 |
 |
If a Systematic Review excludes non English papers, then it’s not a true systematic review, it’s a review of research published in English.
Derick Yates
EBP Tutor
BHSN Library Management System Administrator
Local Athens Administrator
C/O Trust Library and Information Service
Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust
Mindelsohn Way
Edgbaston
BIRMINGHAM
B15 2TG
Tel: 0121 472 1377 extension 8746
Direct Dial Tel: 0121 627 5846
Fax: 0121 623 6922
The BWH library provides you with access to approx 2,500 e-journals.
This includes specialist O&G, Midwifery, Paediatric, Neonatal, Pathology and Genetics titles
You can access these via the e-journals link from our website at http://www.bwhct.nhs.uk/index.php/library-home
You will need to log in with your Athens username and password to access all titles.
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson
Sent: 02 October 2012 12:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Non-English language publications?
ethically, surely, it is right that research should be accessible by the (often NESB) researched community?
to be included in Cochrane/campbell, you are NOT allowed to exclude non-english papers!
Most have an English abstract anyway - but most 'so-called' SRs exclude non - Medline etc journals - i.e. there is a strong publication bias in favour of certain commercial networks....
Mark R D Johnson
Director, MSRC/CEEHD
De Montfort University
Hawthorn Building 00.20, The Gateway
Leicester LE1 9BH
Please don't phone - use e-mail!
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers on behalf of Burnham Tom
Sent: Tue 02/10/2012 11:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Non-English language publications?
There was an interesting paper in Swiss Medical Weekly recently by a couple of Danish medical journal editors. They give an analysis of impact factors (per the Thomson Reuters list) for general/internal medical journals over the last 10 years and show that IFs of English language journals are significantly higher (medians of 1.45 and 0.29 for 2010) and although Ifs of both classes had tended to increase over the period, those of English language journals had increased (non-significantly) faster. One reason they quote for this is that non-English language journals are under-represented in bibliographic indexing databases.
They advocate that “non-English-language journals desirous of contributing to the international pool of knowledge should consider changing publication language, adopting either a bi- or a monolingual approach. Publishing in English (possibly in addition to the national language) will increase journal visibility, expand readership and thus increase the potential number of citations.
“The potential increase in IFs (or potential inclusion in the JCR) might have been a contributing factor for national journals that have already changed publication language into English. However, increasing IFs should not be the sole argument for changing publication language. From an ethical perspective, it could be argued that original research findings should not be published in small, local/national languages and thus “hidden” from the international scientific community. Instead, authors and editors should seek to communicate original research findings to as many readers as possible.”
See: Impact factor trends for general medical journals: non-English-language journals are lagging behind
Siri Vinther, Jacob Rosenberg
Swiss Medical Weekly 25 Sep 2012;142:w13572
http://www.smw.ch/content/smw-2012-13572/
What does anyone think? Certainly there are quite a lot of “systematic” reviews that are restricted to English-language papers. Should we be worried at this or is the med-sci community now uniformly monoglot?
Regards
Tom Burnham
Project Manager/Information Specialist
Pharmacy, Ground Floor, Southwark Wing
Guy's Hospital
London SE1 9RT
020 7188 5026
The information contained in this message and or attachments is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.
Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust or any of its subsidiaries.
The information contained in this e-mail may be subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Unless the information is legally exempt from disclosure, the confidentiality of this e-mail and any replies cannot be guaranteed.
Any review, retransmission,dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any system and destroy any copies.
We make every effort to keep our network free from viruses. However, it is your responsibility to ensure that this e-mail and any attachments are free of viruses as we can take no responsibility for any computer virus which might be transferred by way of this e-mail.
_DISCLAIMER: This email and any attachments hereto contains proprietary information, some or all of which may be confidential or legally privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s) only. If an addressing or transmission error has misdirected this e-mail and you are not the intended recipient(s), please notify the author by replying to this e-mail. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print, or rely on this e-mail or any attachments, as this may be unlawful. |