Note from the publisher

Citation

(2005), "Note from the publisher", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2005.06218aaa.002

Note from the publisher

A new volume of IJHCQA for 2005 also brings with it some changes in the editorial team.

Dr Keith Hurst joins Robin as co-editor, replacing Sue Jackson. We would like to thank Sue for all her effort and hard work on the journal over the last few years and to welcome Keith to the editorial team. Dr Hurst is a Senior Lecturer with the Nuffield Health and Social Care Policy Group, Health Sciences and Public Health Research Institute, University of Leeds. He has 33 year’s NHS experience, latterly as an academic. He has published extensively on health and social care policy and practice issues and has an extensive R&D portfolio, notably quality of health care in the context of workforce planning and development.

Following the sad death of Barbara Morris, Jo Lamb-White takes over as Centre Section Editor. Jo has 20 years’ of experience within the NHS as a clinician, senior manager and independent organisational development specialist. She is one half of LambWhite Partnership Ltd, which has been operating for the last three years providing external support and expertise to healthcare organisations including PCTs, Mental Health Trusts, Acute Trusts and Local Authorities in the UK. Jo’s contribution to the journal brings a new and improved centre section. The world health news covers a breadth of recent issues in healthcare with details on “areas of good performance” and “opportunities for improvement” covering Europe, Middle East and Africa, Far East and Australiasia and The Americas. The Recent Publications section now contains a short synopsis of the book and a list of the contents allowing greater insight into each publication.

Emerald structured abstracts have arrived!

After months of preparation by journal editors, authors and Emerald publishing staff, structured abstracts are ready for publication in all Emerald journals. The abstracts appear in journals from the first issues of all 2005 volumes and a glance at any article title page in this journal will illustrate the format and style of the new-style abstracts. The format differs slightly in the electronic version of articles on Emerald’s web site but this is only a cosmetic variation and takes account of the different medium and way in which people use abstract information.

The idea for the structured abstracts came about at the start of 2004 and a small team has worked on the design and introduction of structured abstracts throughout the year. Thanks to the hard work of everyone involved in producing this journal, Emerald is now able to showcase the abstracts for the first time. We believe they provide real benefits to our readers and researchers and that they answer some of the key questions journal users have about a paper without them having to scan or read the entire article. Some of these questions might include:

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  “What research has been conducted on this topic?”

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  “How was the research approached – what methods were used?”

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  “What were the main findings?”

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  “Are there any literature reviews on this topic and are they selective or inclusive?”

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  “So what? The authors have shown this but what does this mean for my work/organization?”

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  “I want to conduct research in this area but what questions still need to be answered?”

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  “Has this work got any relevance and value for me?”

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  “What did the writer set out to show?”

Structured abstracts provide the answers to these kinds of questions without the researcher having to go any further into the article itself. Authors can be more confident that their paper will be noticed and read by others with a real interest in the topic or research.

As far as possible, we have alerted our authors and editorial team members to this change via Literati Club Newslines and communications with journal editors. Authors who have been asked to rewrite their abstracts in the new format have readily obliged. The response from all parties has been very encouraging:

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  Structured abstracts are increasing in popularity among the social and behavioral sciences.

  There’s overwhelming evidence that readers (and indexers) glean more from structured abstracts (Jonathan Eldredge, MLS, PhD, AHIP, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, Academic & Clinical Services Coordinator and Author, Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, Health Sciences Center, The University of New Mexico, USA).

For more on structured abstracts and their value for researchers and writers, read the short paper by Liz Bayley and Jonathan Eldredge at: http://research.mlanet.org/structured_abstract.html

Everyone has difficulties in the digital environment in weighing up the value of any piece of information and structured abstracts go some way towards a remedy to the problem of information overload. Emerald is the very first publisher in the management field to introduce structured abstracts and whilst we are mindful that this means change for authors and researchers, we feel our pioneering work in this area gives our journals a strong competitive advantage. We are pleased and proud to be the first in the field to implement this extremely good idea.

Unfortunately, we are unable to go back through more than 40,000 papers already in Emerald’s database to change already-published abstracts into structured ones. On a more positive note, however, nearly 5,000 new papers will be deposited into the database this coming year and all will be accompanied by a structured abstract.

Emerald would be pleased to hear what you think about this initiative. E-mail your views to Sue de Verteuil, Head, Editorial Developments at: sdeverteuil@emeraldinsight.com