The Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council

By Allan Gotlib, BSc,DC

The Chiropractic Research Journal Editors' Council (CRJEC) was established in 1990 as a forum for chiropractic scientific editors to improve their editing skills and enhance standardization of scientific publishing practices. The group consists of the editors of the profession's leading scholarly journals. Since its inception, the group has met annually, usually in conjunction with the International Conference on Spinal Manipulation (ICSM) to exchange ideas, coordinate and share expertise. Originally funded by the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER), this meeting no longer receives standing support. In recent years the meeting has been funded only by the individual editors and sometimes their publishers. However a recent grant from the Canadian Chiropractic Protective Association (CCPA) was made to offset the travel expenses incurred by this unique group.

The objects of CRJEC:

The CRJEC is charged with the duty of ensuring that the documentation and recording of research meets the standards imposed by the rigors of scientific scrutiny. No other group in chiropractic has similar duties.
The CRJEC supports improved and enhanced standards of professional competency of practitioners and chiropractic procedures, a significant benefit to the chiropractic profession.

Membership

The membership of the CRJEC includes these scholarly research journals and their editors:

Chiropractic History -- John Willis,DC

Chiropractic Journal of Australia -- Mary Ann Chance,DC, Rolf Peters,DC

Chiropractic Research Journal -- Sarah Webster,PhD

Chiropractic Technique -- Dana Lawrence,DC

European Journal of Chiropractic -- Simon Leyson,DC

Journal of Chiropractic Education -- Robert Ward,DC

Journal of Chiropractic Humanities -- Dana Lawrence,DC

Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics -- Dana Lawrence,DC

Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association -- Allan Gotlib,DC

Journal of the Neuromusculoskeletal System -- William Meeker,DC

Topics in Clinical Chiropractic -- Robert Mootz,DC

Topics in Diagnostic Radiology and Advanced Imaging -- John Stites,DC

The CRJEC most recently met in Vancouver in July 1998 (its ninth annual meeting) during the ICSM conference, which was sponsored by the FCER. CRJEC members come from Australia (NSW), Canada (Ontario), United Kingdom (Wales), and the United States (California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Virginia, and Washington).

Activities of the CRJEC:

The mandate of the council is to:

set standards for scholarly publications in the chiropractic scientific literature;
actively enhance the integration of chiropractic literatures into the international biomedical systems, including electronic databases;
disseminate the scholarly chiropractic literature to policy and decision makers to ensure that chiropractic knowledge gained through research is effectively used to improve health care practices and health policy;
catalyze and foster the research of chiropractic;
mentor new editors and continually develop editorial skills to administer a journal with internal quality control; critical appraisal skills; peer review; editorial board members; guidelines for scholarly research and researchers; and establishing policy related to advertising, scientific fraud, misconduct and plagiary.

It is vital to the profession that the CRJEC continue to meet and exchange ideas, and to remain a valid participant in the biomedical community. The absence of a synthesized strategy from our profession for the scientific biomedical literature is inconsistent with professional growth and maturity and would serve to marginalize and isolate the profession. This specialized group of individuals is extraordinary. The profession simply cannot afford to lose this group and its collective experience. Scientific and scholarly journal editing requires shared expertise and mentoring currently unavailable through any other means within the chiropractic profession.

Canadian Chiropractic Protective Association

The Canadian Chiropractic Protective Association (CCPA) has provided a grant in the amount of $10,000 CDN to the CRJEC. These funds will provide travel expenses in order for the members to continue to meet annually and administrate its mandate. The CCPA has taken a leadership role in supporting the scientific chiropractic scene, by promoting the awareness of scholarship and promoting safe, effective and competent practice through responsible journalism. This cannot be accomplished any other way than through peer reviewed publications.

The support of the CCPA minimizes conflicts of interest, perceived apprehension of bias, and enhances the absolute need for scholarly journal editors to remain completely independent from political influence. The issue of Dr. George Lundberg, dismissed as editor of JAMA, is a case in point.

Symposium 2000

The 2nd Canadian Chiropractic Research Symposium is planned for November 2000 at the Universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres (UQTR). Dr. Pierre Boucher is the conference organizer: His e-mail address is . To fulfill its mandate, the CRJEC is exploring the feasibility of running a concurrent workshop in concert with the symposium. Topics for the workshop would include grantsmanship; increasing research activity (both in quantity and quality), research protocols; standards on scholarly publication; scientific fraud; and a host of subjects of immediate concern to the scholarly chiropractic research community.

Allan Gotlib

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