The Digital Reader

Elsevier announced Tuesday that they will be releasing the publishing standards they use internally.  From the press release:

Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information products and services announced today that it is publicly sharing its internal custom publication guidelines so that the scientific and medical communities can have insight into a new and practical set of publishing standards for producing custom and sponsored publications. The new guidelines (available at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/HSguidelines) were first developed in June 2009 and updated in December 2009 following a comprehensive internal review of custom publications practices within Elsevier.

…

The review was initiated when it was revealed that two Elsevier publications from 2003, presented as an unbiased journal, were in fact sponsored publications lacking adequate disclosures. The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine published reprinted original, peer-reviewed research articles, plus other summarized articles, conference reviews and news clips and was single-sponsored by a global pharmaceutical company. Contrary to the high standards that Elsevier sets for itself, the employees responsible did not make the sponsorship sufficiently clear to its potential readers.

Interesting.