues’ guide as to “How to write a paper for publication” [
The 25th anniversary issue was timed to concur with the 64th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ), held in Adelaide, 4–7 August 2016. This timing allowed for several special events in the official Conference program, including a commemorative cutting of a (literal) 25th birthday cake at the Conference's Gala Night (see Figure 1), and an inaugural “Meet the Editors” session hosted by Heart, Lung and Circulation and subtitled “What are cardiology journal editors looking for?”
Figure 1“The three editors cutting the cake”: Professor Richmond Jeremy (past Editor-in-Chief), Professor Franklin Rosenfeldt (first Editor-in-Chief) and Professor Robert Denniss (current Editor-in-Chief of Heart, Lung and Circulation) cutting the Journal's 25th birthday cake at the CSANZ Annual Scientific Meeting 2016, Adelaide. Photo credit: CSANZ.
In this session, Robert Denniss, Editor-in-Chief of Heart, Lung and Circulation was joined by editors associated with three other cardiology journals — Circulation, International Journal of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Diagnosis & Therapy — in presenting and discussing diverse topics such as the main reasons for manuscript rejection and, conversely, the art and science of getting work accepted for publication. This has been followed up with a second “Meet The Editors” session at The Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons’ Annual Scientific Meeting in Cairns, 6-9 November 2016.
Also notable in the 25th anniversary issue was an editorial calling for the establishment of a regional congenital heart disease registry, in response to the changing landscape of congenital heart disease — where the child-to-adult ratio and, with it, the burden of disease has shifted to adults, creating the need for a new paradigm of care [
Celermajer D, Strange G, Cordina R, et al. Congenital Heart Disease Requires a Lifetime Continuum of Care: A Call for a Regional Registry. Heart Lung Circ;25(8):750-754.
The 25th anniversary year has also seen the publication in HLC of the complete National Heart Foundation of Australia & CSANZ Australian Clinical Guidelines for the Management of Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) 2016, which seek to provide guidance regarding the clinical care of patients presenting with suspected or confirmed ACS. Intended to replace earlier guidelines published in 2006, 2008 and 2011, this landmark document followed the 25th anniversary issue, being allocated a complete issue (September 2016) [
NHRA/CSANZ ACS Guidelines 2016 Executive Working Group National Heart Foundation of Australia & Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand: Australian Clinical Guidelines for the Management of Acute Coronary Syndrome 2016.
Reflections on the Heart Foundation of Australia/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand Acute Coronary Syndromes Guidelines 2016 — a new international benchmark.
Just as there are changes in the epidemiology of disease and in clinical practice, reflected in new registries and revised practice guidelines, there are also changes in the “landscape” of journals. 2016 has seen the introduction of two significant changes in editorial policy at Heart, Lung and Circulation and the creation of a new award – Best Original Research Prize. All are aimed at increasing the quality of this Journal's content, and its related contribution to advances in healthcare.
Firstly, HLC has elected to actively promote integrity in research and publication by routinely screening every submission to the Journal with CrossCheck, a type of “plagiarism detection software” [
]. As Marusic points out, editors should be the gatekeepers of responsible science for the Journals, and just as it has become easier for “willing researchers to use modern technologies to fabricate, falsify and duplicate their data and publications, it is as easy for other stakeholders, including editors, to discover such misconduct” [
CrossCheck (http://www.ithenticate.com/products/crosscheck) is an initiative between iThenticate and CrossRef, a not-for-profit membership association of publishers, established to help publishers prevent professional plagiarism and other forms of scholarly misconduct – like “text recycling” of an author's own words. Published works are shared within the iThenticate database, allowing the CrossCheck service to offer publishers a way to compare documents against a large comparative database of scientific, technical and medical content in the world. Participating publishers include Elsevier, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Nature Publishing, Ovid, Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, Springer and Wiley-Blackwell. The CrossCheck report gives a percentage score, known as a “Similarity Index”, which indicates how much of the submitted document matches other sources. Further, a breakdown in percentages is given, matched with identified, individual sources. (For example, a Similarity Index of 10% may be made up of 3% from one source, and less than 1% for a number of other sources.) Areas of text which match are highlighted throughout the original submission; with a different number and colour for each individual source.
