Instructions for Authors of JMIR

For general information about the structure and content of a biomedical manuscript, authors should become familiar (skim through) the  ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts before reading the specific instructions for JMIR authors below.

The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) is an innovative, international, peer-reviewed medical journal that aims to publish articles relevant for medical professionals, system developers, and system users alike.

Instructions for authors are subject to frequent revision. Please look them over carefully before submitting your manuscript.

Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format and are not under consideration by another print or electronic publication. A complete report following a presentation at a meeting or the publication of preliminary findings elsewhere (eg, in an abstract) will be considered. Material that has been published on the Internet can also be considered, but any previous or simultaneous publication on the Internet must be disclosed in the cover letter. Include copies of potentially duplicative material that has been previously published or is currently being considered elsewhere, and provide links to duplicative material on the Internet. Point out possible overlaps with previously published or simultaneously submitted articles in your cover letter. Note that "duplicate publication or the submission of duplicate material is not necessarily unethical, but failure to disclose the existence of duplicate articles, manuscripts, or other material is unethical and may represent a violation of copyright material." (AMA Manual of Style, 9th ed, p. 98). A content overlap of just 10% may be considered duplicative.

JMIR reserves the right to bill authors for the peer-reviewing, copyediting, layout, and publishing costs of articles which need to be retracted during the production process or after publication on grounds of redundant publication, copyright infringements, or other forms of scientific misconduct.

 

Types of Papers That May Be Submitted

We accept the following:

  • original papers (see format below)
  • short papers (original article < 1500 words)
  • viewpoints (opinion and discussion papers) 
  • consensus papers
  • reviews
  • tutorials
  • case reports
  • policy papers, proposals
  • commentaries
  • book/software reviews
  • research protocols and grant proposals (for peer review only as a consulting service, or for peer review and subsequent publication). Please read the guidelines for submitting protocols and grant proposals.
  • CATCH-IT reports, a 1000-2000 word critique/discussion of noteworthy eHealth research published within the last 6-12 months in another journal. The paper critiqued in a CATCH-IT report should not be a paper published in this journal and cannot be a paper published by the submitting author. The report should preferably be the result of a critical appraisal discussion in a journal club. The report will be send to the author of the original (critiqued) paper for comment. For further information about the format of CATCH-IT reports, see the Editorial "Introduction to CATCH-IT" ( www.jmir.org/2004/4/e49/).
  • news articles

Please indicate the intended type of paper on your cover page.

We have no rigorous space restrictions for any of these papers, except for the short paper. However, we urge authors to be concise. A typical paper contains between 3000 and 6000 words.

In addition, all papers must contain the following sections: Abstract (see abstract format below), Keywords, Main article body (see below for original articles), Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interest, References.

 

Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interest

A description of sources of funding, financial disclosure, and the role of sponsors must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. This description should include the involvement, if any, in review and approval of the manuscript for publication and the role of sponsors.

In addition, authors must disclose in a Conflicts of Interest section if they have personal financial interests related to the subject matters discussed in the manuscript. It is not unusual for JMIR authors to be, for example, owners or employees of Internet companies that market the services described in their manuscript. There is nothing wrong with this, but editors, reviewers, and readers should be made aware of such conflicts of interests; thus, these facts must be disclosed.


 

Format for Original Papers

Papers should be written in accordance with the American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 9th ed. Baltimore, Md: Williams & Wilkins; 1998.

