Featured expert
C. Mel Wilcox
Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, United States of America
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Faculty Member Roles
The role of a Head of Specialty (Faculty) is to help divide their specialty (Faculty) into sub-specialty areas (Sections), nominate leaders in those areas as Sub-Specialty Heads (Section Heads), and offer ongoing advice on the strategic direction of the service. They are not asked to evaluate articles, although we welcome their evaluations.
Sub-Specialty Heads (Section Heads) divide the sub-specialty (Section) into its component areas of research, nominate leaders in those areas as Faculty Members, and provide continuous oversight of the content within their sub-specialty (Section). Like Heads of Specialty (Faculty), they are not asked to evaluate articles, although evaluations from them are welcome.
The role of a Faculty Member is to select articles that have a significant impact in their field. Based on their expertise, they write a brief interpretation of each article explaining its potential implications and strengths and weaknesses.
In the first few days after publication, Faculty Members may add information to their evaluations. If they would like to add a comment after this period, it will be published as a follow-up comment.
Each submission is checked and often edited by in-house editors before publication.
Faculty Regeneration
The faculty continuously regenerates through a natural process as members step down due to other commitments and others are invited to join. We assume a normal membership of 2 to 3 years, after which we discuss with the relevant Section Heads and the Faculty Member whether they would like to step down. The process of regeneration helps increase the pool of knowledge and ensures that our service always takes a fresh look at the issues in health care.
COPE
Faculty of 1000 Medicine is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), committed to its Guidelines on good publication and the Code of Conduct. Members of the editorial team regularly attend the Committee's quarterly meetings to discuss ethical issues, such as cases of potential bias through substantial conflict of interest, duplicate publication or potential self-selection, where a Faculty Member has had some involvement with the study they have evaluated. Based on the Committee's feedback, we regularly review our policies and procedures.
Retractions of evaluated articles
If an article is retracted after being evaluated in our service, we mark the article with an editorial note.
Authorship/evaluator-ship
We generally refer to 'authors' when we mean the authors of an article evaluated in F1000 Medicine; whereas we use the term evaluator when referring to the experts (Faculty Members) who select and write comments on articles for F1000 Medicine.
Evaluators cannot select articles that they have authored, co-authored or contributed to in any way. If the evaluator works at the same institution with any of the authors of the article or acts as a member of the editorial board of the journal in which the article was published, we ask that the relationship be declared as a potential competing interest.
All evaluations should be read as personal interpretations from the evaluator's point of view. Most evaluations are written by, and clearly accredited to, a single member of the faculty. However, sometimes Faculty Members collaborate with colleagues in their teams. Where this is the case, all contributors to the relevant evaluation will be clearly listed in the evaluation.
We do not tolerate ghost-writing. If you see an evaluation that you think is not authentic, please contact the editorial office (editorial@f1000medicine.com).
Our Competing Interest Policy
Our evaluators are asked to disclose any financial AND non-financial competing interests that may influence the opinions and thoughts reflected in their comments. If no competing interests were declared, the evaluation carries the following note: No potential interests relevant to this article were reported.
Competing interests do not preclude an evaluator from submitting an evaluation. The only absolute preclusion is if they have authored, co-authored or contributed to the article in any way. All other competing interests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any questions or feedback on the above policies, please contact the editorial office at editorial@f1000medicine.com
Examples of potential competing interests can be seen in our Competing Interest Policy.