Both Medical Decision Making and MDM Policy & Practice have complete editorial independence from their owner, Society for Medical Decision Making, and publisher, SAGE Publications, Inc. The editor-in-chief is Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher, PhD (University of Michigan).
MDM and MDM P&P largely comply with the policies and ethical considerations of the Council of Science Editors. The CSE White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications should be consulted for policies regarding the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, and editors—including authorship, access to data, and conflicts of interest.
Specific Policies
- Duplicate publication
- Financial support of authors
- Use and Reporting of Individual Classification Variables in Models and Analyses
- Dichotomization of continuous variables
- Validation of prediction models
- Supplements
Duplicate publication
To reduce the potential for duplicate publication, one of our journals’ pre-submission requirements is author verification of the following statement: “Confirm that the manuscript has been submitted solely to this journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere.”
Exception #1: Both MDM and MDM P&P will consider manuscripts that have been posted as preprints on the authors’ institutional website or other freely available preprint server but have never been peer reviewed.
Exception #2: Both MDM and MDM P&P will consider documents that have functioned in an institutional or government setting as background material, official “working papers,” or technical briefs but have never been peer reviewed. Generally, manuscripts of this kind must be modified substantively to conform to MDM manuscript requirements.
In both cases, the peer review process generally requires that the authors make significant revisions prior to manuscript acceptance. In addition, the original document must be fully acknowledged in the manuscript as a previous presentation of the material and cited appropriately throughout. Permission to reprint images and tables must be obtained in advance of manuscript submission. In addition, the original documents must be submitted as supplemental files when the manuscript is submitted to MDM or MDM P&P. Reviewers must have full access to the original document(s) throughout the peer review process.
Finally, manuscript submissions of this kind are accepted for consideration at MDM or MDM P&P with the understanding that, on publication, the authors will append to all original documents a notice regarding the subsequent peer review and publication of their article. This notice must provide full citation information, including a hyperlink to the full text article, and an acknowledgment of MDM / MDM P&P’s copyright. See our Open Access, Archiving, & Copyright page for more details.
(January 2021)
Financial support of authors
In the instructions to authors, authors are directed to include the following statement in their cover letter and as a footnote on the title page:
Financial support for this study was provided [choose one: entirely or in part] by a [choose one: grant from or contract with] (here insert the name(s) of the funding source(s), whether a company, government agency, philanthropic foundation, institute, etc.). The funding agreement ensured the authors’ independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing and publishing the report. [The following sentence should be inserted, if applicable] The following author(s) is/are employed by the sponsor: (identify employees).
A senior author who cannot sign this statement on behalf of all co-authors should explain any and all limitations in the cover letter. We do not rule out submissions from investigators employed by or receiving commercial support from organizations that have an interest in the research findings, but we do require full disclosure of such relationships and authorial independence in the conduct of the study. The journal reserves the right to request original data and have an independent statistician repeat the analyses proposed in the manuscript.
The aims of this policy are (1) disclosure of author relationships with support sources for a study, (2) preservation of the editorial independence of authors, and (3) assurance to reviewers and readers of the degree of independence.
Use and Reporting of Individual Classification Variables in Models and Analyses
All authors who report variables presented as measuring race, ethnicity, national origin, indigeneity, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status are expected do the following in all manuscripts submitted to MDM or MDM P&P:
Requirement #1: Authors including individual characteristic classification variables in analyses or models should clearly define a) what they believe the variables are measuring and b) what hypotheses or research questions justify inclusion of these variables in the analysis or model. In other words, authors need to be clear how they are intending each variable to be interpreted and hence to what causal factor(s) they believe any observed differences should be attributed. If authors believe that a classification variable acts as an indicator of systemic sexism, racism, or nationalism, then they should say so. As Boyd et al. noted, “naming racism explicitly helps authors avoid incorrectly assigning race as a [causal] risk factor, when racism is the [causal] risk factor for racially disparate outcomes.” Relevant causal factors should ideally be acknowledged in the Introduction, Methods, Results, and/or Discussion sections of a paper, as appropriate.
…
Requirement #2: All authors should clearly report how individual characteristic classification variables were measured. For example, if classification variables were measured as self-reported categorizations, out of what set of options were the choices made, and were multiple selections allowed? If characteristics were being assigned by observers or imputed from other sources, what were the procedures used to make the assignments? The editors of MDM and MDM P&P will seek to ensure that these procedures are documented in the methods section of the paper and/or supplemental materials.