American Medical Association Manual of Style : A Guide for Authors and Editors (AMA)
Cheryl Iverson; Hardcover; $39.95

The following format ("IMRAD Format") must be used for the paper:

  • Abstract (not exceeding 450 words for structured abstracts, see abstract format below)
  • Keywords - see Keywords
  • Introduction (eg, theory, hypotheses, prior work)
  • Methods (eg with the subheadings "Recruitement", "Statistical Analysis", etc.)
  • Results (eg, user statistics, evaluation outcomes). If your study consists of different stages/parts, subheadings in this section should mirror subheadings in the methods section to describe these parts.
  • Discussion (eg, with the subheadings "Principal Results", "Limitations", "Comparison with Prior Work", "Conclusions")
  • Acknowledgements
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • [optional] Multimedia Appendix of supplementary files (eg, a PowerPoint presentation of a conference talk about the study, additional screenshots of a website, mpeg/Quicktime video or audio files, or Excel, Access, SAS, or SPSS files containing original data) - see Multimedia Appendix
  • References - see References
  • Abbreviations - see Abbreviations

Please use subheadings within the main "Introduction," "Methods," "Results," and "Discussion" sections. For example, if you describe three different methods, use three subheadings within the "Methods" section. Also, use matching subheadings in the "Results" section if you report the results from each of the described methods.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are highly welcome and should be reported in accordance with the CONSORT statement. A diagram illustrating the flow of participants through the trial is required. Please fill in and enclose a CONSORT checklist with your submission.

In accordance with ICMJE recommendations, RCTs must have been registered in a WHO accredited trial registry. Please mention the ClinicalTrials.gov registration identifier, the  International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN), or a comparable trial identifier at the end of the abstract ("Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT123456"), as well as when you first mention the trial in the manuscript. When mentioning related trials (e.g. in the Introduction or Methods section) the trial registration number should also be added in brackets. ICMJE member journals require, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration in a public trials registry at or before the onset of patient enrollment. This policy applies to any trial which started enrollment after July 1, 2005. JMIR authors must add an explanation to the methods section of their manuscript if a RCT meeting these criteria has not been registered. The JMIR editor reserves the right to reject any paper without trial registration without any further consideration or peer-review.

Meta-analyses and systematic reviews are also highly welcome and should be reported in accordance with the QUORUM statement.

 

Abstract Format

The abstract for an original paper, systematic review, or consensus paper must not exceed 450 words and must be structured, using the following sections:

  • Background
  • Objective
  • Methods
  • Results (make sure to include relevant statistics here, such as sample sizes, response rates, P-values or Confidence Intervals. Do not just say "there were differences between the groups")
  • Conclusions
  • (Trial ID number, e.g. ISRCTN, for RCTs)

For further details on structured abstracts, see linkout.gif http://jama.ama-assn.org/info/auinst_abs.html.

Proposals, comments, tutorials, reviews, and other types of papers may contain an unstructured abstract (max. 500 words).

 

Keywords

Below the abstract, authors should provide 3 to 10 keywords or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and that may be published with the abstract. Terms from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used
(see linkout.gif http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html). As well, keywords from linkout.gif ACM's Computing Classification System may be used if suitable MeSH terms are not available.

 

