Dec 23, 2019
Dr Amit Khera: I'm Amit Khera, I'm digital strategies editor for
Circulation and I'm standing in this week for Carolyn Lam and Greg
Hunley. And I'm also doing the Circulation on the Run podcast, as
well as Discover CircRes podcast with our two editors in chief.
This is Jane Freedman, who recently took over as editor-in-chief of
Circulation Research, and Joseph Hill, who is the editor-in-chief
of Circulation. So, welcome you both. We're excited to do this.
Dr Joseph Hill: Thank you.
Dr Jane Freedman: Thank you.
Dr Amit Khera: The idea behind this, there's this session here at
sessions where we're learning a little bit about Circulation
Research and Circulation, pulling back the cover, if you will, and
seeing behind the cloak, as what happens in the Journal. So, Dr
Freedman, I'll start with you. Tell me a little bit about, as the
incoming editor of Circulation Research, some of your vision for
the Journal, which you're excited about.
Dr Jane Freedman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I'm thrilled to be
the new editor of Circulation Research. And I've assembled a
fabulous team of associate editors, deputy editors and other staff
and support, that are going to continue to grow what's already a
wonderful journal, to be the preeminent and primary journal for
basic and translational cardiovascular sciences. And also support
and interact with the other HA family of Journals.
Dr Amit Khera: So obviously that starts with a great team. And it
sounds like you've assembled that. Anything new that you're
thinking about, and sort of the redesign of Circ Research in your
term?
Dr Jane Freedman: Sure. So, we're hoping to expand the original
scientific content, so we can have a larger number of articles in
original science. And we can have the pages to be able to handle
other areas of basic cardiovascular science to include new areas,
emerging areas, things like that. We're also increasing some of our
early career initiatives, so that's very important to us as
well.
Dr Amit Khera: Fantastic. Fantastic. Can you talk about expanding
for science? And Joe, that leads to you. I'm going to, in this
session tomorrow, one of the goals is when people submit their
science, it really goes into a black box and people don't know what
happens on the editorial level. Can you maybe enlighten us a
little, what happened?
Dr Joseph Hill: Jane and I have been friends for 20 or more years
and we now have established a bi-directional, mutually synergistic
collaboration where we send papers each way. We have distinct
missions, but yet with significant overlap. And I think it's an
incredibly exciting time for the entire portfolio of AHA Journals.
So as you
say, most people that you hit send and you wait four to six weeks,
and you
either get a happy note or an unhappy note.
And, what happens at both our Journals is we have a strategy of
multiple
touches on every paper. The paper that first comes in, is first
touched by a
senior editor, either myself or James de Lemos, and two or three
others. And we
will reject without review, about 50% of the papers at that point.
We publish six
papers a week, but we get 110 a week. So we don't need to review 50
of them
to pick the top six.
Out of respect to our authors to save them time, out of respect to
our reviewers
who devote tremendous effort to reviewing papers, we don't send
them papers
that we don't think have a shot. That said, if a paper makes it
past that first
stage, there's about a 50% chance it'll get published either in our
Journal, or in
one of the subspecialty journals. Probably a 50-50 chance it'll be
published
somewhere in an AHA family Journal.
So if it makes it past that stage, we send it to an associate
editor, of which you
are one. And we have about 50 of them. A third are in Dallas,
another third are
in the U.S. outside of Dallas, and another third are in countries
around the
world, 17 different countries. And that person will probably reject
without
review, another five or 10% maybe. But he or she will dig into that
paper, and in
parallel send it out to two or sometimes three reviewers, who are
trusted and
valued advisors.
They help that associate editor make a strong recommendation. He or
she
makes a decision to bring to the larger group, that is informed by
those
reviewers. So already that paper has been touched by five
different
investigators. Typically, that associate editor will reach out
electronically within
his or her affinity group. We have an affinity group in
epidemiology, heart
failure, intervention, basic science.
Asking other AEs, "Could you take a look at this paper? One
reviewer said this,
one said that, I'm sort of thinking this." And then we'll have a
conversation on
our weekly video conference, and then a decision goes out to the
authors. So
every paper is touched by at least five, and sometimes 10 different
editors and
reviewers, which we have found has been a powerful way to really
dig into and
identify things that one or two people might have missed.
Dr Amit Khera: One thing I note here is, if you realize how many
people touch these articles, yet
how efficient and how fast this process is, then that's a testament
to sort of, the
goals of the Journal, to be really responsive and rapid for our
authors. One big
part of that, and come back to Dr Freedman is peer review, right?
