Journal editors should be productive role models

FTC Sues OMICS: Claims Open Access Academic Publisher Scams Academics

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the first and largest cancer research organization dedicated to accelerating the conquest of cancer. The stated purpose of the organization when it was founded 115 years ago was “to further the investigation and spread the knowledge of cancer.” Since that time, the AACR has been the driving force to eradicate cancer. Publication of research findings has always been critical to this endeavor, with the 11 founders recognizing the importance of “sharing observations” and the need for a journal to “collect under one cover such contributions as bear in any way upon the general problems of oncology.”The AACR launched its first peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Journal of Cancer Research, in 1916. At the time, it was the only English-language cancer journal in the world. Since then, the AACR portfolio of journals has grown to 10. These journals cover the full spectrum of cancer science and medicine and together, over the years, have published over 100,000 articles and over 130,000 meeting abstracts. This is an immense contribution to the body of knowledge on cancer and has ignited communication among cancer scientists and physicians, helping to catalyze a revolution in the field.We are honored to serve as the current Editors-in-Chief of the AACR journals. Each of the 10 journals was launched by the AACR to meet the scientific information needs of its membership and all those engaged in cancer research. Under our leadership, the journals engage closely and collaboratively with the community to facilitate the presentation and wide dissemination of research findings. Importantly, the AACR is a not-for-profit publisher. This means that any surplus from the AACR journals program is used to help support the cancer research community and the mission of the AACR to prevent and cure all cancers by contributing to funding for AACR grants, scientific conferences, and science policy and advocacy efforts. Here, we highlight the unique roles of our journals within the family of AACR journals and how they serve to advance the mission of the AACR.At the inception of the AACR, there was a clear need for journals focused on cancer research to assemble key studies to help guide the field. Cancer Research was launched in 1941 as the flagship journal of the AACR from a rich ancestry that started with its predecessors: The Journal of Cancer Research (1916–1930) and The American Journal of Cancer Research (1931–1940). From the very beginning, Cancer Research has published landmark papers (https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/pages/landmark_articles) that have enriched our knowledge of cancer biology and treatment and have provided the foundation upon which major breakthroughs have been built. In the first year of publication, Cancer Research featured seminal studies on the effect of castration on prostate cancer and the mechanism of carcinogenesis that shaped the field (https://www.aacr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CancerResearch_75Anniversary_1941-2016.pdf). Cancer Research has continued to publish articles that cover the full range of research, spanning from investigations on drug discovery, cancer molecular mechanisms, and the tumor microenvironment to clinical and population studies. As cancer research has evolved over the past century, new AACR journals have emerged to embrace and support expanding fields, providing specialized venues for studies that deepen our understanding of areas that were historically covered by Cancer Research. In this regard, the “pedigree” of AACR journals stemmed from the principles set by Cancer Research, which remains a venue for publishing fundamental studies in all areas of cancer research, including emerging areas such as cancer data science and mathematics. As a society journal, Cancer Research serves the community through its editorial process that is guided by the judgment of international academic editors who provide rich expertise in various areas as practicing researchers. Further, the Journal embraces early career investigators and has recognized these researchers with the prestigious Cancer Research Early Career Award. Guided by its extensive history, Cancer Research hopes to motivate and support the next generation of scientists to lessen the burden of cancer through their innovative research.As cancer science and medicine entered the molecular biology era, it became clear that a communication channel was needed to emphasize basic science studies in oncology—studies that report significant mechanistic findings at the molecular or cellular level. Originally published under the title Cell Growth & Differentiation from 1990 to 2002, Molecular Cancer Research (MCR) was launched as the AACR was beginning to build its now-renowned focus on molecular biology and genetics. The Journal served to help emphasize this focus and attract more scientists into the AACR's membership. As part of this mission, MCR features studies exploring the molecular underpinnings of each of the hallmarks of cancer, with a particular emphasis on studies elucidating oncogenic alterations in metabolism. Cancer metabolism is increasingly recognized as a key vulnerability of tumor biology. MCR is committed to recruiting and disseminating studies featuring novel metabolomic analyses, mass spectrometry, metabolic imaging and tracing, and other approaches that clarify links between metabolism and cancer, with the goal of identifying metabolic vulnerabilities and adding to the armamentarium of anticancer interventions. In addition to publishing impactful basic cancer research studies, the Journal aims to promote diversity of thought and perspective within the basic cancer research community. To achieve this goal, MCR has launched an initiative in which senior investigators are paired with rising stars in their fields to write and edit review articles jointly. This initiative encourages collaboration among researchers by integrating historical perspectives with new directions to provide novel, actionable insights for the field.Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (CEBP) is the leading subspecialty journal for fundamental and applied population science research describing the burden of cancer; uncovering possible causes of cancer and its progression; and informing and evaluating strategies for cancer prevention, early detection, cancer survivorship, and closing the cancer disparities gap. CEBP is unique among AACR journals in focusing on populations at risk for cancer, with cancer, and surviving cancer, especially U.S. and global populations who experience health inequities. Among its many contributions, the Journal has advanced the field of molecular epidemiology of cancer by providing expert peer review and a highly regarded publications forum and has helped launch the careers of many investigators who conduct population science research on cancer. CEBP plays an active role in informing public health practice, policy, and recommendations by publishing articles that are cited as part of the evidence base, including by the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and the World Health Organization. Recognizing the societal need to enhance the translation of population science evidence for cancer prevention and control today and in the future, the Journal recently expanded its scope to include cancer care delivery and implementation science research. Like the other AACR journals, CEBP serves the research community well through its editorial rigor and publication of innovative and impactful research addressing contemporary and emerging cancer problems.As biologic insights into cancer rapidly accelerated in the decades after the discovery of the structure of DNA and the armamenta­rium of anticancer agents began to expand, the AACR identified the need for a communication outlet focused on the clinical applications of these discoveries; Clinical Cancer Research was launched to provide this much-needed outlet. Early therapeutic development has since transitioned from rigidly divided trial phases into an adaptive process that encompasses investigation of safety, pharmacokinetics, proof of mechanism, and first evidence of clinical activity. These same trials now frequently serve as the basis for first regulatory approval. The Journal bridges the transition from late preclinical development, when a new therapy is being paired with insights into the molecular features that predict responsiveness to therapy, to clinical validation of those hypotheses, and the Journal has evolved into a premier venue for phase I/II trials. As the only AACR journal with clinical research of all types, including clinical trials, as its sole purview, Clinical Cancer Research has taken the charge of being the journal that accounts for what happens to the discoveries described in basic and translational cancer research when they are tested prospectively for their potential impact on the outcomes of patients with cancer. Since its launch, Clinical Cancer Research has also played a distinct educational role among clinical oncology journals, with a robust collection of review articles to benefit basic scientists with clinical interests and clinical investigators studying new agents with unique biologic mechanisms of action. Clinical Cancer Research has also become an important forum for critical discussions in clinical oncology. Field-leading experts are invited to deliberate on the progress made in a given therapeutic area, focusing on the lessons to be learned from recent successes and failures. Authors from the FDA provide detailed insights into the data that drive regulatory decision-making for each successful therapy. Clinical Cancer Research continues to demonstrate the AACR's long-standing commitment to accelerating research that leads to potential interventions for prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer and particularly to showcasing clinical trials.Improving and expanding the arsenal of anticancer therapies is an essential goal in our shared mission to prevent and cure all cancers. From before the humble beginnings of nitrogen mustards and vinca alkaloids to the advent of immuno-oncology and rationally designed targeted therapy, the last 115 years have seen quantum leaps in therapeutic strategies and clinical options to combat cancer. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics has been at the forefront of this effort for more than 20 years, publishing top-tier science in the design, synthesis, discovery, and preclinical study of novel therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of cancer. The Journal's scope covers anticancer therapeutics broadly, including precision medicine therapies of all types: cell therapies, gene therapies, RNA therapeutics, oncolytic viruses, and vaccines in addition to established regimens such as mole­cular and biologic agents, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Among these efforts, the Journal provides a specialized venue for the first disclosure of experimental therapeutics advancing toward clinical trials, providing a platform with international reach to authors. The crucial role of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics among the AACR journals—and, indeed, among all oncology journals—cannot be overstated. The Journal's laser focus on disseminating rigorously vetted research with near-term clinical benefit has enormous potential to impact the entire cancer research community and to improve, extend, and defend the lives of patients with cancer. To that end, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics continues to provide a vital forum for the communication of important discoveries in cancer therapeutics research to the global research community.Effective global cancer control must emphasize efforts to reduce cancer incidence rather than concentrating solely on cancer treatment. To help catalyze such efforts, the AACR launched Cancer Prevention Research (CaPR) in 2008 to be devoted excl­usively to cancer prevention research. From its inception, CaPR has endeavored to be a primary resource for original articles, scholarly reviews, and timely perspectives regarding basic, translational, clinical, and population science investigations related to cancer risk reduction. Five years ago, CaPR published the landmark perspective, “Transforming Cancer Prevention through Precision Medicine and Immune-oncology,” which proposed a Pre-Cancer Atlas and recognized unprecedented opportunities to interrogate the biology of premalignancy (1). The subsequent development of the Pre-Cancer Atlas, together with other advances, represents a “moonshot” opportunity for the field of cancer prevention. CaPR will continue to cultivate high-caliber content from pioneers in fields such as carcinogenesis, the biology of premalignancy, cancer risk assessment, screening, and policy implementation that will transform the way we detect and, ultimately, intercept and prevent cancer. The Journal's mission to reflect the current state of cancer prevention and to catalyze the development of the field supports the AACR mission to prevent and cure all cancers. The community of researchers, educators, advocates, and funders that works together under the umbrella of the AACR and its family of journals is a critical part of the cancer prevention ecosystem. Together, we are publishing research that defines the field of cancer prevention, building a translational bridge between bench and community, and developing the next generation of cancer prevention researchers.In 2011, recognizing the cancer research community's need for a journal that published the most impactful research while placing a premium on streamlined editorial processes and service to authors, the AACR launched Cancer Discovery. Bringing together basic scientists with detailed knowledge of cancer biology and physicians at the vanguard of science-driven clinical trial design, Cancer Discovery immediately changed the landscape of scientific publishing in the field, with many other journals now trying to emulate the unique mix of basic, translational, and clinical research that the Journal pioneered. Cancer Discovery has been at the forefront of the most important developments in cancer over the past decade, from targeted therapy and immunotherapy to technological advances in single-cell sequencing and liquid biopsy that have fundamentally changed our understanding of cancer biology and response to treatment. Preclinical and clinical studies published in Cancer Discovery have laid the foundation for numerous FDA approvals within a short period, and influential commentaries and reviews have galvanized the field and guided policy decisions. The unique editorial team consisting of leading researchers and experienced professional editors works collaboratively with the community to quickly publish and disseminate the strongest, immediately impactful science to support the AACR mission to prevent and cure all cancers.The first cancer immunotherapeutic is famously considered to have been administered in 1891 by William B. Coley, one of the 11 founders of the AACR, when he used a mixture of heat-killed bacteria (subsequently known as Coley's toxins) to create an inflammatory response that could treat a patient with sarcoma. However, it took more than 100 years before the field of cancer immunology and immunotherapy research gained meaningful traction among those working in the broader discipline of cancer science and medicine. The rapid expansion of the field began in the early 2000s as a result of increasing evidence linking the immune system with cancer development and demonstrations that the immune system might be harnessed to treat cancer, and it has continued at an even more remarkable pace since the FDA approval of the first immune checkpoint inhibitor, the CTLA4-specific blocking antibody ipilimumab, in 2011. Recognizing the need to further enhance interactions between researchers in the realm of cancer immunology and immunotherapy and those in all other areas of the cancer research community, and to provide a forum for the presentation of advances in the rapidly evolving field of cancer immunology science, the AACR collaborated with the Cancer Research Institute to launch Cancer Immunology Research in 2013. Since its inaugural issue, the Journal has disseminated exciting discoveries and developments in the field of cancer immunology and immunotherapy, and successfully introduced the central principles of immunology to cancer biologists and clinical investigators. As a journal devoted to the science underlying some of the most transformative therapeutics to have entered the clinic for the treatment of cancer in recent years, Cancer Immunology Research has played a unique role in advancing the mission of the AACR.Unprecedented progress in understanding the pathogenesis of hematologic malignancies and in translating these insights into improved clinical outcomes has created a demand for a high-profile outlet for publishing these discoveries. To address this need and to emphasize the AACR's commitment to the prevention and cure of all types of cancer, Blood Cancer Discovery was launched in 2020 to inspire, facilitate, and broadly disseminate important discoveries about hematologic malignancies. The Journal's model of operation replicates Cancer Discovery's success in creating synergies between the expertise of leaders in the field and the dedication of in-house editorial and publishing teams, enabling rigorous, rapid, and transparent editorial processes. Blood Cancer Discovery has published cutting-edge research articles on a broad spectrum of topics encompassing leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and other blood cancer subtypes that also have profound implications for our understanding of solid tumors. The Journal has also published all the phases of clinical research: drug development in preclinical disease models, clinical trials, molecular events underlying clinical responses and resistance to therapies, and real-world epidemiology. As a forum for diverse ideas shaping future research directions, Blood Cancer Discovery has published incisive commentaries and has partnered with the AACR's hematologic malignancy-focused Special Conferences, quickly emerging as a thought leader in blood cancer research.The landscape of cancer science and medicine continues to change and accelerate, becoming ever more multifaceted. Launched in October 2021, Cancer Research Communications was designed with these considerations in mind. Most crucially, the Journal is fully open access and boasts the broadest and most flexible scope of any AACR title to date, providing a pathway to publication for authors working within funder mandates or whose work falls outside the scope of other titles in the AACR portfolio. The Journal's nine sections offer a comprehensive view of the spectrum of oncology research. With an editorial ethos centered on accessibility, reproducibility, and value to the field, the Journal is inclusive of a wide variety of important research findings that may be beyond the scope of other journals in the program. Cancer Research Communications is committed to catalyzing the rapid dissemination of rigorously peer-reviewed scientific findings in diversified areas of study, including but not limited to physics, engineering, mathematics, and computational biology. This interdisciplinary approach stimulates the cross-pollination of insight and innovation among cancer researchers. Moreover, the Journal emphasizes flourishing areas of research—such as precision medicine, immuno-oncology, and disparities in cancer health outcomes—that will be foundational to the next 115 years of progress against cancer. As a thoroughly modern platform designed to meet the needs of our authors and readers while complementing the other AACR journals, Cancer Research Communications is poised to stimulate the efficient and dynamic exchange of knowledge, actively sparking new ideas and discoveries to prevent and cure all cancers.Since the very first issue of The Journal of Cancer Research was published in 1916, the AACR journals have been a critical resource for cancer researchers and physicians, providing a forum for disseminating groundbreaking discoveries in cancer science and medicine. As the current Editors-in-Chief of the AACR journals, we are proud that this tradition of publishing seminal, rigorously vetted research that can change the trajectory of the field has established the AACR journals as a trusted partner of the research community. Importantly, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our authors, editorial teams, reviewers, and readers for their invaluable contributions to this endeavor. The tireless efforts of this community provide a beacon of hope to patients and their loved ones.As we look to the future, we continue to collaborate with the research community to ensure that the journals operate with a forward-thinking mentality that adapts to the evolving needs of all stakeholders. In recent years, we have seen critical scientific and technological innovations propel extraordinary progress against cancer. We are confident that this progress will continue, and we remain dedicated to ensuring that the AACR journals continue to provide a platform for the communication of impactful research and support the AACR mission to prevent and cure all cancers.L. Cantley consulted for Petra Pharmaceuticals, Agios Pharmaceuticals, EIP Pharmaceuticals, Volastra, Larkspur, and Cell Signaling Technologies over the past year. He also received grant support from the NIH/NCI, Gray Foundation, The Mark Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and Stand Up To Cancer/American Association for Cancer Research over the past year, and is a stockholder in Agios Pharmaceuticals, EIP Pharmaceuticals, Cell Signaling Technologies, Volastra, and Larkspur. R. Dalla-Favera is a consultant for NeoGenomics and AstraZeneca and receives research funds from AstraZeneca. L.A. Diaz is a member of the board of directors of Jounce Therapeutics and Epitope and is a compensated consultant to PetDx, Innovatus CP, Se'er, Delfi, Blackstone, Kinnate, and Neophore. He is an inventor of multiple licensed patents related to technology for circulating tumor DNA analyses and mismatch repair deficiency for diagnosis and therapy; some of these licenses and relationships are associated with equity or royalty payments directly to the inventors. He holds equity in Epitope, Jounce Therapeutics, PetDx, Se'er, Delfi, Kinnate, and Neophore; he divested his equity in Personal Genome Diagnostics to LabCorp in February 2022 and he divested his equity in Thrive Earlier Detection to Exact Biosciences in January 2021. His spouse holds equity in Amgen. The terms of all these arrangements are being managed by Memorial Sloan Kettering in accordance with their conflict of interest policies. K.T. Flaherty reports personal fees from Clovis Oncology, Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, Strata Oncology, Kinnate Biopharma, Scorpion Therapeutics, PIC Therapeutics, Apricity, Tvardi, ALX Oncology, xCures, Monopteros, Vibliome, Soley Therapeutics, Quanta Therapeutics, Nextech, Takeda, Novartis, OMRx, and Transcode Therapeutics and other support from Roche/Genentech outside the submitted work. P.D. Greenberg reports grants and personal fees from Juno Therapeutics; grants from Lonza; personal fees and other support from Earli, Metagenomi, Elpiscience, Rapt Therapeutics, and and grants, personal and other support from outside the submitted work. reports personal fees from reports personal fees from Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer The Institute for AACR, and Cancer Research grants, personal and support from and grants and personal fees from and Jounce Therapeutics; and personal fees and support from outside the submitted work. reports personal fees from and Therapeutics; grants from Novartis, Therapeutics, and and personal fees and grants from and outside the submitted work. were by the other authors.

