ISO standards for the presentation of scientific periodicals: little known and little used by Spanish biomedical journals

Compliance with international standards for the presentation of periodical publications was evaluated in 221 Spanish biomedical journals. The objectives of the study were to determine the degree to which standards are actually used, and to develop recommendations for improving standards and increasing familiarity with them among authors, editors and publishers. Journals were identified from five printed and four electronic bibliographic databases. Compliance was assessed with the evaluation checklists developed by Lípez‐Cízar and Ruiz, based on 136 elements derived from standards for the presentation of periodical publications developed by the International Standardization Organization (ISO), and from recommendations published by UNESCO, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the Council of Biology Editors and E.J. Huth. For most parameters three aspects were evaluated: presence, presentation and location. Compliance with publication standards by Spanish biomedical journals was generally low (34.3 per cent). This reflected the complete absence of specific elements relating to the volume (cover, contents list, index) and abstract sheet, rather than a general neglect of a large number of standards. In contrast, items related to characteristics that specifically distinguish periodical publications from other types of documents generally showed good compliance. The poor degree of compliance with standards by Spanish biomedical journals can be explained in part by the lack of familiarity with standards on the part of authors, editors and publishers, and in part by the fact that these three actors in the publication process are rarely involved in the creation and development of standards. To improve compliance, I propose changes in the policies on how standards are disseminated and how proposals for new standards or revisions of existing ones can be made, and suggest changes in some parts of ISO standards 8: 1977 and 215: 1986.