References

  • Include a reference list (numbered 1., 2., 3. etc.) at the end of the paper. Do not use the footnote or endnote tool of your word processor to generate the reference list. Articles which contain footnotes as references will be returned without peer review.
  • Cite only published or accepted ("in print") work as reference. Submitted papers (not yet accepted for publication), documents not widely available (personal emails, letters), or oral communications (unless they are published as abstract) should not be cited as reference, but instead must be cited in the main body of text as "personal communication by NAME, DATE". Obtain the permission of the communicator to quote his communication.
  • Remove OLE Elements from reference management software (e.g. Endnote, Reference Manager):
    Please remove any OLE elements from your manuscript before submission (keep the original file and create a copy with field codes removed).
    OLE elements typically appear if authors use refman or endnote to manage their bibliography. OLE elements can be recognized by e.g. clicking on a in-text citation and/or the bibliography - if they have a grey background, it is an OLE document (and if you insert a comment for a certain reference, the entire reference block appears commented). OLE elements may also appear if you number table labels automatically, cross-reference to objects in the documents etc.).
    In all these cases you must convert your manuscript to a plain text document before we can copyedit it.
    To convert references added by Reference Manager or Endnote to plain text, you can use the program itself to remove the OLE codes (for RefMan the menu point is Tools -> RefMan -> Remove Field Codes).
  • Make sure that your references are correct by using the linkout.gif PubMed Citation Matcher.
  • We would greatly appreciate if you could append a [Medline] link after each reference, linking to the PubMed abstract of the article you are citing. Alternatively, just append "PMID:1234567" (where 1234567 is the pubmed identifier) at the end of a reference. Information on how to do this can be found in the document How to insert Medline Links [PDF document]. This speeds up our copyediting/typesetting process and prevents citation errors.
  • You may (in particular for references not listed in PubMed) add the DOI at the end of the reference (e.g. doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7529 .1391). The DOI is a unique identifier which is published by most journals somewhere within the article. You may check whether a DOI is correct using the DOI resolver at http://dx.doi.org/.
  • Number references in the order they appear in the text; do not alphabetize.
  • Identify references within the body of the paper with Arabic numerals enclosed in square brackets (eg, [1,2]). Do not use superscripts.
  • References must comply with JMIR style (see examples below). 
  • Websites and Web articles (URLs) should be cited as "webcited®" references in the reference section at the end of the manuscript - do not include links to websites in the text. To webcite® a web reference means to take a snapshot of the cited document and to cite the archived copy (WebCite link) in addition to the original URL. JMIR now requires that authors use the WebCite ® technology (www.webcitation.org) to archive cited web references first before they cite them. Do not cite uncached "live" webpages and websites in the article or reference section, unless archiving with WebCite has failed. Provide the original URL, the WebCite link, and an access date, which should be the date you cached the web reference (see Web references archived with WebCite below).
  • Use Medline abbreviations for journal titles (see PubMed linkout.gif Journal Browser).

Journal Articles:

Westberg EE, Miller RA. The basis for using the Internet to support the information needs of primary care. J Am Med Inform Assoc 1999 Jan-Feb;6(1):6-25. [Medline]

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. JAMA 1997;277:927-934. [Medline]

Books:

Iverson CL, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, et al. American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 9th edition. Baltimore, Md: Williams & Wilkins; 1998.

Conference proceedings:

Kimura J, Shibasaki H, editors. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct 15-19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 1996.

Note: If conference proceedings are available through Medline, please use the Medline citation rather than the style above - for example in case of AMIA proceedings or IMIA proceedings (=Medinfo) the citation is as follows:

Mandl KD, Kohane IS. Healthconnect: clinical grade patient-physician communication. Proc AMIA Symp 1999;(1-2):849-53

Hachem F, Bellet J, Flory A, Leverve X. A generic model for Internet-accessed databases in epidemiology: a nutritional application. Medinfo 1998;9 Pt 2:1310-3

Chapter in a Book:

Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. p. 465-78.

Journal article in electronic format:

Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun 5]; 1(1):[24 screens]. URL: linkout.gif http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm

[the linkout symbol can be omitted] 

Web References archived with WebCite ®

As cited URLs tend to disappear months or years after citing online material, JMIR now requires that (instead of citing "live" webpages and websites in the article) authors use the WebCite ® technology (www.webcitation.org) to archive cited web references first before they cite them. Please go to www.webcitation.org and enter the URL you want to cite. The system will take a "snapshot" of the webpage or online document (e.g. pdf) so that it will remain available for future readers. WebCite will also give you detailed instructions on how to cite the web reference. Electronic journal articles or other material does not have to be archived with WebCite if they carry a DOI, but all other material which might disappear in the future should be archived first by the citing author. For further information on WebCite see also the article Going, Going, Still There: Using the WebCite Service to Permanently Archive Cited Web Pages, J Med Internet Res 2005, 12, 30; 7(5):e60.