The software developers have pointed out that iThenticate does not determine whether a manuscript contains plagiarism. Rather, the service is intended to identify content in a submitted manuscript that matches other sources in the database — with the intention of encouraging proper citation of sources by authors.
At HLC, we are encouraging authors to adopt this best practice, submission-by-submission, for all submissions with a Similarity Index score of more than 5% with a single, other publication. Authors can’t just “lift” their own or other authors’ words without proper acknowledgement.
At this point, we have no way of knowing how effective our actions will be in promoting integrity and preventing misconduct in research and publication, but we are encouraged by the findings of a recent Cochrane review reporting that there is some evidence, if low quality, that training about plagiarism, especially if it involves practical exercises and use of text-matching software, may reduce the occurrence of plagiarism [
] and, by guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) freely available on-line at http://publicationethics.org.
Second, a decision was taken earlier in the year to phase out, or at least, reduce the publication of case reports in Heart, Lung and Circulation. It's a decision that has been taken by many other journals, and well explained by the Canadian Journal of Surgery when it took this step as far back as 2001: most case reports have little scientific value and a very low citation index, rarely being referenced except in another case report of the same condition [
]. Outstanding cases can still be submitted at Brief Communications, and there are many journals of case reports to which authors can submit. However, HLC seeks to provide other “entry level” scientific publication opportunities for less experienced authors: images are popular with our Journal audience; and, reviews, both narrative and systematic in type, could serve this purpose equally well, if not better.
In fact, HLC actively encourages such submissions, with 2016 marking the second year of the HLC's early career publication prize for best review. The Best Review Prize 2016 was won by Kevin Phan, the first author of a multi-authored systematic review and meta-analysis of transcatheter aortic valve implantation in patients with bicuspid aortic valve stenosis published in print in HLC in the previous year, 2015 [
]. Four other “first author” finalists, from Australia, New Zealand and the USA, were highly commended for their co-authored reviews, also published in print in HLC in 2015 [
Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation in patients with concomitant left ventricular impairment: a systematic review of efficacy and effect on ejection fraction.
]. The Best Review Prize will be awarded for a third time in 2017; and, full details can be found on the Journal's website at www.heartlungcirc.org
Lastly, the Journal's Editor-in-Chief and Section Editor's Board are delighted to announce the addition of a complementary general prize, the Best Research Prize. To be awarded for the first time in 2017, this prize will be awarded to all the authors of the best original article published in print in a calendar year. All original articles published in an HLC print edition in 2016 will automatically qualify for the prize which will be adjudicated by a Prize Committee, and awarded at CSANZ 2017. The purpose of the Prize is dual: to recognise a recent achievement, with the intention of motivating future achievements, not only for the Prize winners but for all who contribute to Heart, Lung and Circulation.
The editorial staff wish to thank the contributors and readers for making the journal a success.
References
Pepe S.
Feeding the Need: Cardiovascular Science in “Heart Lung and Circulation”.
Celermajer D, Strange G, Cordina R, et al. Congenital Heart Disease Requires a Lifetime Continuum of Care: A Call for a Regional Registry. Heart Lung Circ;25(8):750-754.
NHRA/CSANZ ACS Guidelines 2016 Executive Working Group
National Heart Foundation of Australia & Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand: Australian Clinical Guidelines for the Management of Acute Coronary Syndrome 2016.
Reflections on the Heart Foundation of Australia/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand Acute Coronary Syndromes Guidelines 2016 — a new international benchmark.
Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation in patients with concomitant left ventricular impairment: a systematic review of efficacy and effect on ejection fraction.
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