How to establish electronic, scholarly, open access and peer-reviewed journal in small country

ABSTRACT

Vladimir Trajkovski

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8369-9501

Introduction: publishing an electronic, peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal in a small country is really hard work. The advancement of electronic journals during recent years has given professionals in academia a powerful new tool to support learning and research.

The purpose of this article is to provide some guidelines about creating electronic, scholarly, open access and peer-reviewed journal in small country through the example of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Methods: An analysis of relevant literature, sources from the Internet and published literature, personal experience and observations of the author as editor-in-chief in two similar journals previously.

Findings: a new modern academic journal should be open access, peer-reviewed, with international editorial board, having staff who work very dedicatedly. The journal should be set it up on OJS platform, using Creative Commons license for authors and DOI numbers for the articles. Plagiarism detection is a prevention of publication ethics violation. Journal editors should make additional efforts to index journal in lot of scholarly databases and to intend to increase the visibility. Sharing journal content on social media has become an important instrument and platform for editors and researchers as well.

Conclusions: Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (JHRS) is a multidisciplinary peer reviewed, international, electronic journal. Editorial office expects your submitted articles in the following weeks and months.

Keywords: electornic, scholarly, open access, peer-review, journal, JHRS, small country

Source: https://jhrs.almamater.si/index.php/jhrs/article/view/35

JHRS supports open access week 2022

International Open Access Week, a global event now entering its fifteenth year, is an opportunity for open access advocates to engage their communities to teach them about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

Begun in 2007 as Open Access Day, the event was originally a partnership between SPARC and students who organized local events on a handful of campuses across the United States. Since then, International Open Access Week has grown exponentially and is now celebrated at hundreds of events around the world.

Open Access Week is an invaluable chance to connect the global momentum toward open sharing with the advancement of policy changes on the local level. Universities, colleges, research institutes, funding agencies, libraries, and think tanks have used Open Access Week as a platform to host faculty votes on campus open-access policies, to issue reports on the societal and economic benefits of Open Access, to commit new funds in support of open-access publication, and more.

Privacy and confidentiality

Patients and study participants

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patient’s names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published. Identifying details will be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

Authors and reviewers

Manuscripts must be reviewed with due respect for authors’ confidentiality. In submitting their manuscripts for review, authors entrust editors with the results of their scientific work and creative effort, on which their reputation and career may depend. Authors’ rights may be violated by disclosure of the confidential details of the review of their manuscript. Reviewers also have rights to confidentiality, which must be respected by the editor. Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged but otherwise must be honoured. Editors will not disclose information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, criticism by reviewers, or ultimate fate) to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. This includes requests to use the materials for legal proceedings.

Editors will make clear to their reviewers that manuscripts sent for review are privileged communications and are the private property of the authors. Therefore, reviewers and members of the editorial staff must respect the authors’ rights by not publicly discussing the authors’ work or appropriating their ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not be allowed to make copies of the manuscript for their files and must be prohibited from sharing it with others, except with the permission of the editor. Reviewers should return or destroy copies of manuscripts after submitting reviews. Editors will not keep copies of rejected manuscripts. Reviewers will be anonymous and their identity will not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewer’s permission.

Reviewer comments will not be published or otherwise made public without permission of the reviewer, author, and editor. Reviewers’ comments will be sent to other reviewers of the same manuscript, which helps reviewers learn from the review process, and reviewers may be notified of the editor’s decision.

JHRS Ghost and guest authorship policy

Ghost authorship occurs when someone makes a significant contribution to a manuscript without due acknowledgement of their role.

Guest authorship occurs when an individual is named as an author of a manuscript when they do not meet authorship criteria.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences considers that both ghost and guest authorship are breaches of publication ethics, and believes they violate readers’ trust in scientific reporting and can potentially bias medical literature. The Journal’s editors and readers need to be confident that authors listed have undertaken the work and that the written manuscript reflects their work; public confidence and scientific integrity depend on this.

Commercial interests should not inappropriately influence our scientific knowledge base.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences acknowledges the role of professional medical writers and requires that all writing assistance be disclosed.

To support transparent and complete authorship reporting, Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences expects authors to fulfill the following requirements:Authors must provide a contributor statement that describes the specific contribution of each author to the manuscript and shows how each author meets the 3 authorship criteria of the ICMJE. For example:

“Peter White participated in finalizing the study methodology, managed the quantitative component and was the principal writer of the manuscript. Katarina Johnson conceived the project, oversaw the data collection and analysis and participated in all phases of the writing. Luke Fernandez helped implement the study, worked on finalizing the methodology and contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript. Angela Mayer supervised the data collection, described the qualitative methods used in the study and reviewed all manuscript drafts. Julia Walsh conducted the data analysis and participated in editing and reviewing manuscript drafts. John Petersen conceived the study and oversaw its implementation and participated in the writing of the manuscript. James Stuart helped guide the analysis and participated in the writing. All of the authors approved the final version of the manuscript.”Authors should specify who wrote the first draft of the article (and for research studies, who wrote the protocol and did the statistical analyses). If the people named are not authors, the Journal editors will contact them to confirm their contribution.