Example for Citing a Web Reference

Preferred format for submissions to JMIR (note that the access/archiving date does not need to be provided because it can be retrieved by the reader when clicking on the WebCite link:

Fox, S. & Fallows, D. (2003). Internet Health Resources. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Health_Report_July_2003.pdf . Archived at: http://www.webcitation.org/5I2STSU61

Alternative (transparent) format [this format may be preferred by other journals, because it contains the archived URL and the archiving date as part of the WebCite link. It is acceptable for JMIR, but not the preferred submission format]:

Fox, S. & Fallows, D. (2003). Internet Health Resources.  http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Health_Report_July_2003.pdf&date=2006-08-10

Abbreviations

All acronyms/abbreviations (including common ones such as WWW and HTML) must be explained in parenthesis after their first occurrence. If many unfamiliar acronyms/abbreviations are used, please compile them in an "Abbreviations" section at the end of the paper.

Multimedia Appendix

We strongly encourage to append multimedia appendices, for example a Powerpoint file containing additional screenshots or slides from a talk about the study, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.). Do not include copyrighted material unless you obtained writte permission from the copyright holder, which should be faxed to the editorial office in case of acceptance together with your Publication Agreement form.

Multimedia Appendices intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript. Provide in-text citations (for example "see Multimedia Appendix 1") as well as a section with the heading "Multimedia Appendix" before the "References" section. Here, list all Multimedia Appendices and include a brief caption line for each Mutlimedia Appendix describing its contents.

Multimedia Appendices can be uploaded as "supplementary files" during the submission process. Clearly indicate if these files are for publication or meant for the reviewers'/editors' eyes only (ideally, mark it in/on the electronic document itself if it is not intended for publication).

 

Figures and Tables

Include all figures and tables in the manuscript at the location where they should appear in the final manuscript.

Illustrative figures should also be uploaded as separate (supplementary) high resolution files, i.e. ideally uncompressed formats (eg, in tiff format), even if the figures are included in your manuscript file. The file names should contain the number of the figure (eg, fig1.jpg, fig2.jpg).

When preparing tables, please make sure that for each row you create a new table row, rather than writing multiple rows into one cell. Example:

Correct:

Age n (%)

30-40

23 (43%)
 

40-50

27 (23%)

Gender

Female

80 (40%)

 

Male

120 (60%)

 Wrong:

Age n (%)

30-40

40-50

23 (43%)

27 (23%)

Gender

Female

Male

80 (40%)

120 (60%)


Also, please do not submit tables as separate (supplementary) files - always include them in the manuscript file.

Important Notes on Reporting P values

The actual P value should be expressed (P = .04) rather than expressing a statement of inequality (P < .05), unless P < .001. The P value should be expressed to 2 digits whether or not it is significant. When rounding, 3 digits is acceptable if rounding would change the significance of a value (eg, P = .049 rounded to .05). If P < .01, it should be expressed to 3 digits.

P values less than .001 should be reported as P < .001. Expressing P to more than 3 significant digits does not add useful information since precise P values with extreme results are sensitive to biases or departures from the statistical model.

The traditional reporting of P values (indicating only that P < 0.05) simply indicated whether the results were "statistically significant" or not. But P values of 0.051 and 0.049 should be interpreted similarly despite the fact that the 0.051 is greater than 0.05 and is therefore not "significant" and that the 0.049 is less than 0.05 and thus is "significant." Reporting actual P values avoids this problem of interpretation. P values should not be listed as not significant (NS) since, for meta-analysis, the actual values are important and not providing exact P values is a form of incomplete reporting.

Do not use 0 before the decimal point for statistical values P, alpha, and beta because they cannot equal 1. For some statistical values (eg, kappa) even if they cannot ever equal 1, use 0 if they are used infrequently.

P is always italicized and capitalized.

Authors who are not sure how to report their quantitative results should consult the following book:

How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers (Medical Writing and Communication)
Thomas A. Lang; Paperback; $39.95

 

Novel Paper Components: Original Data, Animations, HypER Papers

As a journal covering innovative methods to disseminate knowledge on the Internet, we want to be innovative in our style and format and take advantage of the possibilites available by publishing online. We do not want, as many online journals do, to reproduce an exact version of a traditional printed journal.

