Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) New Book Review Policy

An open letter to authors, editors and publishers from Cheryl McLean, publisher ,The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE)


I am pleased at the number of requests we receive weekly at The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) from authors, editors and publishers requesting book reviews.

At CCAHTE we receive hundreds of requests for book reviews. As we are so frequently approached to review many excellent new books and texts related to the creative arts in health, training and education , and our limited schedules cannot accommodate all of the requests we receive, we have developed a new policy with regard to book reviews.


1. first step, you will be asked to read this post.

2. next, send us a synopsis about your book to ccahte@cmclean.com and link us to any news about it. A sample chapter would be ideal.

3. Based on the synopsis you could be asked to send your book directly to the CCAHTE Office.

A payment by certified cheque or money order of $100 to cover administrative costs should be sent with your package.

C. McLean, Publisher CCAHTE Journal
c/o 165 Huntington Cr.
Dorchester, Ontario
NOL lG3

Once we receive your book we will complete a formal book review. The review will be published in our upcoming CCAHTE, Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal issue in our book review section.

In addition, we will also arrange to publish a summary post about your book at the Arts and Health "Crossing Borders" BLOG at ccahtecrossingborders.blogspot.com. Our blog is accessed daily by international visitors specifically interested in our interdisciplinary field.

Why do we charge a fee for reviews? We are an open access journal available and accessible free worldwide and we do not charge for subscriber memberships or subscriptions. Services such as reviews help sustain our publishing operations.

Background for Editors and Publishers:

Established March 06, CCAHTE Journal is the Canadian based international and interdisciplinary open access, peer reviewed journal of the creative arts in health, training and education. Our ongoing mission is to disseminate quality information and research about the creative arts in action and practice in health, training and education. In addition to our qualified network of professional subscribers, CCAHTE, The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal, is accessible worldwide and is listed with DOAJ , the internationally recognized directory of academic open access journals.

Our CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board is made up of leading scholars, educators, healthcare professionals and scientists as well as artist/researchers active in the arts, health, training and education.

Who accesses CCAHTE Journal?
Among our "by request" subscribers are physicians, psychiatrists, social scientists, researchers, academics, nurse educators, activists, dramatists, visual artists, music and dance therapists, professional musicians, teachers, adult educators, social workers, mental health professionals, counselors, chaplains, therapists, students as well as those involved in education, health policy and social change... our subscribers also represent universities, schools of education, colleges, leading medical schools, hospitals and health organizations in Canada the U.S. and internationally.
Thanks sincerely to all of you for your interest in CCAHTE Journal. It is very encouraging to know so many new books are being written about the creative arts in health, training and education. This I believe is another important indication demonstrating the worldwide interest in the work in action and practice.

Thanks all and hope you are enjoying these precious summer days in August,

Cheryl McLean, Publisher CCAHTE Journal

Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

The Canadian based, international and interdisciplinary open access peer reviewed journal of the creative arts in health, training and education.

Humanities Scholar Helps Create Change Offers Thoughts on Digital Scholarship

"What is the value – to the humanities and to society – of more open scholarly communication? Open access removes barriers. I find this very politically attractive. The sharing of knowledge it allows helps us get at economic inequities – experienced both by smaller academic institutions and, of course, by developing countries. Everybody wins. More access and resource sharing lead to a democratized diffusion of knowledge. "
Linda Hutcheon Ph.D.

Quote from "Create Change" Thoughts on Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
Article Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto
Go to Source for full article:
http://www.createchange.org/cases/humanities.html


See "Crossing Borders" blog summary article by Linda Hutcheon, Ph.D., Michael Hutcheon M.D.
from CCAHTE Journal
"Medicine and Arts the Teachings of Opera"
http://ccahtecrossingborders.blogspot.com/2007/05/if-we-accept-premise-that-medical.html

What is Open Access?

“By open access......we mean
it's free availability on the public internet,
permitting any users to read, download,
copy, distribute, print, search, or link to
the full texts of these articles, crawl them
for indexing, pass them as data to software,
or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal,
or technical barriers other than those
inseparable from gaining access to the internet
itself. The only constraint on reproduction
and distribution, and the only role for
copyright in this domain, should be to
give authors control over the integrity
of their work and the right to be properly
acknowledged and cited."
Budapest Open Access Initiative
Source: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm


Open Access journals are now part of the
revolutionary and historic changes currently
underway in academic publishing, with the
potential to offer world wide dissemination
to diverse, cross disciplinary and international
audiences on an unparalleled scale.
We believe this holds true for journals
in medicine and science and for progressive,
high quality and accessible electronic
journals in the humanities as well as those
in the creative arts, health,
training and education.