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be named in an Acknowledgements section with their contribution clearly described. Vague statements in the Acknowledgments section, such as “We thank XX” (without specifying for what), or “XY provided editorial assistance,” will not be accepted.

Authors should retain copies of drafts to facilitate investigations of possible misconduct.

Any and all assistance from professional writers must in every case be appropriately acknowledged and described and their funding source named.

Professional medical writers whose contribution to a manuscript qualifies them as an author according to the ICMJE criteria for authorship must be listed as authors, with their affiliations and competing interests provided and the source of their funding named.

Professional writers whose contribution to a manuscript does not qualify them as an author according to the ICMJE criteria for authorship must be named in the Acknowledgements section, with their contribution clearly described and their funding source named. Authors are requested to contact the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences editors to obtain clarification as to the appropriate place in the manuscript to acknowledge and describe the contribution of a medical writer.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences strongly believes in transparent reporting. Ghost and guest authorship are dishonest, and the Journal editors intend to maintain processes that improve public accountability and the credibility of scientific research reporting.

Complaints Procedure

This procedure applies to complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of The JHRS's editorial staff. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. The procedure outlined below aims to be fair to those making complaints and those complained about.

Definition

Our definition of a complaint is as follows: The complainant defines his or her expression of unhappiness as a complaint;

AND We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process - for example, a long delay or a rude response - or a severe misjudgment.

The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of The JHRS's editorial department - content or process.

JHRS is aware of the complaints stated below:

1) Authorship complaints

2) Plagiarism complaints

3) Multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication/Simultaneous submission

4) Research results misappropriation

5) Allegations of research errors and fraud

6) Research standards violations

7) Undisclosed conflicts of interest

8) Reviewer bias or competitive harmful acts by reviewers

How to make a complaint

The best way to reach us is by email. Complaints should ideally be made to the person the complainant is already in contact with over the matter being complained about. If that is not appropriate please email info@almamater.si

Whenever possible complaints will be dealt with by the relevant member of the editorial staff. If that person cannot deal with the complaint he or she will refer it to a section editor or the executive editor.

Complaints that are not under the control of The JHRS's editorial staff will be sent to the relevant heads of institute.

Complaints about editorial matters that are sent to the chairman of the JHRS Board, to the chief executive of JHRS (the publishing group), and officials will usually be referred in the first instance to the editor (and invariably if they relate to editorial content, for which the editor is wholly responsible).

All complaints will be acknowledged within three working days.

If possible a full response will be made within four weeks. If this is not possible an interim response will be given within four weeks. Further interim responses will be provided until the complaint is resolved.

If the complainant is not happy with the resolution he or she can ask for the complaint to be escalated to the individual's manager or to the executive editor.

If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be escalated to the editor, whose decision is final.

If a complainant, remains unhappy after what the editor considers a definitive reply the complainant may complain to an external body (see below).

External bodies

If the complainant has exhausted the internal processes and is still unhappy he or she can complain to one of the following bodies:

The Committee on Publication Ethics

COPE publishes a code of practice for editors of scientific, technical, and medical journals http://www.publicationethics.org. It will consider complaints against editors but only once a journal's own complaints procedures have been exhausted.

COPE charts of authorship complaints Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication

Corresponding author requests removal of author before publication

Request for addition of extra author after publication

Request for removal of author after publication

Suspected guest, ghost or gift authorship

Advice on how to spot authorship problems

Copyright, Usage, and Disclaimer

The website of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences aims to make journal available to the scientific community. The site is purely for educational purpose of the medical and rehabilitation community. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use. ePRINTS system has permission to collect, preserve, and serve this open access Archival Unit.

All material published in the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences undergoes peer review to ensure fair balance, objectivity, independence, and relevance to educational need. The editors of the material have consulted sources believed to be reliable in their efforts to provide information that is in accord with the standards accepted at the time of posting. However, in view of the possibility of error by the authors, editors, or publishers of the works contained in the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, neither the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, nor its publishers, nor any other party involved in the preparation of material contained in the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences represents or warrants that the information contained herein is in every respect accurate or complete, and they are not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such material. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information contained herein with other sources. Patients and consumers reading articles posted on the website of the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences should review the information carefully with their professional healthcare provider. The information is not intended to replace medical advice offered by the physicians. The Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and its publishers make no representations or warranties with respect to any treatment, action, or application of medication or preparation by any person following the information offered or provided within or through the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and its publishers will not be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, exemplary, or other damages arising there from.

Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to the Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site. The Web site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy as applicable.

The advertisers who purchase Banners on the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences have no influence on editorial content or presentation. Moreover, the posting of particular Banners does not imply endorsement by the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences or its Editors.

Copyright

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is published by Alma Mater Europaea University - ECM. Therefore, materials published in Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, including text, figures, tables, and photographs are in the public domain and can be reprinted or used without permission with proper citation.

Open Access and Usage

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is an open access journal in the public domain. All content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. In accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access, users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Because the journal is in the public domain, its usage policy also conforms to conditions set for by Creative Commons.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences does request a proper citation be included for its content and that any user indicate clearly if changes have been made.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences grants authors permission to self-archive their articles without fees or permission and grants institutions permission to preserve a second copy of articles published by their researchers in the institutional repository.