Patients' rights for privacy and confidentiality extend to publications. This author describes how authors, reviewers, and editors can ensure patient confidentiality in manuscripts.

Credibility and Reproducibility

Message from the Editor

Objective: This study was carried out to examine the effect of the ethical training program applied to the nurses on the nurses’ level of capability for ethical decisions. Methods: This study was carried out as a qualitative research methods of descriptive phenomenology and the research sample consisted of 13 nurses. The research was carried out in three stages. In the first stage, the first data were collected by the face to face individual interviews lasting approximately 90-120 minutes.In the second stage of the research, “Ethical Training Program” was applied. In the third stage of the research, data were collected by the depth interview method. Nvivo 11 package software and “Content Analysis” method were used in evaluation of the qualitative data. Results: In the interviews with the nurses before the ethics education, 8 themes and 33 sub-themes were determined. After the ethics education, 10 main themes and 22 sub-themes were determined. After the education, the nurses could express their opinions about ethical decision making and ethical decision process which they couldn’t express before the education. Conclusions: In conclusion, after the “Ethical Training Program”, there was a positive change in the nurses’ “Ethical Basic Knowledge” and “Level of Capability of Ethical Decision”.

This chapter examines the extent of ethical policing, professional judgement, and decision-making. It highlights the importance of maintaining high professional and ethical standards in line with the roles and expectations of police officers and the complexities of decision-making in law enforcement. The social contract ideal emphasizes the social purpose of policing, from which the professional and ethical parameters are established. The chapter highlights the importance of police officers needing to embody conduct and qualities when carrying out their duties. It then discusses the College’s Code of Ethics and the National Decision Model (NDM) as frameworks for structured, ethical decision-making in policing.

