Editorial Policies

 

 

Section Policies

Table of Contents

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer-reviewed

Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer-reviewed

Original Article, Short communication, Case report, and Review

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer-reviewed

Interviews, Experiences, and Letters to the Editor

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer-reviewed

Supplements: Abstract books of medical students conferences

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer-reviewed

Errata, Retraction

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer-reviewed

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Peer Review Process

All papers submitted to the International Journal of Medical Students will undergo a two steps peer-reviewers process. The first step of revisions is based on an internal peer-reviews process carried by two Student Editors who will work together with one Associate Editor or a member of the Executive Committee. In the second step, the manuscript will be reviewed by two anonymous peer-reviewers (experts in the subject matter external to the Journal. In some rare cases, Editorial Team members can be invited to review). The authors will remain anonymous to all the referees. The typical time taken to conduct the reviews is one to two months. Read more about the Editorial and Peer-Review process.

Reviewers are given two weeks to complete their tasks.

Reviewers and editors are obliged to retain the contents as privileged and confidential until publication. The Editor in Chief and Editorial Board will have final authority over an article's suitability for publication.

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Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content. Our publisher, the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh, abides by the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access:

“By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its 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.”

Researchers engage in discovery for the public good, yet because of cost barriers or use restrictions imposed by other publishers, research results are not available to the full community of potential users. It is our mission to support a greater global exchange of knowledge by making the research published in this journal open to the public and reusable under the terms of a Creative Commons CC-BY license.

Furthermore, we encourage authors to post their pre-publication manuscript in institutional repositories or on their Web sites prior to and during the submission process, in-press versions, and to post the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version after publication. These practices benefit authors with productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

There are no article processing charges, submissions fees, or any other costs required of authors to submit, review, or publish articles in the IJMS.

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Archiving

The IJMS utilizes the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) systems 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.

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Editorial Team Structure

Student Editors

They are medical students enrolled in medical training from all around the globe. They are selected every year after a public call for applicants. The Executive Committee is in charge of reviewing the applications. They need to have scientific publications indexed in the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and complete the Web of Science Academy courses of introduction to Peer-Review, Reviewing in the Sciences, Good citation behavior, and Co-reviewing with a Mentor, to be considered for the position. They are in charge of reviewing articles in the first round of revisions under the supervision of an Associate Editor or a member of the Executive Committee.

Associate Editors

They are medical students and recently graduated physicians selected every year after a public call for applicants. The Executive Committee is in charge of reviewing the applications. Associate Editors must have an h-index of 5 or above or publications in the NLM and demonstrated experience reviewing articles as Student Editors of IJMS. They are in charge of the editorial process with the Executive Committee, supervising the Student Editors' work, selecting external peer-reviewers, and making recommendations for decisions based on the results of the rounds of reviews.

Senior Editors - Editorial Board

They are senior researchers with a recognized trajectory supporting, mentoring, and training novel researchers, willing to participate in the Journal, providing advice or support, and recommend reviewers. They, together with the Executive Committee have the final decision over an article publication. Their approval is required for the publication of each issue in the IJMS.

Executive Committee

They are medical students, physicians in training, or recently graduated physicians responsible for the leadership, training, and supervision of the Journal and its activities. Together with the Associate Editors, they make a decision about each submission and discuss them with the Editorial Board. Selected among members of the Editorial Team once there is an opening in a position.

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Statement on Publishing Ethics

Adherence to ethical standards for the dissemination of research results is critical to the research process. The International Journal of Medical Students adheres to the Code of conduct and best practice guidelines of the Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE), the Code of Conduct of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

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