Disclaimer

The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Alma Mater Europaea University - ECM, from Maribor, Slovenia, or the authors' affiliated institutions.

Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the Alma Mater Europaea University - ECM.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences may contain links to web sites operated by other parties. These links are provided purely as educational purpose. Such links do not imply journal endorsement of material on any other site and Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences disclaims all liability with regard to your access of such linked web sites.

Contact Production Editors at editorjhrs@almamater.si

Writing the Review

The purpose of the review is to provide the academic and professional editors with an expert opinion regarding the quality of the manuscript under consideration, and should also supply authors with explicit feedback on how to improve their papers so that they will be acceptable for publication in JHRS. In the interests of complete transparency we do not allow confidential comments for the editors. Please therefore assume that all the comments you make will be transmitted to the authors. The best possible review would answer the following questions: What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?

Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.

Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?

Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?

If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?

Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?

Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?

Who would find this paper of interest? Why?

If the paper is considered unsuitable for publication in its present form, does the study itself show sufficient enough potential that the authors should be encouraged to resubmit a revised version?

If you intend to provide a marked up copy of your manuscript as part of your review, you can do so by uploading the file to the review form. However, we prefer to have these marked-up files in Word format rather than PDF to ensure that the comments and annotations can be easily forwarded to the author. Please remember to anonymize your comments. 

Review process is double blinded.

Aims and Scope

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (JHRS) is a multidisciplinary peer reviewed, international, electronic journal edited by the Alma Mater Europaea University - ECM from Slovenia. The following articles will be considered for publication: original and review articles, short report, letters to the editor, clinical experiences, survey of cases, doctoral dissertations, master of arts, editorials, rapid communications and other contributions from all the fields of health sciences, rehabilitation sciences, disability studies, special education, psychology, social policy, and other related sciences. The aim of the journal is to share and disseminate knowledge between all disciplines that work in the field of developmental diversities. All articles will be critically reviewed by at least two unknown reviewers within 2 months, but longer delays are sometimes unavoidable. All manuscripts must comply with Authors Instructions. There are around 20 articles published per year. JHRS allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository. Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is devoted to the scientific study of disability. The subject matter is broad and includes, but is not restricted to, findings from psychological, biological, educational, genetic, medical, psychiatric, and sociological studies, ethical, philosophical, and legal contributions that increase knowledge on the prevention and treatment of disability, and/or inform public policy and practice.

Why to Publish in JHRS?

There are several reasons why one should publish in JHRS.

• Editorial board has great experience in publishing;
• International editorial board;
• Rapid communication;
• Rapid publication;
• Rapid availability of your document world-wide;
• Studies show, that Open-Access papers are cited more than printed articles;
• Fast and professional peer review. JHRS is run by a team of experienced editors who have previously worked in publishing. The professional editors work closely with academic editors and peer reviewers to provide authors with an efficient, fair, and constructive review process;
• Quick review: The review decision will be made within two months from the date of submission.
• Indexing of your document which can be easily found in library catalogs, OAI archives and search engines on the net.
• Not for profit journal;
• Liberality in terms of language: The journal will not reject a paper merely based on the language. The authors will be guided to improve the manuscript in such case.
• We have no page charges or submission fees, and you have free use of color figures.
• Our mission is to advance excellence in the health and rehabilitation sciences and social sciences, and our status as a university publisher allows us to focus on making that a reality. We re-invest all surplus back into the global scientific community, providing ongoing support for authors, researchers, and educators in every field of health, rehabilitation sciences and related disciplines.

Retraction guidelines

COPE's Retraction guidelines for advice and guidance for editors: when should a retraction be considered, what to include in a notice, how quickly to issue a retraction, who should issue a retraction, and what to do when there is inconclusive evidence of a retraction.

COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication ethics practice.

Key points

Editors should consider retracting a publication if: They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)

It constitutes plagiarism

The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)

It contains material or data without authorisation for use

Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)

It reports unethical research

It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process

The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Notices of retraction should: Be linked to the retracted article wherever possible (ie, in all online versions)

Clearly identify the retracted article (eg, by including the title and authors in the retraction heading or citing the retracted article)

Be clearly identified as a retraction (ie, distinct from other types of correction or comment)

Be published promptly to minimise harmful effects

Be freely available to all readers (ie, not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers)

State who is retracting the article

State the reason(s) for retraction

Be objective, factual and avoid inflammatory language

Retractions are not usually appropriate if: The authorship is disputed but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings

The main findings of the work are still reliable and correction could sufficiently address errors or concerns

An editor has inconclusive evidence to support retraction, or is awaiting additional information such as from an institutional investigation See also Expressions of Concern Forum discussion.

Author conflicts of interest have been reported to the journal after publication, but in the editor’s view these are not likely to have influenced interpretations or recommendations or the conclusions of the article.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4

Source:https://publicationethics.org/

ARTICLE PROCESSING AND SUBMISSION FEE

Dear authors,

JHRS is diamond open access scholarly journal.

The submission fee is not charged!
The article processing fee is not charged!

JHRS Editor-in-chief