This study examines Western-language, particularly English-language, monographs on Asian published in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and other countries from 2000 through 2005. The study provides a landscape view of the scope and trends of publications for both scholars and librarians in Asian studies. The data for this study were collected from the YBP's GOBI (Global Online Bibliographic Information) database, covering publications profiled by YBP from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2005. The results of data analysis shed light on scholarly currents and publishing trends in Asian over that six-year period. ********** Scholars and librarians in Asian often wonder how research productivity and publishing trends evolve in the field. Which publishers are active in this field? What subject areas have been covered prolifically or meagerly, and what does the publishing landscape look like? Traditionally, the areas of Asian literature, history, and philosophy have been strongly represented. Is this still so? Have traditional trends experienced any shifts? Which publishers are the major players in the field? Do university presses publish in different areas from commercial publishers? Some fifty years ago, Frederick Mote (1922-2005), a leading professor of history and culture at Princeton University, raised similar questions. He surveyed important academic publishers and their major publications, introducing new publishing developments in in the Republic of China on Taiwan to the Journal of Asian Studies audience. (1) He wrote, Although the Journal has on several occasions during the last five or six years reported briefly on publication there, now there is perhaps some value in reporting more comprehensively on recent developments, both because the phenomenon itself is of interest, and because many recently published items will be desired by scholars and by research libraries. (2) The authors of this article share his rationale in the examination of recent scholarly currents and publishing trends. The purpose of Mote's survey was not to list all of the worthwhile books recently published, for that would be an obvious impossibility, but to make the general outlines and character of recent publication activities known, and to inform the reader of names and addresses of publishers from whom more detailed information can be obtained. (3) Today, however, improved technology can be utilized to achieve the goal of a fairly complete survey. Technologically, all worthwhile books recently published can be listed and analyzed. The authors used YBP'S Global Online Bibliographical Information (GOBI) database in hopes of providing a comprehensive analysis of nearly all publications profiled. The analysis helped reveal characteristics of these publications and Asian publishing trends. This study's purpose was to evaluate the scope of, and trends in, Asian research and publications. In the study, the authors use the term East Asian studies to refer to on China, Japan, and Korea; Chinese studies includes People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Tibet. Within Korean studies, both North Korea and South Korea are covered. In this study, the focus is on print books. The scope includes English-language monographs on Asian published in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and other countries between 2000 and 2005. The data were collected from GOBI, covering publications profiled by YBP from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2005. Research and publishing trends are of interest to publishers, though largely from the perspective of sales. The Association of American Publishers Industry Statistics Annual Report registers data based on publishers' responses to questionnaires, collecting data on the sale of books in the category of Professional and Scholarly Publishing, which covers categories of technical, scientific, law, business, humanities, and medical materials. …

