IMU issues "Best Practices" for running journals

[Carol Hutchins <carol.hutchins@nyu.edu>]

While the focus of this document is the mathematics discipline, 
those of us on the drafting committee feel it is of some broader 
interest.

In particular it reflects the spirit of the several other 
documents referenced in it.

--  Carol Hutchins
      Head, Courant Library
      New York Univ

and member, CEIC of IMU

-------------------------

International Mathematical Union issues Best Practice document on 
Journals

At its General Assembly held August 16-17, 2010 in Bangalore, 
India, the International Mathematical Union (IMU) endorsed a new 
document giving best practice guidelines for the running of 
mathematical journals (see 
http://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/CEIC/bestpractice/bpfinal.pdf). 
The document deals with the rights and responsibilities of 
authors, referees, editors and publishers, and makes 
recommendations for the good running of such journals based on 
principles of transparency, integrity and professionalism.

The document was written by the IMU Committee on Electronic 
Information and Communication (CEIC) in collaboration with 
Professor Douglas Arnold (University of Minnesota), President of 
the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, who has 
recently made a study* of unethical practices such as impact 
factor manipulation in mathematics. Sir John Ball (University of 
Oxford), the Chair of CEIC, said "It is important that everyone 
involved in the publication process has full information on how 
papers are handled and on what basis they are accepted or 
rejected. For example, we are uncomfortable with the routine use 
of confidential parts of referee reports that are not transmitted 
to authors."

The IMU President Professor Laszlo Lovasz (Eotvos Lorand 
University, Budapest) commented, "Well run journals play a vital 
role in the scientific process. Although the document is 
concerned with mathematics journals, we hope that those in other 
fields will find it interesting and useful."

Contact details:

Professor Laszlo Lovasz (tel +36 1381 2183/8083, email: 
lovasz@cs.elte.hu)

Sir John Ball (tel +44 1865 615110, email: ball@maths.ox.ac.uk)

Professor Douglas Arnold (tel +1 612 626-9137, email: 
arnold@umn.edu)

*Integrity Under Attack: The State of Scholarly Publishing 
http://ima.umn.edu/~arnold/siam-columns/integrity-under-attack.pdf