Developing an EDIB strategy for open scholarly publishing (guide)

Developing an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) strategy for open scholarly publishing

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STRATEGY Main pillars

4 PILLARS OF AN EDIB STRATEGY

To get started with the process of developing an EDIB strategy, there are four key pillars to take into consideration.

Set goals and monitor progress

Make EDIB part of your core values

Develop meaningful EDIB processes and policies

Challenge bias

The following sections introduce these four pillars and provide examples that may be used to inspire your own efforts.

PILLAR 1 Make EDIB part of your core values

Out of sight, out of mind

How to create a journal diversity, equity and inclusion statement?

To be successful, your EDIB-related efforts need to be visible. If something is not visible or present, then you will probably stop thinking about it. Therefore, a critical first step in developing an EDIB strategy is to give it visibility. If your organisation or journal already has a mission, vision and values statement, consider expanding it to explicitly include EDIB-related values, or create a specific EDIB statement.

Assess the needs of your research community and journal

Identify priorities

Acknowledge that addressing EDIB is an ongoing process

PILLAR 1 Go further

• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) (Toolsuite Article)

• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) (Training platform)

• Interdepartmental Terminology Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. 2024. "Guide on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Terminology", Government of Canada

• Wiley (n.d.). How to create a journal diversity, equity and inclusion statement

PILLAR 2 Set goals and monitor progress

Practice what you preach

How to increase diversity on the editorial board?

It is important to establish concrete goals and to monitor progress towards meeting these goals. Ongoing monitoring of EDIB can be implemented through EDIB audits. The aim of an EDIB audit is to identify areas where your organization or journal is excelling, as well as areas where there is a need to improve. Don’t stop at the first sign of improvement! Successful EDIB initiatives require a sustained effort.

Start thinking about diversity in your field

Compare your editorial board with the research community

Implement steps to improve the situation

Measure the impact of your actions

PILLAR 2 Go further

• Salazar, J. W., et al. 2021. “Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation of Editors at Leading Medical and Scientific Journals: A Cross-sectional Survey”. JAMA Internal Medicine 181(9): 1248–1251

• Sebo P. and Schwarz, J. 2023 “The level of the gender gap in academic publishing varies by country and region of affiliation: A cross-sectional study of articles published in general medical journals”. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0291837

• Springer (n.d.). “Sex and Gender in Research (SAGER Guidelines)”

• Suchy, Y. (n.d.). “Increasing diversity on your editorial board: A success story by the Editor-in-Chief of The Clinical Neuropsychologist”

PILLAR 3 Challenge bias

We all have unconscious biases, but institutions and journal editors can take steps to challenge or mitigate them.

Raise awareness

Understand what bias looks like

Keep it ongoing

Take action to reduce bias

PILLAR 3 Go further

• Amano, T., et al. 2023. “The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science”. PLoS Biology 21(7): e3002184.

• Elsevier. (n.d.). Toolkit on "Unconscious Bias"

• Hoving, S. 2024. “What does putting DEI into practice at the Nature Reviews journals really look like?”, Springer Nature blog

• Nature. “Citation diversity statement.” Nature Reviews Bioengineering 1, 227 (2023)

PILLAR 4 Develop meaningful EDIB processes and policies

Encouraging good practices related to EDIB is helpful, but sometimes it may be beneficial to go a step further by developing processes and policies that set clear expectations for EDIB and outline consequences for engaging in non-inclusive or non-equitable practices. In some cases, these processes and policies may emerge as a result of some of the activities related to pillars 1, 2 and 3, which can help to identify gaps or provide evidence that certain actions can bring about desired outcomes. This not only improves efficiency but also increases motivation by enabling more personalized and meaningful learning.

Process

Assess and improve

Policies

PILLAR 4 Go further

• Berdejo-Espinola, V. and Amano, T. 2023, March 9. “AI tools can improve equity in science. Science 379 (6636)

• Journal of Bacteriology (n.d.). “Double-anonymized peer review pilot”

• Seghier, M. L. 2023, April 26. Editorial: “Using ChatGPT and other AI-assisted tools to improve manuscripts readability and language.” International Journal of Imaging Systems 33: 773-775

• South African Journal of Science (n.d.). Editorial policies

• Springer (n.d.). “Sex and Gender in Research (SAGER Guidelines)”

• Thorp, H. H. 2023, January 23. “ChatGPT is fun, but not an author.” Science 379 (6630)

• Thorp, H. H. and Vinson, V. 2023, November 16. “Editor’s blog”, Science

Next steps

Congratulations, you’ve completed the EDIB learning journey! Now it’s time to take a step back, reflect on what you’ve learned, and define your next steps.

• What did you learn that challenged your perspective?

• Which bias or barrier did you recognize in your own context?

• What’s one concrete action you will take in the next 30 days?

• Who will you involve to make this change sustainable?

• How will you measure your progress six months from now?

Do you have questions?

We are here to help you. If something was not clear or you want to delve deeper into any topic, don’t hesitate to contact us at resources[at]edch.eu. Your curiosity is also part of the learning process!

