Health Promotion and Health Education Journals’ Forum

[Maurice Mittelmark]

I must admit that I am disappointed by the low level of activity on VHPO up to this point, but I quite likely am simply too impatient. It takes time for people to get used to new offerings such as VHPO. It is quite likely that many in health promotion have yet to develop the blog habit. Unlike email, which just arrives and has to be dealt with somehow, a blog is something one must visit regularly, or it quickly becomes relatively unimportant compared to other activities in the daily routine.

Nevertheless, we have to give this a good try, so I ask my fellow members of the Geneva 2010 committee, including especially the journal editors, to examine again the list of collaboration ideas in the original post, and comment on which is worth starting to develop right away. Let us pick just one or two and see if we can make progress...

[Maurice Mittelmark]

Just a reminder, these were the ideas in the original post:

> how is open access changing the way people publish, search for, and select literature, and are the trends what we hope for;

> how can web 2.0 capabilities enhance knowledge exchange while still keeping quality high;

> how can journals take the lead (or at least better contribute to) in advancing the ethics discourse;

> how can the entire knowledge transfer establishment create better equity in access to information;

> how can language barriers be better addressed with information technology.

[Cat Jones]

Thanks for recentering the issues and reminding us of the ideas in the original post. I had suggested in my earlier post a series of joint editorials on one or more of the 5 issues you launched as questions for this stream.

... Global Health Promotion is commited to using the printed word to transfer the synthesis of what arises from VHPO dialogue on a specific question or issue, I would be interested to hear from the other journal editors as to how they might envision using their own journals as conduits for wider dissemination and hence stimulating the dialogue beyond the IUHPE boundaries. I know that many [editors] have already expressed interest in collaboration, and I would like to suggest that a first step in this direction might be the publication of some joint / co-editorials amongst some of the editors to be published in a selection of the journals on board in this endeavour.

A second idea, concretely, is one on partnerships. I would like to submit an illustration. The Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health (Bamako 2008) launched an e-forum to provide an opportunity to network and exchange ideas on the preparation of the Forum. They have a tool, HR4D-net, as do we vhpo.net. However, what is interesting is that the e-forum was established in 2006 as a collaboration between the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) and the Global Forum for Health Research, and is actually moderated by another network (see http://www.bamako2008.org/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=67). In any case, if we are to address most of the five issues you outline, perhaps the journal editors within the framework of this dialogue should invite other partners like the INASP, The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative, Online Access to Research in the Environment, HighWirePress (http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl) to participate. SAGE, the IUHPE's publishing house for Global Health Promotion offers a complete list of partnerships in which they are involved with existing platforms to support access to literature in low & middle income countries (http://www.sagepub.co.uk/librarians/zon ... eloping.sp).

Perhaps we could build on these existing relationships to pursue a broader dialogue on these 5 specific questions. In terms of the 8 journals on the GSC, contributing actively to the Geneva 2010 World Conference, the proposal of some sort of session with a selection of the partners and users of these initiatives could be very interesting.

[Pius.Attandoh]

This is particularly directed at Editors of the various Journals and also members of the Global Scientific Committee of the Geneva conference: could you please share with us your thoughts on those key issues/questions as highlighted in the original post? Let me quickly outline them again:

> how is open access changing the way people publish, search for, and select literature, and are the trends what we hope for;

> how can web 2.0 capabilities enhance knowledge exchange while still keeping quality high;

> how can journals take the lead (or at least better contribute to) in advancing the ethics discourse;

> how can the entire knowledge transfer establishment create better equity in access to information;

> how can language barriers be better addressed with information technology.

I believe as probably experts in the above areas, leading the discourse would most definitely bring us all along.

