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Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement

27/10/2021
AG Journal author Anita GoldSchmied

The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement editorial team welcomes the opportunity to celebrate Open Science Week and showcase our modest contribution to open access and research. The online e-Journal has been a resource for novice and more experienced writers since 2008. Its free accessibility, contributor friendly processes and transparent publishing practices are only the first steps in our commitment to foster a culture of contemporary open science and research. Our motto, ‘The Journal of Opportunity’, expresses the ambition of encouraging students, professionals, early career and established researchers to publish material that fosters communities of knowledge and practice. We believe that anyone involved in the provision of health and social care should share, connect and produce science together. And that such endeavour should be communicated in various ways. Hence, the e-Journal does not restrict its contributors to submitting set formats or voices. In fact, we are very proud of one of our latest issues that have promoted creativity in science and knowledge generation that can be accessed through this link.  

 AG article illustration

The theme of this year’s open access week: “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity”, is timely in Health and Social Care that cannot advance any longer by a few experts but collaboratively. The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement has already implemented many open science initiatives to stimulate such collaboration. First, accessibility for all involved as both publishing and reading are freely available. Second, pragmatics by not claiming more than what we do, allowing the communities to decide what they find beneficial or valuable. Real-life research and science done by humans are likely to be messy and imperfect. Third, transparency by not scrutinising narrowly what is shared or how. Our quality check is more and more about meeting open science standards than any other outmoded metrics. And fourth, openness, as we believe, the editorial team’s role is to facilitate and provide a forum to discuss, debate and negotiate. Our peer-review process is open between writers and reviewers.  

 

The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement has been probing the benefits of open access and research for a while. The feedback has been both reassuring and promising. We believe that the public, fellow students, professionals and researchers are the best to evaluate each other works and even correct spelling mistakes if it is pertinent to creating scientific knowledge. But our ambition for the future of the journal and open science does not end here. We continue to evolve the e-journal into an even more vibrant, active and animated community of knowledge and practice. We aim to publish even more diverse, creative and informative pieces, including preprints, readers’ and partners’ responses and peer-review comments. We invite all to create science and not only witness our future health and social care. We finish with the sentiment: we hope to see you soon on one of the pages of the Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement.  

 

Anita GoldSchmied

 

The Editorial Team: 

Dr Anita Z Goldschmied, Managing Editor and blogger 

Dr Hilary Paniagua Editor in Chief 

Dr Wendy Nicholls Commissioning Editor 

Dr Dean-David Holyoake Developmental Editor 

Dr Lucy Pursehouse Literary Editor 

 

For more information please contact the Corporate Communications Team.

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