We therefore encourage you to experiment with novel methods of presentation whenever you feel it is appropriate and helps the reader, for example,

  • animated gifs
  • other media (movies)
  • attachment or link to a database (Access) or spreadsheet (Excel) file containing original or additional data
  • JAVA applets

 

 

Online Submission

Web-Based Manuscript Submission and Tracking System

  • JMIR uses an online submission and manuscript tracking system. To submit your paper, please register as an author (in your user profile) and go the author home page.
  • You will have to register as an author and will then be guided through the submission process. You may upload your manuscript as an .rtf (rich text) or .doc (WinWord) file, as well as supplementary files such as figures.
  • Email submissions are not accepted.
  • This system allows you to check the status of your manuscript at any time. Please refrain from sending emails to the editor or journal staff inquiring about the status of your manuscript.
  • Upon submission, you will receive an automatic email acknowledging receipt of your paper. If you do not receive a response within 24 hours, please verify that the paper has been submitted (using the manuscript tracking system).

 

Title Page

The first page of your manuscript should be a title page containing the type of paper; the title; all authors' names, degrees, and affiliations; and the corresponding author's contact address (including phone and fax numbers) and email address.

 

Acceptable Languages

Except for supplements covering special topics of regional interest or containing papers having been presented at non-English speaking meetings, manuscripts must be English.

Non-native speakers are advised to seek help from a native speaker or a professional copyeditor before submission. Although accepted JMIR manuscripts are also edited for language, a poorly written manuscript has lower chances to be accepted, and multiple typos and grammatical errors often reflect poorly on the author.

Final Checklist

Before you submit your manuscript to JMIR, make sure that you avoid the following common formatting / editorial problems:

A. ( ) all in-text references must be numbers in square brackets like this [1]. Do not use the author-year system. Do not use round brackets. Do not use superscript.
B. ( ) JMIR does not use footnotes or endnotes (except for tables). If you have footnotes, please delete them or incorporate them into the text
C. ( ) URLs must be cited as references and should be archived using WebCite (www.webcitation.org)
D. ( ) in addition to the WebCite URL, please also mention the original URL in the references
E. ( ) please list only one corresponding author with full address, including phone, fax, and email address
F. ( ) Major headings for ALL original papers must be Introduction - Methods - Results - Discussion
G. ( ) Please add subheadings under Introduction/Methods/Results/Discussion
H. ( ) You must have more than one subheadings in each section, otherwise please remove the subheading
I. ( ) Your subheadings in the methods section should usually mirror the subheadings in the results section (i.e. for each result type there must be an explanation in the methods on how these results were obtained)
J. ( ) please check our Instructions for Authors on how P-values should be reported
K. ( ) If you want to include a multimedia appendix, please insert a reference ("Multimedia Appendix 1: [caption]") just before the Acknowledgements section
L. ( ) End your introduction with a clear statement of what the aim of this paper or study is, or what the hypotheses are.
M. ( ) Start your discussion with a short summary of what the main finding(s) of this study was/were
N. ( ) Although there is no formal space limit, avoid overly long manuscripts. In particular, the introduction should be succinct
O. ( ) For original papers, the abstract must be structured (Background-Objectives-Methods-Results-Conclusions)
P. ( ) Please include more quantitative results in the abstract (sample size, P-values, odds ratios with confidence-intervals etc.)
Q. ( ) Please clean up your references, following our instructions for authors. Do not use et al. to abbreviate authors. Do not use "and" between author names. For each author, provide lastname and initial - in that order - without punctuation (e.g. Eysenbach G). Do not use quotation marks for the titles. If you can, provide Medline-links or PMIDs in the format PMID:1234567
R. ( ) For all results for which you provide a relative result (percentage), you should also provide the absolute number, e.g. "132 out of 264 participants (50%) said that...". If n is less than 100, do not use decimal points in your percentages. Otherwise, do not use more than one decimal place.
S. ( ) Do not number your headings
T. ( ) Figures and tables should appear in the main manuscript file (rather than being separate files - although you should upload additional hi-res figures under "supplementary files") at the location they should appear in the article (rather than at the end of the manuscript)
U. ( ) Cite an appropriate number (typically 20-40) of scholarly references. All pertinent/related articles published in JMIR in the past 2-3 years should be cited