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION In the early years of its publication, the American Journal of Otology published articles featuring some of the most notable otology and neurotology programs in the country and the world. Over the years that journal has grown, changed names, and developed a second (fully open access) journal. At the same time, the subspecialties of Otology and Neurotology have changed and grown. With the advent of more formal certification and the need for an increasing number of specialty trained surgeons as well as other hearing, balance, and skull base professionals, the number of notable programs has dramatically increased both inside and outside the United States. Each of these programs is dedicated to providing quality patient care, performing cutting edge research, and training the next generation of both surgeons and scientists that will help lead our specialty in the future. As we launch the newest addition to the family of journals that started with the American Journal of Otology, we wanted to revive the tradition that started with the American Journal of Otology. The Journal's editorial board has formed a special group of individuals to consider which programs to highlight with each issue of the journal. Programs can be featured for a variety of achievements in the past or in the present and can be self-nominated or nominated by the committee. As we launch this series, the obvious first choice was to start where this all started, and it is our pleasure to begin this series with a look at the birthplace of the American Journal of Otology. We hope our readers find these historical looks insightful but also utilize these historical profiles as a method to help our current and future programs to evolve into even better institutions for future generations. HISTORY The Otology Group was founded in a small building in Nashville, TN, on State Street (Fig. 1), as a private practice by Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D. (1933–2018) in 1970. Nearly 51 years later, The Otology Group at Vanderbilt celebrates its anniversary as one of the largest, most innovative centers for skull base surgery, speech and hearing sciences, and neurotologic education. The historic reputation of The Otology Group of Vanderbilt transcends generations of fellows and faculty members and the group remains deeply rooted in the same fundamentals and principles from which it was founded.FIG. 1.: The small building of which The Otology Group was founded on State Street, Nashville, TN, by Dr Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D., in 1970.Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D. (Fig. 2) was a world-renowned clinician dedicated to patient and physician education (1). In 1980, He founded the American Journal of Otology, now known as Otology and Neurotology. He also founded the nonprofit organization, the EAR Foundation, dedicated to educating patients and physicians on ear and hearing disorders. In his career, he published nearly 250 peer-reviewed articles and was the editor of Surgery of the Ear. In conjunction with his partner, C. Gary Jackson, M.D., they possessed a passion for educating fellows and this passion continues to resonate within the fellowship and will do so for years to come. Dr Glasscock had sincere respect for his patients and strived to provide them with unrivaled state-of-the-art care. He was known for "doing things my way," and such mentality (and bravado) paved the way for center that exists today.FIG. 2.: Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D. (1933–2018).The Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center (Fig. 3) was founded in 1951 by Dr Wesley Wilkerson, and named in honor of his son, Bill Wilkerson who was killed in Germany in 1945 during WWII. Wesley Wilkerson was an otolaryngologist in Nashville with a passion for pediatric hearing loss and chartered the Tennessee Hearing and Speech Foundation. In 1997, the Bill Wilkerson Center merged with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). The Center was under the leadership for many years by Freeman O'Connell, Ph.D., then Fred Bess, Ph.D. (1978–2009) and is now under the leadership of Anne Marie Tharpe, Ph.D. (2009–current). Partnered with the Vanderbilt Department of Otolaryngology, the combined departments are now known as the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences. The Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery was reorganized in1985 and was led by Robert H. Ossoff, M.D. (1985–2009), Roland Eavey, M.D. (2000–2021) and is now under the leadership of Eben Rosenthal, M.D. (2021–present). The Department is ranked highly by external rankings nationwide and holds a strong reputation in both clinical care, research, and resident/fellow training (2). In 2004, the private practice which Mike Glasscock founded, The Otology Group, merged with the Vanderbilt Department of Otolaryngology, forming what is now known as The Otology Group of Vanderbilt. Within the Center is housed, in addition to The Otology Group of Vanderbilt, the Departments of Otolaryngology and Hearing and Speech Sciences, The Mama Lere Hearing School, The Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitative Institute, The Temporal Bone Lab, The Cochlear Implant Research Lab, The Balance Disorders Clinic, and The National Center for Childhood Deafness and Family Communication.FIG. 3.: The Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center as it exists today and the home of The Otology Group at Vanderbilt, The Departments of Otolaryngology and Hearing and Speech Sciences, The Mama Lere Hearing School, The Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute, Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory, The Temporal Bone Lab, The Balance Disorders Lab, and National Center for Childhood Deafness and Family Communications.CLINICAL ENTERPRISE Under Dr Glasscock III, M.D.'s guidance, The Otology Group evolved into one of the world's most preeminent centers for skull base, cochlear implants, and ear disorders. The group is now led by David S. Haynes, M.D., M.M.H.C., a direct trainee of Glasscock III, M.D. The group is composed of 5 additional faculty and 2 nurse practitioners, including Robert Labadie, M.D., Ph.D., Marc Bennett, M.D., M.M.H.C., Matthew O'Malley, M.D., Kareem Tawfik, M.D., Elizabeth Perkins, M.D., Ken Watford, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., and Emily Brignola, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., F.N.P.-C. As one of the oldest and largest neurotology practices in the country, the clinicians strive to provide innovate, evidence-based, and honorable patient care. The Otology Group at Vanderbilt clinical practice involves a wide range of surgical approaches and techniques aimed at providing care for the most complex tumors and ear-related disorders. This includes advanced approaches to the skull base, cochlear implantation, otologic surgery, repair of cerebrospinal fluid leaks, and surgical treatment of balance disorders including superior canal dehiscence and Meniere disease. VUMC was one of the first centers to adopt endoscopic ear surgery (led by Alejandro Rivas, M.D., now at Case Western Reserve University) and to begin an annual endoscopic ear course, educating our residents, fellows, and other otolaryngologists on the new techniques of endoscopic ear surgery. The Otology Group at Vanderbilt encompasses the renowned Skull Base Center and Hearing Implant Program, a premiere destination for patients from all over the world. The Skull Base Center upholds a strong and collaborative relationship with The Department of Neurological Surgery including neurosurgeons, Reid C. Thompson, M.D. (Chair), Lola B. Chambless, M.D., and Peter J. Morone, M.D., M.S.C.I. The Skull Base Center and Hearing Implant Programs provide multidisciplinary, coordinated care, allowing for a large number of patient visits and surgical procedures, while providing the highest quality patient care. We also have a monthly multidisciplinary aural atresia clinic attended by audiology, neurotology, facial plastics, and other specialists. In addition, we have multidisciplinary teams that care for Neurofibromatosis Type II, and pediatric hearing loss, led by Kareem Tawfik, M.D. and Elizabeth L. Perkins, M.D., respectively. In 2020, The Otology Group of Vanderbilt performed over 400 skull base consultations and 140 skull base procedures despite the challenges brought by a global pandemic. Nearly 1500 patients were evaluated in the Balance Disorders Lab in 2020. In addition, 300 patients underwent cochlear implantation both in 2019 and in 2020, making VUMC the largest cochlear implant center in the United States and one of the largest in the world. RESEARCH The Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory includes principal investigators René Gifford, Ph.D. and Robert Labadie, M.D., Ph.D., and other investigators who continue to lead in international cochlear implant research. Research at VUMC ranges from reports on clinical and surgical effectiveness and quality outcomes reviews, to randomized controlled trials, such as the impact of image-guided cochlear implant programming on pediatric speech development. Research is supported from departmental resources, industry sponsored trials, and extramural funding (3–6). Our departments are ranked no. 2 in the nation in National Institute of Health (NIH) research and recent recipients of a $3.1 million NIH grant. Our recent NIH funding includes analysis of pre- and postinsertion computed tomography scanning to accurately estimate the electrode position which is used in preoperative planning and postoperative cochlear implant mapping (Fig. 4A, B) (7,8).FIG. 4.: Computed tomography (CT) scan analysis of electrode array placement following cochlear implantation. A, CT scan analysis with a perimodiolar electrode array including the cochlear, vestibule, and semicircular canals. B, Closer visualization of the electrode array and cochlea allows for assessment of the electrode array position with the modiolus (yellow) and scala tympani (blue) and scala vestibuli (green).A highly integrated, multidisciplinary team consisting of audiologists, speech language pathologists, hearing scientists, computer science engineers, and surgeons has been facilitated by institutional resources. VUMC sits on the same campus as Vanderbilt University, allowing close collaboration with other departments primarily Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering arose from these collaborations and continues to develop innovative solutions for surgical procedures including skull base and cochlear implant procedures. Our colocation of services has also allowed for extensive optimization of clinical delivery that includes same-day work up and surgery for cochlear implants and bundled pricing for cochlear implant services, the first in the world (9). This collaborative environment motivates basic discoveries which can then be clinically translated to improve individual outcomes. Efforts to use our electronic medical record and artificial intelligence to better coordinate clinical care and discovery is being explored by Matthew O'Malley, M.D., and will help to define our future. EDUCATION The Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center is not only home to the Otology Group of Vanderbilt clinical practice but also houses our Temporal Bone lab (Fig. 5) and our research facilities. The Otology Group of Vanderbilt accepts 1 fellow per year into the neurotology program for a complement of 2 who join the neurotology service with 3 otolaryngology residents. Through the generous support of Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D. and Mr Herbert O. Christopher, the fellowship is enabled to pursue educational, academic, and research endeavors that will improve patient outcomes. Keeping with the theme of physician education, the first temporal bone lab was built in 1970 by Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D., with Jack Urban. The Otology Group of Vanderbilt continues to host multiple workshops and continuing medical education (CME) courses. This includes the annual temporal bone course, with the 85th version being held in the Fall of 2021 and the 7th annual Endoscopic Ear Course held next spring. In addition, an annual CME Otolaryngology course is held in Vail, CO, providing neurotologic education to neurotologists, otolaryngologists, and resident trainees. We also host an in-house resident/fellow temporal bone and endoscopic courses spanning 6 weeks led by Marc Bennett, M.D.FIG. 5.: The VUMC temporal bone lab resides in the Bill Wilkerson Center. The group hosts an annual temporal bone course, with nearly 300 participants in the virtual course in Fall 2020. VUMC indicates Vanderbilt University Medical Center.Fellow and resident education is ubiquitous, with weekly grand rounds on Friday mornings and weekly dedicated neurotology lectures on Thursday mornings led by prominent speakers within the field. Stepping beyond medical education, a leadership course is instituted throughout the year covering topics such as operations, cost accounting, organizational structure, strategy, and leadership (10). Multidisciplinary care is executed through many conferences for both skull base and cochlear implant recipients. The cochlear implant conference is held monthly and attended by audiologists, speech language pathologists, surgeons, social workers, administrative team members, implant research team members, and the cochlear implant coordinator. The monthly skull base conference is attended by neurotology faculty and fellows, neurosurgeons, radiologists, radiation oncologists, skull base coordinators, and research team members. Keeping with the Glasscock scholarly mission, The Otology Group at Vanderbilt takes considerable pride in the education of fellows and residents. This education begins with otologic surgery but transcends into every aspect of being a clinician and a leader. Fellows are "raised" to emulate the Glasscock mentality of prioritizing patient care and practicing with honor and integrity. Previous graduates and current fellows are customarily found at the podium at national and international conferences (Fig. 6) with nearly 30 to 34 peer-reviewed publications per year and over 90 scientific presentations at meetings, courses, and workshops annually. Prior fellows have held leadership positions in multiple international organizations including the American Neurotologic Society, the American Otologic Society, Triological Society, The Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum, the American Cochlear Implant Alliance, and many others. The fellows graduate with extensive operative and clinical experience, moving on to flourish within the field as division directors and chairpersons, academic deans, successful private practitioners, and academic leaders. This year, the Otology Group at Vanderbilt will proudly graduate its 73rd fellow in neurotology. Built on the legacy of Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D., the Otology Group at Vanderbilt will continue to strive for excellence in research, education, leadership training, and constantly seek innovation and improvement in patient care.FIG. 6.: The Otology Group will graduate its 73rd fellow in the upcoming year, as shown in this group composite. In the center of the composite proudly pictures the faculty mentors and Michael E. Glasscock III, M.D.As a rapidly growing department, The Otology Group at Vanderbilt is committed to providing care for all populations and modeling diversity. Such vision is facilitated through expanding care to remote populations involving telehealth, expedited and personalized care, and physician outreach. The group fosters diversity and equality through onboarding international faculty and fellows who reflect the increasingly diverse society we serve. CONCLUSION The Otology Group at Vanderbilt has strived from its inception to provide the highest quality patient care and to train the best neurotologic surgeons to become leaders in our field. We aspire to discover and provide novel and innovative treatments that will improve the lives of our patients. Education of patients, practicing physicians, and physicians in training remains an essential component of our group. As we celebrate our 51st year, our values remain stronger than ever.