[nastarankeshavarz]

Hi Dear all
Thanks pious for managing this stream. I think t is a great idea and this topic is very interesting. It is a great idea to have a meeting for editors at the Geneva conference. However, there will be few (if any) editors from developed world. One solution might be to encourage and support experts from developing countries to establish their national health promotion journals. This can be considered as building capacity for health promotion researchers in developing world. This is what I am thinking to do in this regard in Iran. It is a hard job for financial and technical reasons. We are thinking of establishing Iranian health promotion journal. Maurice, I am thinking of you and the global health promotion journal to help us a member of editorial board for our journal and also technical aspect of it.
Best Regards
Nastaran

[Pius.Attandoh]

Nastaran,
Sure you rather meant there might be few editors from developing countries represented at the Geneva conference. That is likely to be the case. Either way, I think you raised an interesting point about the possibility of developing countries establishing their own National-level HP journals as a way of boosting capacity levels. Access to such journals by (young) scholars in the developing world too may increase. What I will suggest in that regard is for such journals to have a global appeal.

Your initiative to kickstart one in Iran is laudable. I can understand resource constraints affecting your work. But I think Maurice may be interested in offering you some technical support.

[Maurice Mittelmark]

I like Catherine Jones' ideas, but fear that they are too complex given the early stage of this dialogue and the lack of active participation by the editors. I have the feeling that the lack of active participation is the result of not having anything concrete and straightforward to react to.

Therefore, I propose the following:

1. One editor (volunteers?) to take responsibility to submit a session proposal (workshop), where all the editors would introduce their journals, then interact with the audience about publishing in the various journals.

2. One editor (me) to submit a workshop proposal on writing for publication.

3. Each editor to agree to publish an editorial supporting the attendance of readers at the Geneva conference.

4. One editor (volunteers?) to arrange a meeting of editors in Geneva at the conference, to explore the possibilities for concerted action to improve access to our journals of potential authors and readers from countries that are not now contributing to our journals.

Reactions?

[Maurice Mittelmark]

Hi Dear all
Thanks pious for managing this stream. I think t is a great idea and this topic is very interesting. It is a great idea to have a meeting for editors at the Geneva conference. However, there will be few (if any) editors from developed world. One solution might be to encourage and support experts from developing countries to establish their national health promotion journals. This can be considered as building capacity for health promotion researchers in developing world. This is what I am thinking to do in this regard in Iran. It is a hard job for financial and technical reasons. We are thinking of establishing Iranian health promotion journal. Maurice, I am thinking of you and the global health promotion journal to help us a member of editorial board for our journal and also technical aspect of it.
Best Regards
Nastaran

I am of course happy to assist by sitting on your editorial board and helping you to establish your journal. But let us take this matter to email, as it is of little general interest....

[Pius.Attandoh]

Maurice, I think your proposal for things to be made much simpler for editors and also other contributors by suggesting roles should work.That way, as you indicated, people will have clearly marked out issues to respond to. I hope for swift responses

[Cat Jones]

Maurice,
The GSC action points stemming from Monday's teleconference are still under review and the final version will be circulated early next week. However, with respect to your above simplified proposal for the Editors, allow me to briefly update you on the reactions to your from this dialogue to the GSC and the proposal of the other participating editors, approved by the GSC.

1) The dialogue on VHPO should continue, but as a means to consult the wider membership. It was recognised that this is not the best means to engage the editors.

2) A GSC sub-committee of Editors (from 8 Journals) should be formally established, whereas this model of collaboration will allow for direct interaction need for each Editor to be "appropriately" engaged. It was recommended that you are the convenor, Chair of the GSC Journal Editors' sub-committee.

3) The aims and scopes of each Journal should be compiled in a synthesis document for easy circulation to sub-committee members.

4) A conference call be arranged among the editors to discuss participation in promotion of the conference through publication of papers, as a first step.

I think that this could fit in with the plan you outline above, acknowledging that the role of VHPO would be to feed ideas into the GSC Journal Editors' Sub-Committee, not as its main means of engagement amongst the editors themselves. This would certainly revise the purpose of this stream of dialogue to address these questions in a more targeted fashion to the HP Journals' readerships, rather than to the editors themselves. If the editorial activity to encourage each Journal's readership to attend the conference is maintained, VHPO should be mentioned within it as a means to solicit readers' input via this tool. One could even imagine VHPO as a mechanism to get reactions to workshop content proposals, or to collect a list of the readership's priorities for improving access, etc.