Article type
Abstract
Background: Access to high-quality evidence from reputable sources remains problematic. For example, most primary research and systematic review articles remain hidden behind paywalls, inaccessible to most users without an academic institutional affiliation. Similarly, many journals exclude studies with non-statistically significant outcomes or publish studies limited to a narrow range of methods. Research bias, epistemological bias, replication bias, and bias against nonresearch scholarship (e.g., program evaluation or quality improvement) are known challenges to publication and dissemination of evidence. Academic publishing often lacks a place for the dissemination of evidence along the full spectrum of knowledge translation (e.g., journals specialize in research, reviews, or implementation science but rarely all of the above).
Objectives: This study describes the conceptualization, development, operationalization, and implementation of a new academic medical journal that sought to address the stated challenges to making evidence accessible.
Methods: Using a case study design, archival data were extracted from official records of the journal’s sponsoring societies, editorial office, website, and editorial manager system. Thematic analysis was used to organize the extracted data into a conceptual framework that describes the conceptualization, development, operationalization, and implementation of this journal.
Results: The journal was specifically created in response to an identified knowledge need, in the fields of preventive medicine and public health, to create a forum for publishing evidence inclusive of all peoples, scholarly methods, and outcomes of interest to end users. A 4-year Delphi study was conducted to align the conceptualization and development of the journal to this identified knowledge need. Implementation of the journal has been explicitly informed by this knowledge need across six domains of academic publishing, including defining statements, editorial board recruitment, peer review and editorial handling, journal engagement with knowledge users, dissemination methods, and structural author support for open access publishing. Of note, the JBI model of evidence-based healthcare informed the journal’s comprehensive approach to inclusivity in people, methods, and outcomes.
Conclusions: Making evidence inclusive of all peoples, scholarly methods, and relevant outcomes accessible is important to patients, clinicians, and policymakers. This study presents the case of how this knowledge need was approached and realized in an academic publishing context.
Objectives: This study describes the conceptualization, development, operationalization, and implementation of a new academic medical journal that sought to address the stated challenges to making evidence accessible.
Methods: Using a case study design, archival data were extracted from official records of the journal’s sponsoring societies, editorial office, website, and editorial manager system. Thematic analysis was used to organize the extracted data into a conceptual framework that describes the conceptualization, development, operationalization, and implementation of this journal.
Results: The journal was specifically created in response to an identified knowledge need, in the fields of preventive medicine and public health, to create a forum for publishing evidence inclusive of all peoples, scholarly methods, and outcomes of interest to end users. A 4-year Delphi study was conducted to align the conceptualization and development of the journal to this identified knowledge need. Implementation of the journal has been explicitly informed by this knowledge need across six domains of academic publishing, including defining statements, editorial board recruitment, peer review and editorial handling, journal engagement with knowledge users, dissemination methods, and structural author support for open access publishing. Of note, the JBI model of evidence-based healthcare informed the journal’s comprehensive approach to inclusivity in people, methods, and outcomes.
Conclusions: Making evidence inclusive of all peoples, scholarly methods, and relevant outcomes accessible is important to patients, clinicians, and policymakers. This study presents the case of how this knowledge need was approached and realized in an academic publishing context.