C. McLean, Publisher CCAHTE Journal
The interdisciplinary journal of the creative arts
in health, training and education.
http://www.cmclean.com/

CCAHTE Supports Open Access Model New Canadian Open Access Journal Launched Congrats to Open Medicine

New open-access medical journal to be launched
Updated Wed. Apr. 18 2007 7:44 AM ET
Canadian Press

TORONTO -- A new Canadian open-access medical journal is about to be born.
Open Medicine, to be officially launched Wednesday, was conceived in the bitter aftermath of the February 2006 firing of the editor and deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The publication's business model differs greatly from standard medical journals. It will be available online only, will have no subscription fees, and no corporate or medical association ownership. It won't accept advertisements for medical devices and drugs -- the major advertisers in traditional journals. And in the first year at least, it won't charge authors the publication fees on which other open-access journals rely.
That all adds up to a modest, at best, potential revenue stream. Co-editor Dr. Anita Palepu admitted Tuesday that the word "utopian'' has come up when she talks about the project with her husband. She insisted, however, that the Open Medicine team is committed to producing a high quality, independent journal that is available to anyone who wants to read it, a journal that can't run afoul of the interests of corporate owners or the politics of an organization like the Canadian Medical Association.
"It has been hard work. But as the launch is approaching, our commitment is actually expanding. We're not feeling like it's waning,'' said Palepu, who was one of a number of former CMAJ editors and editorial board members to resign in protest over the firing of Dr. John Hoey and Anne Marie Todkill.
"We're passionate about this. I'm not sure how far passion will take us, but I just have this sense that we're on the cusp of this broader social movement about the whole open-access initiative and about accountability. I think people are sick and tired of having everything messaged for a political gain.''
Many of the people who had made the CMAJ one of the world's top five general medical journals, including Hoey and Todkill, are involved in Open Medicine.
The reason for the firings was never made public. The two editors were bound by a confidentiality agreement they'd been required to sign and the CMA said it too was constrained from revealing the reason for the dismissals.
But it was widely known Hoey and his team had had a series of run-ins with the holding company that published the journal for the CMA, including over a news article that was critical of the way pharmacists were selling the emergency contraceptive drug Plan B.
The CMA has since agreed to maintain a hands-off approach to the CMAJ. But a former editorial board member who is now on the board of Open Medicine said the history of interference at the CMAJ is one of the reasons why Canada needs another medical journal.
"I think that the reality is society and the medical community are better served by having an alternative independent medical journal in Canada to ensure that in fact stories such as last year's emergency contraceptive story don't get suppressed and that there is an alternative for those to get published and not to be influenced by political agendas of medical societies,'' said Dr. P.J. Devereaux, a researcher based at McMaster University in Hamilton."
Devereaux is also a co-author of one of the first articles to be published in Open Medicine, a value-for-money comparison of the Canadian and American health-care systems. The study, actually a review compiling the results of a number of different studies, found the level of care in Canada was comparable but cost half as much as U.S. care. The new editor of the CMAJ, Dr. Paul Hebert, wished the new publication well on Tuesday -- but demurred when asked if CMAJ was worried about having competition. "I don't consider Open Medicine our competition yet. It may be in five years but my competition is BMJ (the British Medical Journal) and Annals (of Internal Medicine) -- at that level,'' Hebert said from Ottawa.
"Launching a new journal is a huge, huge endeavour. And it takes funds, it takes commitment, full-time faculty and a lot of resources. And it will just be interesting to see how they make all that work. It's just not a small task.''
Most traditional medical journals only make their material available to subscribers, or for a per-item reprint fee -- and both types of fees can be steep. Proponents of open-access journals argue that is a barrier to the dissemination of science, much of which is generated using public funding.
These journals underwrite their costs by charging authors a publication fee which is often covered by research grants. That doesn't mean, though, that authors can simply buy their way to publication. Open-access journals rigorously vet the articles submitted to them, in the same way traditional journals do.Open Medicine will sell advertising, focusing on businesses that might want to sell services to doctors rather than businesses that want to influence the way doctors prescribe drugs or practise medicine.
It is registered as a not-for-profit enterprise and is seeking charitable status. It also hopes to follow in the footsteps of the best known of the open-access journals, the Public Library of Science journals, which were started with a US$9 million endowment.