Academic Publication Uncertainty and Publishing Behavior: A Game-Theoretic Perspective

Scholarly misconduct causes significant impact on the academic community. To the extremes, results of scholarly misconduct could endanger public welfare as well as national security. Although self-plagiarism has drawn considerable amount of attention, it is still a controversial issue among different aspect of academic ethic related discussions. The main purpose of this study is to identify two concerns including what is self-plagiarism in academic journals, conceivable point of contention, based on journal editors’ viewpoint. Between 1990 and 2015, content of 57 editorials indexed in Scopus and WoS and 75 cases of self-plagiarism raised by international editors in COPE were analyzed to explore how journal editors identify these problems. The results show that self-plagiarism can be categorized to four facets, including its identification, types, norm, and remedy. And the editors are concerned about the issues about the detection software, salami-slicing and overlapping publication, the harm of copyright, and the retractions of published articles. Results from this study not only could obtain in-depth understandings on self-plagiarism among academic journal articles but also being applied on establishing academic guidelines in the future.

Poor quality of reporting in published scientific manuscripts has been identified as a major contributor to the low reproducibility of research outcomes. Improved author compliance to a journal’s submission guidelines, rigorous editorial vigilance by competent reviewers and journal editors, and revamped research practices and policies by research institutes can raise the reporting quality of submitted manuscripts. In this chapter, we describe the current requirements of scholarly publishing and the responsibilities of authors, peer reviewers, journal editors, scientific journals, and academic institutions. We propose that scientific reproducibility can be improved by (a) upgrading editorial vigilance to assure the quality and accuracy of the scientific record; (b) institutional training in writing in the sciences for research trainees; and (c) institutional adoption of existing standards of quality control in manufacturing and commercial research organizations to develop good publishing and research practices and integrity.

The further development of the Diamond Open Access (DOA) publishing ecosystem as a robust and sustainable open access route relies on the engagement and collective efforts of academic libraries, journal editors, researchers, and research funding organisations. However, each of these actors follows its own (institutional) logic and priorities: libraries focus on supporting their institutional members; journal editors aim to shape their research fields; researchers pursue academic careers; and funding organisations strive to promote research excellence in a competitive environment. Against the backdrop of the Platinum Open Access Funding (PLATO) project – which aimed to engage these communities in building momentum around Diamond OA – this presentation shares insights into how a community of practice is emerging among DOA journal editors in Switzerland. Many of these editors work voluntarily and see their journals as a “service to their research community”. In a scholar-led publishing system such as Diamond OA, journal editors play a key role in maintaining academic standards, overseeing rigorous peer review, upholding ethical publishing practices, and connecting with research communities. At the same time, the international “OA Diamond Journals Study” (Bosman et al., 2021), along with the PLATO landscape study on scholar-led journals in Switzerland, has shown that Diamond OA journals operate within a fragmented, archipelago-like landscape of publishing outlets and (institutional) infrastructures. This presentation will focus on a case study from Switzerland, where the PLATO project sought to amplify the agency of these journals – financially, institutionally, and symbolically – by making them more visible (through the creation of a journal database) and supporting the establishment of an association of Diamond OA journal editors. By centering the voices of editors, this presentation reflects on how bottom-up initiatives can shape the Diamond OA ecosystem and discusses ways to move from fragmented efforts to coordinated, systemic action.

