Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

JMSR is a peer-reviewed, independent, free access general medical journal. The mission of JMSR is to facilitate the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care. The Journal will examine issues relevant to health and clinical medicine internationally.

 

Section Policies

Editorial

The Journal's editors write the lead editorial.

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Analysis and Comment

Analysis includes both commissioned and unsolicited commentaries reviewing recent papers in the Journal or topical health-related issues. Papers should aim to be 1200 words or less.

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Research

JMSR gives priority to original research reports that are likely to have important implications for human health and clinical practice.

Research papers may be submitted as clinical trial protocols that have been registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov, registered clinical trials, prospective cohort and case-control studies, research letters, case reports, as well as new studies examining health care science, education and practice, descriptions of advances in health care technology, and re-analysis or updating of previously published data. All reports are published immediately online after peer and editorial review and editing.

All randomized controlled trials are fast-tracked, and the journal endeavours to publish accepted trials within two weeks of final acceptance. Fast-tracking is considered for other papers at the authors’ request.

To be considered for publication, all clinical research results must derive from trials whose protocols have been registered in a non-profit electronically searchable database (if patient recruitment commenced on or after July 1st 2005).

All papers must meet established criteria for authorship and for disclosure of conflict of interest.

Clinical trials, diagnostic accuracy studies, observational studies, meta-analyses of observational studies, and systematic or narrative reviews should conform to accepted reporting guidelines for their respective study types.

Original research reports should aim to be less than 3 000 words and have no more than 50 references. Authors wanting to publish longer papers should consult with the Journal about adding extra detail (e.g., methods, results, figures) through electronic links in the paper.

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Review

Systematic and narrative reviews on clinically relevant topics are commissioned, although other contributors are encouraged to propose potential review topics. Authors must meet the Journal requirements for competing interests. Reviews should aim to be 3000 words with 80 references or fewer.

Shorter, narrative reviews on clinically relevant questions are also included in Clinical Practice.

Both review types are peer-reviewed.

Reviews that are under consideration for publication with the Cochrane Collaboration or that have already been published by Cochrane are not eligible for publication in the Journal.

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Clinical Practice

JMSR encourages a wide variety of submissions that provide teaching points to our clinical readers. This may include clinical cases, instructive clinical images, and brief (<1200 words) narrative clinical reviews.

Patient consent for publication must be obtained prior to publication.

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Case Report

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Colloquium

Book reviews, short essays, fiction, poetry, and multi-media pieces that reflect on health and medicine are welcomed.

Reviews of books and of visual and performing arts are solicited by the editors.

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News

Contributions addressing health-related issues in Canada and internationally are commissioned or written at the Journal.

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Letters

JMSR invites correspondence regarding recently published articles. Letters will be edited for style and length prior to posting.

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IT for Medical Doctors

Any Article or Tutorials regarding Internet and computer and information technology that helps Medical Doctors in their job.

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Peer Review Process

Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including scientific investigation. Peer reviewers are experts in their field who are not part of the editorial staff and thus are an important extension of the scientific process.

Before agreeing to review a manuscript, reviewers are asked to consider the journal's Competing Interest policies and declare any conflicts (financial, intellectual) that would preclude a fair and balanced judgment of the manuscript they have been asked to review.

By reviewing a paper, reviewers also agree to hold all information contained in the paper as confidential until publication. Peer reviewers are asked to submit their review within three (3) weeks.

 

Publication Frequency

JMSR publishes accepted papers online immediately after completion of peer-review and editorial processes. Papers will subsequently be collated as quarterly editions for indexing and citation purposes.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Competing Interest Policy

Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depend in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making.

Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from those with negligible potential to those with great potential to influence judgment, and not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. The potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment.

Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.

All participants in the peer review and publication process must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. Disclosure of these relationships is also important in connection with editorials and review articles, because it is can be more difficult to detect bias in these types of publications than in reports of original research.

Editors may use information disclosed in conflict of interest and financial interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions. Editors will publish this information if they believe it is important in judging the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest related to individual authors’ commitments When authors submit a manuscript, whether an article or a letter, they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist. Authors should do so in the manuscript on a conflict of interest notification page that follows the title page, providing additional detail, if necessary, in a cover letter that accompanies the manuscript.

Investigators must disclose potential conflicts to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so. Editors decide when to publish information disclosed by authors about potential conflicts. If doubt exists, they err on the side of publication.

Potential conflicts of interest related to project support Increasingly, individual studies receive funding from commercial firms, private foundations, and government. The conditions of this funding have the potential to bias and otherwise discredit the research. Scientists have an ethical obligation to submit creditable research results for publication. Moreover, as the persons directly responsible for their work, researchers should not enter into agreements that interfere with their access to the data and their ability to analyze it independently, to prepare manuscripts, and to publish them.

Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source had no such involvement, the authors should so state. Biases potentially introduced when sponsors are directly involved in research are analogous to methodological biases of other sorts. We therefore, choose to include information about the sponsor’s involvement in the methods section.

Editors request that authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome sign a statement such as, “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.” Editors may also review copies of the protocol and/or contracts associated with project-specific studies before accepting such studies for publication.

Editors may choose not to consider an article if a sponsor has asserted control over the authors’ right to publish. Potential conflicts of interest related to commitments of editors, journal staff, or reviewers Editors will avoid selecting external peer reviewers with obvious potential conflicts of interest, for example, those who work in the same department or institution as any of the authors.