X. ( ) For RCTs only: Starting in 2008, JMIR will routinely publish trial identifiers in the abstract. Please add the trial registration number to the ABSTRACT, after the section "Conclusions: ..." (e.g. "Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00102401"). If for any reason the trial was not registered (mandatory for trials which started enrollment after July 1, 2005), please provide an explanation (e.g. in the methods section and a cover letter to the editor).

Y. ( ) For RCTs only: Please report the trial in accordance with the CONSORT checklist. Note that there is also a CONSORT checklist for what information should go into the abstract.

Z. ( ) For online surveys only: Please report the online survey in accordance with the CHERRIES checklist

AA. ( ) Tables must be designed in line with Instructions for Authors (http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/Instructions_for_Authors:Instructions_for_Authors_of_JMIR#figures) - do NOT use a soft line break within a table cell to separate different categories/subcategories. For each category, create a new table row.

AB. ( ) Please upload each of your final figure as supplementary file (hi-resolution jpg files with minimal compression). Please name your files so that it becomes clear what revision the figure refers to, e.g. fig1_rev20090130.jpg

 

Cover Letter

The online submission process allows you to enter a comment for the editor into a "comments field." Here you may briefly explain why you think your article is innovative and important. Please also mention if you opt-in into our Open Peer Review experiment. Finally, we ask that you mention that you either agree to pay the APF (Article Processing Fee, see below) in case of acceptance, or if you think that the APF should be waived due to institutional membership of the corresponding author.

Peer Reviewer Nominations

During the submission process, authors are asked to nominate 2 to 4 external referees to review their manuscript (please provide at least their name and email address). The best reviewers are authors of publications on which your research builds and which you cite. Peer reviewers must have a publishing track in the area the manuscript deals with, however, avoid nominating overly senior (and busy) individuals.

When suggesting peer reviewers, conflicts of interests should be avoided, that is, suggested referees should not

  • be from the same department or division as one of the authors (the same university should also be avoided);
  • have been a research supervisor or graduate student of one of the authors within the past six years;
  • have collaborated with one of the authors within the past six years or have plans to collaborate in the immediate future;
  • be employees of non-academic organizations with which one of the authors has collaborated within the past six years; or
  • be in any other kind of potential conflict of interest situation (eg, personal, financial).

We ask applicants not to contact suggested referees in advance. The editor reserves the right to send the manuscript to other referees.

You may request, in the cover letter, that some researchers not be involved in the review of your paper.

Important: Please note that JMIR is a non-profit open access journal by scientists for scientists supported solely by the grants of the contributing authors. Authors typically hold research grants which allow them to pay the JMIR submission and article procession charges (see Fee Schedule below).
In return, the author(s) retain(s) the copyright.
Authors not having any grants or financial support should encourage their department or university to become an JMIR institutional member (we brand member organizations who have successfully published in JMIR as member organizations of the Global Network of Centres of Excellence in eHealth and Internet Research), 

 

Fast-Track Review and Premium Publishing

JMIR offers a review model in which peer reviewers are paid to deliver high-quality and speedy peer-review reports. This is entirely optional - if you do not wish to pay for a fast-track peer review and premium publishing process, just submit your paper normally as described above.

If you opt for fast-track review and premium publishing, you are guaranteed

  • a rapid editorial decision and peer-review comments within 15 working days* after submission and payment of the fee, and
  • if the final paper is accepted, publication of your paper within 4 weeks after acceptance and payment of the fee.

