2nd Asian Science Editors’ Conference and Workshop 2015: Meeting report – (Events)
I attended and conducted a workshop at the 2nd Asian Science Editors’ Conference and Workshop 2015, organized by the Council of Asian Science Editors (CASE), in Hanoi, Vietnam, August 20-22, 2015. The program was well conceptualized and relevant for journal editors, including sessions on open access, publication ethics, indexing, improving the profile of local journals, and CrossRef for publishers.
Day 1 featured three workshops:
1. Journal article tag suite (JATS) XML, CrossRef XML, and Science Central – Facilitated by Sun Huh (Hallym University, Korea), Rachael Lammey (CrossRef, UK), Jaehwa Chang (InfoLumi, Korea), Younsang Cho (M2Community, Korea), and Jeonghee Lim (M2Community, Korea). This was a hands-on workshop including an introduction to XML and the benefits of its use in journal publishing, along with coding practice.
2. Bridging the gap between your journal and your author – Facilitated by Clarinda Cerejo, Editor-in-Chief, Editage Insights (that’s me!). The objective of this workshop was to help editors make their journal more author-friendly and thus attract more high-quality submissions. This workshop provided an understanding of challenges authors face working with journals and vice versa, and provided practical tips for how journals can improve communication with authors, reduce article-processing times, and offer authors education and publication support.
3. Assessing a manuscript in-house before sending for peer review – Facilitated by Joan Marsh, President, European Association of Science Editors. This workshop was meant to help editors optimize their internal processes of screening manuscripts to ensure that they are suitable for their journal and worthy of peer review. Dr. Marsh offered a peek into the screening process at The Lancet Psychiatry as a case study.
Day 2 was the main conference day, featuring welcome and congratulatory notes by our Vietnamese hosts from the Hanoi University of Science and Technology as well as by representatives from the Korean Council of Science Editors. The day offered thought-provoking and discussion-stimulating insights through the various talks by renowned speakers from the UK, Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Here are some of my live tweets that summarized a few of the day’s highlights:
Dr. Joan Marsh on @EASEeditors functioning and how to run an editor’s association. #CASE2 #scholcomm pic.twitter.com/VpdEpibDjw
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
Talk on #openaccess at #CASE2: #impactfactor has nothing to do with article quality. Budapest declaration discourages IF overuse. #oa
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
#OA talk at #CASE2: speaker Dr. Seo puts @creativecommons Cc-By license on his ppt. Great! #practicewhatyoupreach pic.twitter.com/La440b7DZE
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
126 indexing databases on @Wikipedia, 34 multidisciplinary. Local #funding bodies should think beyond #webofscience and #scopus #CASE2
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
Dr Tanifuji from NIMS, Japan: Even after 15 years of the #OA movement, #researchers still ask what #openaccess is ! @NIMS_PR #CASE2
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
#CASE2 – Derrick Dumcombe from @ElsevierConnect and @Scopus on Getting local #journals indexed in international #databases #Scopus
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
Factors #Scopus considers for #indexing – aims & scope, #publicationethics policies, type of #peerreview, etc. #CASE2 @Scopus
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
To get indexed in #scopus, journals should have a homepage comprehensive, clear and informative – Dumcombe from @ElsevierConnect at #CASE2
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
Last talk for the day at #CASE2: Improving the quality of local journals. #globalization in #scholcomm – Dr. Subramaniam, NSSE, Singapore
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
To improve local journal profile: strong core team, prominent intl chief editor, English publication, link to an #academicsociety. #CASE2
— Clarinda Cerejo (@ClarindaCerejo) August 21, 2015
At the end of the stimulatingly academic day, it was time for us to let our hair down and attend an elegant and sumptuous conference dinner. The meal was a typical Vietnamese wedding banquet at an elaborately (and beautifully) decorated wedding venue. After a couple of formal speeches, where the speakers were felicitated with gifts, table conversations veered from academics and participants found themselves laughing and chatting with a spirit of warm camaraderie.
Day 3 wrapped up the event with three more workshops:
1. How to write an English paper – Facilitated by Bahn Tien Long, Vice President, CASE; and Duc Le, Editor-in-Chief, eBiomedicine. This session was conducted in Vietnamese and was designed to orient graduate students on the basics of manuscript preparation for journal publication.
2. How to construct a local-language literature database – Facilitated by Tae-sul Seo (Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information, Korea), Seongnam Cho (Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information, Korea), Younsang Cho (M2Community, Korea), Jeonghee Lim (M2Community, Korea), and our own Jinwon Ko (Editage, Cactus Communications). This session covered the importance of local journals being indexed for greater visibility and offered tips and steps for constructing a literature database for local language journals. The success of the database constructed by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information was used as a case study.
3. How to transition a local language journal into an international English journal – Facilitated by Kihong Kim (Ajou University, Korea), Sooyoung Kim (Hallym University, Korea), Dokyun Kwon (Korea Aerospace University, Korea). This workshop provided a background of English as the global medium of science communication, discussed when and why local journals should become international, and offered a step by step approach for the transition.
Finally, we went on a city tour and visited the Temple of Literature, the first university in Vietnam; Bat Trang, an ancient pottery handicrafts village; and But Thap pagoda, Vietnam’s first Buddhist center. The day and the conference concluded with a traditional Vietnamese dinner.
Overall, the conference was definitely well organized and a big success. Here’s what Rachael Lammey, Product Manager at CrossRef had to say:
This was my (and CrossRef’s) second Asian Science Editors′ Conference. Again, the conference was well-attended and contained a lot of content for participants, and some useful advice. From my own perspective, Mikiko Tanifuji’s presentation on ‘Open access and Creative Commons License’ was particularly relevant as it’s important for publications and researchers to be able to navigate this information successfully, and for librarians to be able to provide help and input. It was also a great opportunity to visit Vietnam, learn about its history, taste the food and see more moped drivers than I have ever seen in my life!
The event was sponsored by Editage, the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies, Elsevier, the Korean Council of Science Editors, and the Korean Institute of Science and Technology Information. Presentations can be downloaded from the Council of Asian Science Editors website.