A new chapter in HIV

For many years, the ISJ has been included within the quaintly named "basket" of eight (Bo8) premier journals, an endeavour of the Association for Information Systems' (AIS) College of Senior Scholars (CSS)1 to single out the top journals in the field of Information Systems (IS). At its 2019 meeting in Munich, concerns were expressed that the Bo8's editorial boards were insufficiently diverse and as a result the CSS commissioned a task force to investigate the extent to which the editorial boards of the eight journals reflected the diversity of the AIS itself. The task force chose to define "editorial board" as meaning the people most directly connected with managing submitted articles, that is, the Senior and Associate Editors of a journal, but excluded the advisory board or a more general list of reviewers. It collected publicly-available data (primarily from journal and individual websites), and also consulted with the editors of the eight journals, before compiling a report that is available from the CSS website2 and that has been recently published as Beath et al. (2021). In this editorial, I deal with the report insofar as it pertains to the ISJ. I chart the current state of diversity in the ISJ's editorial board, but also take issue with some of the parameters of the report itself and suggest alternative ways of examining diversity. Finally, I outline some of my plans for further diversification of the ISJ and the ways in which this diversity can be measured. The ideas in and structure of this editorial have been significantly informed by Monideepa Tarafdar (senior editor at the ISJ) and Cynthia Beath (a member of the journal's advisory board and a forthright supporter of the journal). Benchmarking diversity lies at the heart of the CSS Diversity report. As Beath et al. (2021) note, "Editorial board diversity, we believe, is a signal that the journal is open to and inclusive of all authors". The task force decided to limit its assessment of diversity to three demographic indicators, viz. gender, regional and ethnic diversity. Diversity was benchmarked on the data of the 3210 individuals who were paid-up Academic members of the AIS on 31/12/2019. Thus, the diversity of the editorial boards of the Bo8 as a whole and of the eight journals individually were compared to the diversity of AIS Academic members in terms of gender (actually sex, i.e., female or male), AIS region (1, 2 or 3) of current employment, and ethnicity.3 While gender and region of current employment are automatically collected by the AIS as part of membership demographics, ethnicity data was manually created by one of the task force members and mapped onto a simplified template that was restricted to terms adapted from the US census: (a) Chinese, (b) Indian subcontinent, (c) other Asian, (d) Black/African descent, (e) Caucasian/European descent, (f) Middle Eastern descent, (g) Hispanic (only in Region 1 because the term is largely meaningless elsewhere) and (h) Other (e.g., indigenous). In Table 1 below, AIS data for these various demographic indicators are compared with ISJ data (the 68 SEs and AEs of the ISJ, current on 1 January 2021) for the same indicators. Beath et al. (2021) report a similar analysis for all eight journals (with data collected in January 2020) that includes standard deviations, but Table 1 is sufficient for the current purposes. Eyeballing the data in this way is instructive. Superficially, it appears that while the ISJ's gender proportions are roughly in line with the AIS benchmark (in contrast to the basket as a whole), we have too few editorial board members from region 1 (while the basket has too many), too many from region 2 (the basket is about right) and about the right number from region 3 (the basket has too few). Where ethnicity is concerned, we have too many Chinese, too few other Asians (e.g., Thai, Korean, Japanese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, etc.), Caucasians/of European descent and of Middle Eastern descent, and about the right number of Black/of African descent, Indian subcontinent and Hispanic. My immediate observation when I saw the numbers was to think that hitting any of the AIS benchmarks would be entirely fortuitous: while we certainly champion diversity across all aspects of the ISJ and have deliberately sought to bring in more people from historically under-represented groups, we do not deliberately attempt to emulate AIS proportions, hitherto unknown. Indeed, as the AIS membership evolves, so the proportions will evolve and thus any target is going to be a moving one. Nevertheless, I would like to see more diversity in general, and not for a small number of ethnicities to dominate. The AIS CSS report makes six recommendations for change to the CSS itself, 5 to the AIS, and 15 for the consideration of the Bo8 journal editors. I do not plan to list or address all 15 here, but I do note that one of the recommendations is that editors should establish diversity and inclusion indicators that are appropriate for each journal and then to set measurable targets related to those indicators. I caution here that while the AIS benchmarks are instructive they are also limited in their scope. However, I agree that each journal editor should identify a set of diversity and inclusion indicators that make sense in the context of the journal and its readership. Extending these indicators beyond the three that the Task Force has relied on in this report is necessary. An important aspect of the AIS CSS report, and it is one that I share, is the belief that diversity is a good thing. My interpretation of the "diversity is good" argument is that when we include a wider range of perspectives, we will make better decisions and thus enhance quality. We will also demonstrate the openness of the journal to a diversity of authors. Thus, while I am generally in favour of indicators as useful ways of thinking about diversity, and there are many indicators in this editorial, I feel that hard targets are risky because it means that we embark on the slippery slope that leads to quotas and bean counting, both of which I wish to avoid. Nevertheless, I report data for the ISJ below so as to provide an indication of the current situation with respect to various indicators. Readers can decide for themselves if more specific targets are warranted. A second area relates to transparency: journal editors need to report on their diversity and inclusion statistics somewhere, either on the journal website or else in some other public way, such as this editorial, which is freely accessible from the ISJ website. I plan to update these data on an annual basis, either in future editorials or elsewhere on the ISJ website. While the level of diversity in the ISJ is high (at least according to the AIS indicators), it could be higher, particularly with regard to the extent to which minority groups are represented. The same comment, of course, applies to the AIS itself. Achieving a higher level of diversity will require attention to a range of indicators that I outline below. However, diversity must never come at the expense of merit: we expect that SEs and AEs will fit and enhance the ethos of the journal. I have no intention of descending to the point where I cherry pick individuals exclusively for their contribution to a diversity indicator irrespective of other attributes of their suitability for the position. This brings me to a more detailed critique of the AIS report and data. Firstly, I find that the AIS region and ethnicity coding to be coarse: just three regions and eight ethnic groups. Splitting AIS members into (only) three regions conceals a huge lack of diversity. The vast majority (88%) of Region 1 AIS members live in one country, the USA, but as a journal editor, I would like to seek submissions from authors distributed across the region. This will have an impact on targets: while I think we do need more Region 1 editorial board members, they do not all have to come from the USA. They should come from across the region. Thus, I plan to search for potential SEs and AEs from all countries within Region 1. To that end, I recently appointed an AE from Brazil and I am actively seeking other qualified individuals. A similar problem exists in Region 2, where the vast majority of AIS members work in Western Europe, with very few in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and all of Africa. The almost complete absence of African scholars grossly limits the diversity of the AIS. A similar pattern applies to the ISJ editorial board, and while we do have African scholars on the ISJ editorial board, none of them currently live in Africa. Finally, Region 3 has better diversity data both among AIS members and with respect to ISJ editorial board members, who come from various parts of Asia and Australasia, though none from the Pacific Islands at the time of writing. That said, while we do have Indian scholars among our SEs and AEs, none of them actually live in India and only one received her PhD from India. Diversity is not just gender, country of birth and ethnicity: it is also where one studied, was professionally socialised, where one lives, works and breathes. Thus, using the region of employment or residence but not the natal origin or the location of postgraduate study as the basis of regional classification is quite problematic because the AIS regions are so large and conceal so much diversity. I do not find the AIS regions a good proxy for anything very useful except the most general kind of assessment of where editorial board members live. As I argue below, the actual state of diversity in the ISJ's editorial board is much richer than the data in the AIS CSS report suggests. But what we need to do is to examine some different aspects of the diversity. My first step was to look at the country of current employment, the country where a PhD was obtained and the natal origin (country) of the ISJ's SEs and AEs. This is presented in Table 2 below. Here, a more detailed picture emerges, with 36 countries indicated. Our editorial board members live in 16 countries, earned their PhDs in 17 countries and have natal origins in 29 countries. While 24% of our editorial board members were born in, studied in and now live in the same country, most of them moved at some stage, which I suspect parallels behaviour across the AIS more generally. Considering our SEs and AEs, some stayed at home to study and then moved away (11%) while others moved away to study and then returned (8%). Others moved away to study and then stayed there (32%). A final group moved away to study and then moved elsewhere to work (24%). These figures attest to a global diversity of the ISJ's editorial board in a way that is not captured by the AIS benchmark comparative data. However, a new bias emerges here: while 26 SEs/AEs were born in the global south (developing countries), only two received their PhDs in the global south and only five currently live in the global south. This is a matter for some concern, though it probably reflects global educational movements and cannot easily be addressed at the scale of one journal. Beyond editorial board data, I also felt that it would be instructive to examine the provenance of our authors. Who are they? Where do they live? Obtaining raw data from manuscript central is not too difficult, but parsing it by gender is not at all simple and prone to error. Although genderizing software programmes exist, these tend to be more accurate with "western" names that often tend to be gender specific, and tend to be much less accurate with