In the near future, abstracts accepted for publication at the BGS Spring and Autumn meetings will be published online by Age and Ageing, and the hard copy Abstract supplement will be discontinued.

Readers, especially SpRs, should be reassured that online publication has the same status as publication in hard copy. Abstracts accepted for presentation at the meeting will remain of high quality, being peer reviewed through a two-stage process, irrespective of the means of publication. They can be cited on a curriculum vitae or another article in the same way as abstracts published in hard copy. This is not “dumbing down”.

The move towards online publication of abstracts only, is in line with the increasing trend in medical publication towards electronic publication. There are a number of reasons for this development. Foremost is the fact that the users of medical research increasingly wish to use electronic resources instead of the paper-based versions, saving time and money on finding specific volumes, photocopying, inter library loans, and so on. Search engines, both internal to the publication website and external (Google etc.) make searching for specific articles considerably easier than paper-based searches. The electronic publication of material also makes it more accessible worldwide. Since there are few places without computers and internet access nowadays, online publication does not restrict accessibility to any significant degree. Age and Ageing is typical of medical journals that are using this development to enhance services to subscribers. For those of you who haven’t done so yet, take a look at the website to see features such as advanced access to articles not yet printed, supplementary data that isn’t in the paper version of the journal, and so on.

There is also an economic argument. Preparing, printing, binding and circulating the Abstract supplement is costly and time consuming, and has to be borne by the BGS (and hence its membership). It also affects the cost to institutional purchasers such as libraries: this market is now very competitive. For these reasons Age and Ageing has to examine its costs carefully and reduce unnecessary expenditure.

Reminder about developments to BGS abstracts
The BGS and Age and Ageing has spent the last few years improving and maintaining the quality of the increasing number of abstracts that it publishes. This has been in response to a widespread desire to strengthen the Society’s academic standing. These measures include the use of electronic submission, improved guidelines, and the two stage assessment process, including the poster assessment at meetings. We now have a very vigorous approach that gives BGS abstracts a seal of quality.

One of the consequences of this focus on research has been that abstracts that were of interest and value to members of the Society, but were not about research, are often not accepted. Furthermore, the Society appeared to have no place for issues related to specialist quality assurance, despite such activities being central to the work of all specialists.

It is for this reason that alongside research abstracts, we now have clinical effectiveness abstracts. They are prepared and submitted using the same electronic and on-line process. The research abstracts are initially assessed by the BGS Academic and Research Committee, and clinical effectiveness abstracts are assessed by the BGS Clinical Practice and Evaluation Committee. After initial scrutiny, both sets of abstracts are presented at our meetings, mainly as posters. Both sets of abstracts are also reviewed at the meeting, and the best from both sets are published in Age and Ageing. See BGS Newsletter March 2005 for further information.

Where the adjudicators of clinical effectiveness abstracts feel that a project is not yet developed to a stage that would meet the criteria for publication in Age and Ageing, but does raise clinical issues of general interest, the work may be published in this Newsletter (as two from the Spring Meeting in Birmingham have been in this issue).

Survey of value of BGS poster assessment process at meetings
All BGS posters are assessed by a pair of assessors at the meeting. This is part of the process of ensuring that only high quality abstracts are published in Age and Ageing. The assessment process ensures that the material submitted previously as an abstract, has been presented to the Society, and defended in a peer review process. The BGS Academic and Research Committee does not believe that abstracts that are not shown or explained by the authors should be published, since it implies that they have been presented to the Society. Similarly, we do not believe that work that appears to be deeply flawed when exposed to such scrutiny, even if it appeared acceptable in abstract form, should be published - to do so would be positively misleading and contrary to good research.

From time to time, complaints are received about the way this process is handled. Some authors, particularly those whose work is not accepted for publication, can feel aggrieved. Care is taken to brief assessors so that such problems are minimised, and every complaint that comes to the BGS office is dealt with, we hope, sympathetically and justly.

To ascertain more systematically the way this process is received by those who participate in it, the BGS Academic and Research Committee has undertaken a survey of poster assessors and presenters, kindly led by Dr Steve Parry. The survey began at the Birmingham meeting in 2005. There was a good response from poster assessors, who almost unanimously thought the process was useful to themselves and to the poster presenters. Unfortunately, there was not a good response from presenters themselves. For this reason the survey will be repeated and we urge all poster presenters to complete the survey form and return it as requested, either to the registration desk at the Scientific Meeting, or direct to the BGS office.

John Gladman
Age and Ageing Supplements Editor