C4DISC Announces New Resource in “Toolkit for Equity” Series

C4DISC is delighted to announce the launch of this valuable new resource in the growing C4DISC Toolkit for Equity Series: A Focused Toolkit for Journal Editors and Publishers: Building Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Editorial Roles and Peer Review.

This new toolkit aims to support all those seeking to build a more inclusive editorial and reviewer community. The toolkit recommends practical and relevant actions for editors and publishers to take to create broad representation on editorial boards and to ensure fairness and minimization of bias in the peer review process.

Five major recommendations are explored:

1. Actions to develop an inclusive culture and mission
2.  Steps on collecting and reporting demographic data to guide goal setting and actions to increase diversity
3. Recruiting broadly and intentionally to increase participation from marginalized communities
4. Creating opportunities for experience and growing skills in core scholarship areas
5. Actions based on resources such as bias-free language guidelines and more equitable peer review models to increase equity in the peer review process. 

Translations of this toolkit in Spanish and Portuguese will be coming soon.

The original idea for this toolkit came from the Outreach Subcommittee of the Society for Scholarly Publishing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee. Thanks are due to the subcommittee members, to all the volunteers who worked so hard to realize this valuable resource, and especially to Susan Harris and Shaina Lange, who led the creation of the toolkit.

Please share this resource with others in your organization and/or network who may find it useful.