non-western names. For instance, the Chinese name that is rendered as "Li Li" in the Roman alphabet (i.e., family name and given name are both Li), could involve a number of different characters in Chinese, and so could be male or female. Here are some examples: 李俐, 李力, 黎莉, 黎厉, 厉俪. All five would be romanised as Li Li (in Mandarin), but the act of romanisation removes any way of even guessing at the gender based on the characters. Incidentally, the first, third and fifth are more likely to be female, while the second and fourth are more likely to be male, but these are not absolute. Sometimes females have "male" names and vice versa. Since manuscript central only captures the romanised form, it is impossible to determine gender unless someone does an intensive search for the named individual and ideally finds a photograph or some other gender-identifiable evidence on the Internet, such as a website that uses the male or female personal pronoun. An easier solution is that we ask ScholarOne to request the inclusion of gender when a paper is submitted. However, this is controversial: some believe that the submission of gender data should never be mandatory and indeed, in some countries, it is illegal to collect it. Despite these genderising challenges, I attempted to assess the gender distribution of submissions to ISJ, in response to a request that I look for change in gender distribution of submissions to the journal pre- and during-pandemic. I was able to assign genders to the first authors of 95% of the papers submitted in March–May of 2019 and in the same months of 2020. The results showed that the gender distribution in 2019 was very similar to the gender distribution among AIS Academic members: 35% female/65% male. In 2020, the proportion of submissions from females was actually higher: 40% female/60% male. While this is a very limited analysis of the gender distribution of submitters to ISJ, it does suggest that even during challenging times, the journal is attracting significant submissions from females. Nevertheless, manuscript central data for the ISJ do indicate the country from which the first author is submitting and this provides a very rough indicator of geographical diversity. Therefore, I downloaded the metadata for all submissions to the ISJ from 2011–2020, that is, 10 years of data. This reveals that we have received 2933 submissions from first authors working in 95 countries. See Table 3. Although 95 countries seem to provide considerable evidence of diversity, only 11 of them are in AIS Region 1, while 63 are in Region 2 and 21 are in Region 3. [AIS itself has members from 14 Region 1 countries, 63 Region 2 countries and 22 Region 3 countries]. Within Region 2, 16 countries in Africa are represented among our submitting authors [There are AIS members from 18 countries in Africa]. Where accepted papers are concerned, the situation is not quite so diverse (see Table 4). Over the same 10-year period, we accepted papers from authors based in 28 countries: three in Region 1 (only one, Brazil, is outside North America), 16 in Region 2 (though none from Africa) and 9 in Region 3. On balance, I feel that this more detailed analysis presents a richer picture of the diversity of the ISJ, but there is still room for improvement. The fact that we have submitting authors from 95 countries, and have accepted papers from authors located in 28 countries, sounds impressive, but there is no basis for comparison with other journals. What is critical is that authors should feel welcome, no matter who they are, where they come from, what kind of IS research they do. This spirit of inclusiveness is what diversity really means. It may be that we cannot accept their papers, but at the very least, we must offer constructive feedback that will help them to enhance the quality of their research and writing. This is something that we already do, and indeed I am positively biased to appoint AEs and SEs on the basis of such constructive reviews and reports, because they demonstrate affiliation with the journal's mission. Having a globally distributed editorial board helps if those board members promote the ISJ in their own communities as a desirable journal in which to publish, and as a journal that will give them constructive feedback. In appointing an AE or SE, while the ability of the individual to perform in this role at a high level is essential, I am also interested in the network of the individual concerned. AEs often assign papers to be reviewed by colleagues in their network. AEs and SEs can also promote the journal within their network. Thus, greater diversity in the editorial board is likely to lead to greater diversity in the submitting authors. This is a worthwhile objective. I hope that the AIS CSS will consider a more sophisticated analysis of diversity in future years. Finally, I come to the tricky issue of identifying diversity and inclusion indicators. As I mentioned above, I am loath to be too specific: I do not think it is sensible for us to set precise quotas for any particular AIS region, gender or location of current work. Nevertheless, I do consider that the current levels of diversity (on multiple indicators) are not only respectable and appropriate for the journal, but also self-sustaining. We have excellent networks among authors and reviewers, ensuring that the ISJ will continue to attract suitably qualified individuals in multiple roles. Nevertheless, I recognise that we have few editorial board members who either received their PhDs in or live in the global south: I am striving to appoint more. The AIS CSS Task Force suggested that editors appoint AEs on a trial basis with some mentoring from more senior members of the editorial board. I find that this is a sensible suggestion that fits well with an SE-AE structure, such that we need to be open to new junior AEs, so long as they are mentored by more senior SEs. Including junior AEs from the global south will be an effective way of ensuring that our diversity extends beyond the developed countries. Indeed, I suggest that the AIS CSS Task Force consider a 6-region split, with separate identification of developed and developing countries (global north and global south) in each of the current AIS regions. This will encourage journal editors to consider how they can achieve diversity in a more nuanced way than the current 3-way split. Where gender is concerned, if anything we should be looking to appoint more female board members since we expect the AIS proportions to shift towards parity over time. Overall, I believe that the ISJ will be best served by a variety of people in SE and AE roles across multiple indicators. If our SEs and AEs perfectly matched the AIS benchmarks for gender, location and ethnicity, but had received their professional training in a small group of countries/universities, spoke the same language, subscribed to the same epistemological beliefs and undertook the same kind of research, then that would not count as a diverse editorial board in my view. I note that while approximately half of our SEs and AEs received their PhDs and currently work in countries where English is the "national language", less than 14% were born in a country where English is the "national language". This in part reflects the global educational migrations that I referred to earlier. It also suggests that well over 80% of our SEs and AEs have successfully made that transition from a first language other-than-English to succeed in an English-dominated academic culture. I regard this as a valid aspect of diversity that we need to uphold and celebrate. I also hope that these non-native English speakers will be more understanding of the difficulties that similar authors face, will be constructive and developmental in their reviews and reports and will encourage them to submit to the ISJ. A polyglot editorial board is an asset to the journal and is something we should maintain or enhance. As I mentioned above, I believe that a diverse editorial board will help us to attract a diverse set of authors (and for that matter readers). At this point, I will also mention the editorial advisory board, which for the ISJ consists of 36 people. Many of them are associated with the same countries as the editorial board, but to that list of 36 countries, I can and It is my hope that the editorial advisory board members actively encourage potential authors to submit to the ISJ, where and so actively to the diversity of the journal. All the to this point has diversity as by multiple of demographic indicators. I suggest that this is are also indicators to which we have not the of a submitting is a journal open to and of different of research, different different epistemological It is for an editor to a of But how does that of openness into the papers that are submitted to and accepted for Here, I see two indicators, each of which is though with some Firstly, what are the of of the editorial board At the ISJ, we do collect this each AE and SE is to provide to 10 that identify We this to assign Since the are there is a considerable and many But in terms of diversity, I would like our editorial board members to be diverse to be able to any paper that is within and that is submitted to the ISJ. At the time of we have and I consider that this indicator is with further diversification not At the same it is important that members of the be very with authors should not have to the on of for instance, since an accepted should not include a to the that is The may be for an that makes an at the ISJ, we have recently the as a new of how diverse is the research that is actually submitted and Although it would not be hard to a of research though it would be more to each to this Nevertheless, such an would certainly have the of what is what we and what we I would not to do this analysis for submitted but it could be for each submitted and each published in the 10 years. However, such a will take more time than I have at my at least for the time Finally, I have to that each journal has its It would be if all journals with the same the same the same people. as diversity and inclusiveness are journals need to maintain their individual often a journal to submit to because of that indeed, I encourage authors to an with a specific journal in since if the fit is good then the of is In this issue of the ISJ, we In the first et al. (2021) the problem of and context in research in IS and the potential of research They argue that many of the associated with research are and also to their and They further argue that these may in the if do not actively on how they the research They a research for research, research as a and on three levels of and In the second and (2021) how when of their They on and study the a which is both for personal and in for professional purposes. from they that when they will using the a or their The authors to the a to they identify that are for than and they the that these In the third and (2021) examine which both an state of and how that state is with the in the context of a study with and data, the authors that with and a while and and and actual to The study to the of the by the new of based on a and that that many are an the and the of a In the fourth et al. (2021) how using as a for individuals identify has But is about how individuals to potential The authors related to from a the number of an was as the of the reports, the of the on and the of the The results showed that work to encourage and the most on related to to and with I am to my colleagues at the ISJ and elsewhere for their to multiple of this Cynthia Monideepa