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Implement steps to improve the situation

Set up a subcommittee to identify potential qualified board members, invite them to join the board, and offer any necessary support to these under-represented groups.

Regularly assess and improve processes and policies in order to ensure that they reflect the evolving EDIB-related issues in the scholarly publishing community.

• For example, the Science family of journals initially took a very restrictive stance on the use of AI tools for preparing manuscripts for publication. However, researchers pointed out that such tools can help to improve equity in scholarly publishing by alleviating linguistic disparities for authors who are writing in a non-dominant language – which is the case for the vast majority of researchers who are required to publish in English. After due consideration, the editors decided to modify the policy to make it clear that while AI tools may not be (co-)authors, they can be used as aids in the writing or presentation of the manuscripts as long as this is clearly acknowledged and the author accepts full accountability for the accuracy of the work.
• In a related example, Mohamad L. Seghier (2023), the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Imaging Systems, notes that his own position as editor incorporates the following two points: a call to embrace current AI-assisted technologies to remove any language barriers in research dissemination, but at the same time a request to adhere to good practice guidelines regarding the use of AI tools like ChatGPT.

Identify priorities

• From among the issues identified, which are the key issues? Which will you focus on first? Remember that it may not be possible to do everything at once!

• Depending on your situation, you may decide to foster inclusive language, improve diversity of invited reviewers, encourage authors to adopt more diverse citation practices, etc.

Compare your editorial board with the research community

For instance, how many women work in your field, and how does this percentage compare to the number of women on your editorial board?

Some of the simple tips that the Elsevier resource for helping individuals to recognize and start to overcome their unconscious biases include:

• Make a conscious effort to slow down your decision making and asking yourself whether you are looking at the widest group of possible variables or the broadest choice of candidates;
• Be open and alert for unconscious bias in yourself and in colleagues;
• Be prepared to tackle unconscious bias by pointing out how it may be creeping into a process.

Assess the needs of your research community and journal

• Look at the representation of ethnicities, races, colors, religions, gender identities, national origins, institutional affiliations, languages, disabilities, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds in your research community, journal, and the research it publishes.

• Consider the specific measures needed to improve diversity and inclusion (e.g., diversifying peer review pools, editorial boards, or staff).

Measure the impact of your actions

Calculate whether there have been improvements (e.g., in the number of women on the board).

One example of a process intended to reduce bias during peer review is the double-anonymized peer review process, where the reviewers do not know the author’s identity and the authors do not know the reviewer’s identity. The Journal of Bacteriology is one journal that is currently piloting a double-anonymized peer review process as part of an investigation to determine if this will support fair and unbiased evaluation of manuscripts more successfully than the single-anonymized process that is currently in place.

The Elsevier toolkit “Unconscious bias” points out that unconscious bias can manifest itself in scholarly publishing in several ways, with potentially harmful effects, such as:

• rating a report from a reviewer with a similar name to ours more highly than someone else’s;
• downgrading the advice of a fellow editor if they subscribe to a different religious or political outlook;
• tending to appoint more editorial board members whose social backgrounds match our own;
• accepting more articles authored by people of a particular gender;
• refusing to acknowledge the validity of an alternative perspective if put forward by someone with a different educational level;
• working in an all-male editorial team.

Springer requires authors to follow the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) Guidelines, which promote transparency and equity in reporting research. Authors are asked to:

• Use the terms sex and gender carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms.
• Indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to in titles or abstracts.
• Describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results.
• Provide a rationale in the Discussion if a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted.

South African Journal of Science: Inclusive and accessible practices

• This Diamond Open Access journal has an inclusive language policy that values diversity and respect for all individuals. It also includes an accessibility statement, encouraging authors and reviewers to request disability accommodations or other forms of support to ensure equitable participation in the publishing process.

Bias training and reminders should be regular, not one-off.

• Provide periodic refreshers
• Celebrate good practices
• Keep inclusivity visible and valued

At a future stage, your organisation or journal might consider developing their own resources that can be customized to address specific types of unconscious bias training that are most relevant within your community (e.g., see an example describing a webinar that the Nature Reviews journals organized for their journal editors).

Acknowledge that addressing EDIB is an ongoing process

• Make it clear in your statement that addressing EDIB is an ongoing process, and incorporate active and aspirational statements rather than passive or static ones.

• Remember that making a statement is not enough: the statement must be accompanied by goals, priorities and targets, and progress should be tracked (see next section).

Start thinking about diversity in your field

The first step towards solving a problem is recognizing that it exists!

Change your current habitsBeyond awareness raising and training activities, other ways to challenge bias include:

• establishing clear criteria for decision-making (e.g., by reviewers and editors). For instance, this might include instructing peer reviewers to distinguish between stylistic issues and content issues during evaluation, and to give less weight to the former and more to the latter.
• Offering some kind of recognition or reward (e.g., award for high-quality reviews) can also be used to challenge bias by reinforcing good practices.
• expanding author guidelines to foster the use of inclusive language and to encourage citation diversity (e.g., by creating a citation diveristy statement.
• giving authors from cultures that use different scripts the option to have their name presented in their own alphabet for languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian and Russian.