Lian-Sheng Ma, Editor-in-Chief of WJG, warmly meets Professor Hugh J Freeman from the University of British Columbia

Abstract

Lian-Sheng Ma, Editor-in-Chief of World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), warmly met Professor Hugh J Freeman from the University of British Columbia at Peninsula Hotel in Beijing on August 28, 2007. Professor Hugh J Freeman gave much helpful advice toward the further development of WJG. He will serve as series editor for a new column called OBSERVER which will start in WJG in 2008.

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TEXT

Professor Lian-Sheng Ma, Editor-in-Chief of World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG) warmly met Professor Hugh J Freeman, a highly respectable gastroenterologist from the Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, and his wife Mrs. Sally Freeman during their visit to WJG at Peninsula Hotel in Beijing on August 28, 2007 (Figure 1). Both sides achieved very fruitful talks and reached a couple of common viewpoints related to future development strategy and management of WJG.

Figure 1 Professor Lian-Sheng Ma (left), Editor-in-Chief of WJG, and Dr. You-De Chang (right) warmly met Professor Hugh J Freeman (middle) at Peninsula Hotel in Beijing. Photograph taken by Mrs. Sally Freeman.

Professor Ma gave a detailed introduction to the strategies of both fast peer review and online free access currently taken by WJG. “Both fast peer review and online free access are very beneficial and competitive." replied Hugh J Freeman, “It is really just like having a lesson through reading the comments affiliated at the end of an article." He also suggested that WJG openly add the names of the peer reviewers at the end of the affiliated comments to make the science communities of authors, reviewers and readers more active and real. “These three aspects have played important roles in ensuring the quality of articles and increasing the public access to WJG." he added.

Professor Freeman encouraged with confidence the authors-created, innovation-orientated and readers-benefited publishing system currently conducted by WJG with little commercial evolvement. “Over commercial evolvement sometimes misleads the path a journal takes and weakens the decisions a journal makes." Freeman pointed out.

As the second important topic of their talks, Professor Ma invited Professor Freeman to be Associate Editor-in-Chief for a unique column called OBSERVER which will start in WJG in 2008. Freeman kindly accepted the invitation. The OBSERVER column will serve as a forum for both gastroenterologists and hepatologists worldwide. Professor Freeman will periodically invite a set of experts from specific research fields to discuss a series of hot topics covering the progress made in both gastroenterology and hepatology, and the challenging questions currently faced by gastroenterologists and hepatologists as well as the possible ideas, ways and techniques to answer these questions. The OBSERVER is an invited editorial for free of publication. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Professor Freeman at hugfree@shaw.ca and Science Editor Dr. You-De Chang at y.d.chang@wjgnet.com.

On behalf of both Professor Hugh J Freeman and the upcoming OBSERVER column, the WJG staff sincerely thank all editorial members, authors and readers from around the world and warmly welcome your coming submissions.