Professional competencies required for Editors of Biomedical Journals

Pak J Med Sci September October 2017 Vol. 33 No. 5 www.pjms.com.pk 1050 There have been tremendous developments in the field of Journalology during the last two decades and now it has emerged as an important discipline with numerous sub-specialties. Most of the editors have so far learnt this art through on the job training. The professional competencies required to be an Editor of a biomedical journal to act as an effective scientific editor has a very broad range and often it is not possible for an individual to fulfill all the requirements and he/she has to depend on the teamwork in which people with expertise in different areas put together their efforts to produce a good quality peer reviewed biomedical journal. They are most often members of the Editorial Board or work in an advisory capacity. The editors are supposed to have some knowledge in areas like research methods, publication ethics, different peer review processes, their advantages and disadvantages, how to protect integrity of their journal/professionalism, they must possess sound knowledge to be able to make good decisions, proficiency in language skills and indexing of the journal in different databases. All this certainly is beyond the capability of an individual and most often these editors have to rely on their other team members. Editorial