So, associate
editors have a lot of work, and were affinity groups and so forth,
but really
critical are these peer reviewers. And in the modern era, we're all
so busy. Tell
us a little bit about the value of peer review, and how we enhance
the value to
the peer reviewers themselves.
Dr Jane Freedman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, just as you said, the
peer reviewers are absolutely
central, valued and vital parts of making the Journal run
correctly. And we, like
Circulation, our associate editors send them out to three different
peer
reviewers, and they have a very fixed amount of time to review the
articles, and
they provide these wonderful comments.
We also very heavily rely on our editorial board. They know the
drill, that it
needs to be back within a fixed amount of time. And for the most
part, they do
it. It's an interesting question, "What's the value to them?" I've
been a reviewer
too. It's part of your pay back. It's part of educating yourself
about what's new
and interesting. There's a lot of reasons for doing it. People
enjoy being on the
editorial board and interacting with the Journal. But
fundamentally, as an
editor, you're incredibly grateful to your reviewers. They are the
unsung heroes
of making a Journal work.
Dr Amit Khera: You mentioned sending out to three, when you have
sort of disparate reviews.
It's amazing when some people love it and some people hate it.
Dr Jane Freedman: Yeah.
Dr Amit Khera: How do you handle that?
Dr Jane Freedman: Yeah, well, sometimes it's apparent from the
reviews why that happened.
Someone may have focused on something, that the editorial group
thinks is less
important. Or they have focused on something that's addressable.
The other
thing we do, similar to Joe, is we have a video conference call
every single week
on Wednesdays, and that's a period where people can vet any
concerns or
questions. And then my editors, my associate and deputy editors
know we have
an open communication at all times. So I very frequently, when they
have
questions about reviews and how to reconcile disparate reviews,
we'll have an
ongoing conversation about that.
Dr Amit Khera: It sounds like, of course you're actively engaged in
how this is a dynamic
process. I'll mention one thing, is digital strategies editor and I
know both at Circ
Research and Circulation. We're always thinking, "How do we bring
these
articles to life? How do we have the most people read them or
engage with
them?" And one is traditional social media. So Twitter and
Facebook, which is
incredibly important. Podcast, you have a monthly podcast.
Dr Jane Freedman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr Amit Khera: We have a weekly podcast and really hope that people
listen to them because
they're really full of important information. And finally, I think
what people
don't appreciate is the media. So we work with the AHA media. Some
of our top
stories get over a million media impressions, go all around the
world and there's
Professional Heart Daily. So, there's so many ways that we're
bringing articles to
life. Joe, I'm going to finish with you. This is a Circ family. The
value of having a
family of Journals and how we keep cohesion, and for authors when
they're
submitting to sort of a family of Journals, what's the value and
how does that
add?
Dr Joseph Hill: Well, there has been complete turnover of all the
editors in chief in the entire
family of Journals, of which there are 12. And we are all quite
similar in our
personalities, and in our perspectives on the importance, the
ultimate
importance of validity. The first question we ask, "Is this true?"
If it's not, it's
gone. It doesn't get referred. We reject it. Even if it's going to
be on the front
page of the New York Times and cited 10,000 times. And all of us
hold ourselves
to that same standard. So our vectors are all pointed in the same
direction. We
also care about impact, not impact factor. But does it change the
way you think?
Does it matter? Is it incremental, or does it really move the
needle?
So we are now in a situation, I think a wonderful situation where
we all sink or
swim together. We send papers all around, as you know very well. We
send
papers to the subspecialty journals. We send 20 or 30 a week, on
an
extraordinarily regular basis. And we send papers horizontally to
Circ Research,
or Hypertension, or Stroke and so forth. So, it is a syncytium now
I would say, of
a family of journals where we are all looking out for each other.
Jane cares
about our Journal and we care about her Journal. And that's really
a wonderful
situation to be in.
Dr Amit Khera: Well thanks. That family and how this fluidity of
articles and thought and
exchanges, is really part of the value. And ultimately the goal is
for a great paper
to find a great home. And I think in this Circ family we do
that.
Thank you very much. It's been a wonderful podcast. Again, I'm Amit
Khera,
digital strategies editor sitting in for Carolyn Lam and Greg
Hundley for
Circulation on the Run, as well as for Discover CircRes. Thank
you.
Dr Carolyn Lam: This program is copyright American Heart
Association 2019.