Reporting guidelines
We have carried out a study to assess the knowledge and views of veterinary Editors-in-Chief on reporting guidelines, identify the policies of their journals, and determine their information needs.
Editors-in-Chief of 185 journals on the contact list for the were surveyed in April 2012 using an online questionnaire.
Key findings:
• 47% of Editors-in-Chief did not know what a reporting guideline was before the questionnaire;
• 35% of Editors-in-Chief said their journal referred to reporting guidelines in its instructions to authors;
• 68% of respondents believed that reporting guidelines should be adopted by all refereed veterinary journals;
• There is a need for further communication and education about reporting guidelines for editors, authors and reviewers.
An open-access paper describing the results of this survey has now been published:
We have also written an for BioMed Central's Biome magazine.
For further information on reporting guidelines see the website of the , which describes a range of reporting guidelines for different study types, including research in animals.
Contacts: Dr Rachel Dean and Dr Marnie Brennan