In order to take advantage of this, authors must pay a non-refundable fast-track fee (FTF). This should be done within 24 hours after submission. The FTF can be paid immediately after submission using the manuscript submission system. For further information see Pay Fast-Track Fee. We now also allow authors to expedite the submission at any time during the peer-review process.

*Working Days are Mon-Fri, excluding Canadian, US and European bank holidays, and excluding the days in the period between Dec 23rd - Jan 1st (of each year).


Editorial Processes

When JMIR receives a manuscript, the Editor and/or Assistant Editor will first decide whether the manuscript meets the formal criteria specified in the Instructions for Authors and whether it fits within the scope of the journal. When in doubt and before rejecting a manuscript on the basis of initial review, the editor will consult other members of the Editorial Board. The editor may assign a section editor to the manuscript, who will guide the manuscript through the peer-review process.

Manuscripts are then sent to an external expert for peer review. The number of peer-reviewers depends on the complexity of the manuscript, but we typically approach 4 peer-reviewers, expecting 1-2 peer-reviews back before we make a decision. Authors are required to suggest 2 peer reviewers during the submission process, but it is at the discretion of the editor whether or not these reviewers will be approached.

JMIR reviewers will not be anonymous (unless they explicitely request this). Names of reviewers will be stated below the article when it is published. Authors and reviewers should not directly contact each other to enter into disputes on manuscripts or reviews.

After peer review, the editor will contact the author. If the author is invited to submit a revised version, the revised version has to be submitted by the author within 3 months. Otherwise, the manuscript will be removed from the manuscript submission queue and will be considered rejected.  

 

Speed of Peer Review

Internet research is a fast-moving field, and we acknowledge the need of our authors to communicate their findings rapidly. We therefore aim to be extremely fast (but still thorough and rigorous) in our peer-review process. For example, the paper "Factors Associated with Intended Use of a Web Site Among Family Practice Patients" (J Med Internet Res 2001;3(2):e17) was reviewed, edited, typeset, and published within only 16 days. Including the two weeks' time authors needed for revision, less than 1 month passed from first submission to final publication. (Please note that actual times to review and edit papers vary and primarily depend on the quality of the paper upon first submission.)

We can not provide any guarantees on the speed of peer review or publication - except if a paper has been submitted under the fast-track option, in which case, we guarantee an initial editorial decision within a certain number of days and publication of the article within a certain number of weeks after acceptance.

 

Criteria for Selection of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should meet the following criteria: the study conducted is ethical (see below); the material is original; the writing is clear; the study methods are appropriate; the data are valid; the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data; the information is important; and the topic is interesting to our readership.

It is recognized that many submissions will describe websites and other Internet-based services. The Editorial Board strongly recommends that authors of such submissions make efforts to evaluate and, if possible, quantify the impact of these services. Submissions containing evaluations are more likely to be accepted than those containing descriptions of services alone, unless the service includes significant innovation.

 

Ethical Issues

Internet-based research raises novel questions of ethics and human dignity. If human subjects are involved, informed consent, protection of privacy, and other human rights are further criteria against which the manuscript will be judged. Papers describing investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, in accordance with all applicable regulations, and that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the study were explained.

JMIR also encourages articles devoted to the ethics of Internet-based research. In addition, as mentioned above, we will ask authors to disclose any competing interests in relation to their work.

Recommended Reading:

 

Plagiarism

JMIR is dedicated to the fight against plagiarism and "cyberplagiarism," the stealing of paragraphs and ideas from articles and websites without appropriate references. We are the first scholarly journal which checks submitted manuscripts against the Web, using turnitin.com, to see whether significant portions of submissions have been taken from websites without appropriate credit.

It is perfectly acceptable to take direct quotes from websites, but the reference (URL) must be given and the citation must be included in quotation marks. If portions of the manuscript have already been published by the author on other websites, this does not necessarily exclude the material from publication in JMIR; however, the JMIR Editorial Board does need to know which portions of the manuscript have been previously published and where. The author should include a note in the cover letter indicating which portions have been published elsewhere.