Authors often provide editors with the names of persons they feel should not be asked to review a manuscript because of potential conflicts of interest, usually professional. When possible, authors will be asked to explain or justify their concerns; that information is important to editors in deciding whether to honor such requests.

Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it to be appropriate. As in the case of authors, silence on the part of reviewers concerning potential conflicts may mean either that such conflicts exist that they have failed to disclose, or that conflicts do not exist. Reviewers must therefore also be asked to state explicitly whether conflicts do or do not exist. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work, before its publication, to further their own interests.

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts will have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in editorial decisions, will provide editors with a current description of their financial interests (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and disqualify themselves from any decisions where they have a conflict of interest.

Editorial staff will not use the information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors will publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff.

 

Competing Interest Statements of JMSR Editors

The editors of JMSR are required to complete the following statement regarding potential competing interests:

  1. Have you accepted monetary compensation for any of the following from an organization that might gain or lose financially or in any other way because of a relationship with JMSR? Reimbursement for attending a symposium; Speaker Fees Fees for educational event; Research funds; Funds for a member of your staff;Consulting fees
  2. Have you been employed by an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of papers in JMSR?
  3. Do you hold stocks or shares in an organization that might benefit or lose from an existing relationship with JMSR?
  4. Do you wish to disclose other competing interests, financial or otherwise?

The statements have been updated on October 25, 2006, and relate to activities over the past 12 months and are found under the Editor profiles

 

Confidentiality Statement

The editors of JMSR are required to agree to the following statement regarding editorial content:

As a member of the JMSR editorial team, I agree to keep confidential the content of accepted submissions until publication. I also agree to respect the privacy and intellectual property rights of authors who submit material to the journal.

I will not disclose information concerning the journal’s receipt of a submission, its content, or its review, other than in discussions with the journal’s editors and peer reviewers in the normal process of evaluation.

I understand that the final editorial decision will be disclosed to peer reviewers, who are bound by a similar obligation of confidentiality. Peer reviews of rejected material will be shared with other journals only with the author’s explicit consent.

 

No Embargo Policy

JMSR does not impose media embargos on content. Authors, as the owners of their original work, are free to disseminate advance information about forthcoming articles that they have contributed to JMSR.

All JMSR content will be freely available to everyone from the moment of publication.

 

Advertising Policy

JMSR is a non-profit medical journal whose mission is to provide a venue for scientific publishing that is independent of commercial interests which can influence editorial objectivity.

Therefore, JMSR will not accept advertisements from for-profit pharmaceutical or medical device companies, nor will we accept advertisements for Continuing Medical Education that is funded by these companies.

We reserve the right to refuse advertising from any business or organization whose activities we believe are inconsistent with the mission of JMSR.

Please contact us if you are interested in advertising with JMSR, inserting "Advertising" in the subject line.

 

Sponsorship Policy

Companies, individuals and other organizations are invited to support the development of JMSR by becoming a journal sponsor.

Sponsorships provide unrestricted funds that will help JMSR advance its service to authors and readers and fulfill its mission.Sponsors will be highlighted on a Sponsors page.

The mission of JMSR is to facilitate the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research within the health community; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care.

Our open-access publishing platform is key to accomplishing our goals. To ensure their commitment to the integrity of debate within the pages of JMSR, and to the independence of our editors, sponsors of JMSR will be asked to endorse the following sponsorship statement: We support the mission and principles of JMSR and recognize the potential for competing interests while providing financial support to the Journal. We hereby state that we will not attempt to influence any editorial decisions made by the editors of JMSR, in return for our support.

JMSR reserves the right to refuse sponsorship from any business or organization. In keeping with our policy on advertising, JMSR does not accept sponsorships from pharmaceutical or medical device companies.

Our sponsorship policy is based on the sponsorship policy of the Public Library of Science, an organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.

Please contact us if you are interested in becoming an JMSR sponsor, inserting "Sponsorship" in the subject line.

 

Editorial Board Terms of Reference

  1. The volunteer Editorial Board will provide input, oversight, contacts and moral support, and establish the journal’s first Board of Directors.
  2. The Journal’s Editorial Board will consist of highly skilled, committed professionals in Canada and internationally. It will represent the Journal’s various constituencies: readers, researchers, physicians, policy makers and patients, using their skills to achieve the Journal objectives. The Journal's Editorial Board will include a maximum of 30 members.
  3. By agreeing to sit on the Board, Editorial Board members will assist the Editor-in-Chief(s) of the Journal to review, solicit and submit relevant papers for the Journal and support Journal efforts to secure ongoing funding.
  4. The Editorial Board will support the Editor-in-Chief(s) to maintain Journal principles underlying the editorial integrity and independence of the Journal eg supporting editorial independence, Journal advertising policies and the open access platform.
  5. The Editorial Board will meet once per year to receive a report on Journal progress from the Editor-in-Chief(s) and to review a report on the performance of the Editor-in-Chief from the Chair of the Board of Directors.
  6. Initial membership of the Editorial Board will initially be determined by the ‘Friends of the Journal’ group who came forward to work to create the Journal.
  7. Ongoing membership of the Editorial Board will be determined by the Editor-in-Chief(s) in conjunction with the existing Editorial Board. A new member can be nominated by 2 editors and/or board members, and is approved by a two-third vote of existing editorial board members. Members will serve for a staggered period of 3 years, renewable once.