For more details, please see the full policy statement: Zikmund-Fisher BJ. (2022). Toward transparent demographic analyses: statement on the use and reporting of classification variables presented as measuring individual characteristics such as race, ethnicity, indigeneity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. Med Decis Making 42(3):277-279.
Dichotomization of continuous variables
Dichotomization of continuous variables is discouraged. If authors present research findings in which dichotomization has been used, they must present a justification that the approach is preferable to using the original continuous variable in this particular instance. This policy extends to other partitions as well (e.g., 3 or 4 groups).
Validation of Prediction Models
Papers presenting data-driven prediction models developed for the purpose of creating individual patient-level prediction tools must also include model validation using an independent dataset to illustrate the robustness of the prediction accuracy. In general, within-sample validation techniques such as split-sample or k-fold validation are insufficient.
(October 2020)
Supplements
Supplements, special issues, and special theme sections to Medical Decision Making can contribute to the field of medical decision making by highlighting controversial issues, summarizing the state-of-the-art, defining a research agenda, or presenting new data. Usually, a supplement or special issue will be based on proceedings of a conference or workshop.
1. Editorial Approval
Potential sponsors should contact the Editor-in-Chief to be certain that the topic is of interest to our readers. If the Editor-in-Chief determines that the topic seems relevant to Medical Decision Making, then the sponsors will be asked to submit the following documents:
- A list of authors (include titles and institutions) and title of work.
- A structured abstract (at least ½ page in length) for each proposed manuscript or talk.
- Name of the person coordinating the proceedings, symposium, or theme issue. This person may serve as an outside co-Editor during the editorial process.
This material will be forwarded to an associate editor of the journal or a member of the editorial board for confirmation of its scientific and/or policy merit and its relevance to the journal. One or more Associate Editor(s) will be assigned to shepherd the process. Once an Editor is identified, that person will define the review process and negotiate with the outside co-Editor a timeline for submitting articles.
All supplements are subject to peer review. There is no guarantee that any manuscripts submitted for a given supplement will be accepted. Quite frequently, supplement manuscripts require a major revision before they are accepted for publication. The Editor assigned to the work will make the final determination as to whether the scientific contribution of the supplement (or any of the individual papers) warrants publication.
See also: Helfand M. (2011). Independence and Medical Decision Making. Med Decis Making 31(3): 373-375.
2. Symposium Preparation and Submission
Papers should include an abstract, citations and references that meet the journal requirement. This can be found in the journal’s instructions to authors.
It is important that we receive all submissions in a timely manner. The journal staff will create an invited paper stub in the manuscript tracking system, Manuscript Central, and make the tracking number available to the author and the co-editors. When the author is ready to submit the paper, they will be able to log on and submit easily to that stub. The papers can be submitted directly by authors or by the outside co-editor on their behalf.
If the authors can provide information about the paper before hand, i.e. abstract, keywords, etc., journal staff can identify appropriate reviewers beforehand which can significantly shorten the review time once the paper is submitted.
The editors and journal staff reserve the right to make any changes they feel are needed to ready the paper for publication. Authors will be consulted on all changes.
3. Time from Submission to Production and Publication
Allow up to 8 months from time of first submission of supplement manuscripts to time of print. This time frame will vary by size of supplement and the editorial review process. The time from submission to first decision is approximately 45-60 days. For a typical manuscript, the time from resubmission to final decision is also approximately 45 days, which includes time for editing. However, authors should be aware that the review time can take up to five months to a final version if multiple revisions are needed. The time from acceptance to print publication is normally 16 weeks. This figure assumes that authors return corrected proofs in a timely manner.
To speed the process, articles are processed in the order they are accepted, in small batches rather than in one large one. Articles in Medical Decision Making are usually published online prior to print publication. However, the sponsor may specify that we delay online publication until the whole supplement is ready.
4. Dissemination
Sage Publications and the editorial staff will collaborate to bring attention to the symposium. A typical dissemination plan includes the following:
- Open access for every article in the supplement.
- A press release from the journal, distributed via EurekAlert! and other science news services.
- Distribution of an email and an html file containing links to the articles that can be posted on lists, bulletin boards, and web sites of organizations interested in the topic.
- In some cases, posting of the articles to document repositories such as SCRIBD, SciVEE, etc.
5. Costs
The Publishing costs for supplements are available from SAGE. Call or email Stacey Wayne 805.410.7065; Stacey.Wayne@sagepub.com. By MDM policy, the editorial office does not receive direct funding for any sponsored material and is insulated from financial considerations.