Should possible scientific misconduct or dishonesty in research submitted for review be suspected or alleged, this journal reserves the right to forward any submitted manuscript to the sponsoring or funding institution or other appropriate authority for investigation. This journal recognizes the responsibility to ensure that the issue is appropriately pursued but does not undertake the actual investigation or make determinations of misconduct.

Open Access Model, Fee Schedule

"Open access" means that the content of JMIR is freely available. The definition, according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, is as follows:

"By 'open access' to this 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." (Budapest Open Access Initiative - Definition of Open Access)

JMIR is among the pioneers of a new generation of open access medical journals, supporting free and unrestricted access to research information on the Web. This publishing model is becoming increasingly popular among researchers, who have learned that open access articles are more visible and more frequently cited (see Eysenbach G. Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles, PLoS Biol 2006; 4(5): e157).

JMIR operates in line with the Budapest Open Access Initiative. The following excerpts from the Budapest Open Access Initiative explain the philosophy and business model behind this approach:

The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge....

While the peer-reviewed journal literature should be accessible online without cost to readers, it is not costless to produce.... Achieving open access will require new cost recovery models and financing mechanisms.... Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for covering their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds for this purpose, including the foundations and governments that fund research, the universities and laboratories that employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from the researchers themselves.

The publication of a high quality online journal service such as JMIR is an expensive business. In addition to all the fixed costs usually associated with print journal publishing (reviewing, editing, data processing, printing, and distribution), there are costs associated with online publication (including software development costs, hosting, and user support). The scientific research community considers author charges as a viable way of covering publication costs.

Authors should understand that JMIR is a non-profit project, but we have to pay our bills too. Our authors usually budget for JMIR membership or knowledge dissemination activities in their research grant proposals, and cover JMIR publication fees or membership fees through their research grants, CME funds, or other sources. Authors not holding such grants should contact their department or library, encouraging them to become an institutional member.


Fee Schedule (Nov 2008)


1) Submission Fee (JSF)

*The submission fee is non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without peer-review (protocols/grant proposals are always reviewed, but regular papers may be quickly rejected by the editor without sending it to external reviewers, on the basis of being out of scope, uninteresting, or fatally flawed).

Letters to the editor, invited articles................................. FREE

JSF for regular papers (original work, viewpoints etc.)........ US$ 90

Protocol / Grant Proposal Review.................................... US$ 500



2) Fast-track Fee (optional) (FTF)

Payment of the Fast Track Fee guarantees a speedy turnaround (initial decision within 15 working days, publication within 1 month after acceptance + APF payment). The fast-track fee is non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without peer-review.

Fast-Track Fee.................................................................... US$ 350


3) Article Processing Fee (APF) 

Only payable in case of acceptance of a manuscript.  

Letters to the editor**................................. FREE

Corresponding author from institutional member organization....................... FREE

Corresponding author not from institutional member organization................ US$ 1500

** Letters to the editor should be a response or comment on a recently published paper in JMIR.  

NOTE: All prices are stated and fixed in US$. Payments made via PayPal will be processed in US$. Payments made via PsiGate (credit card processing platform) will be processed in CAD$ (using the daily bank exchange rate to convert from US$ to CAD$). Purchasers using credit cards dominated in US$ are advised that due to the currency conversion process (US$ -> CAD$ -> US$, the final amount in their credit card statement may differ slightly from the amounts stated here. 

 

Why do we charge fees? The fee will be paid to a research account at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, Toronto, and will be used to pay the costs for administrative support for the peer-review process, copyediting, hosting of the journal, production of the XML/HTML versions of articles, membership in CrossRef, and for further development of the journal and website. In open access journals, authors retain the copyright for their work, and access to the published paper is provided free of charge for readers. Because of this, open access journals have limited possibilities to generate revenue and offset costs by licensing content. Therefore, processing and publication costs need to be carried by the authors' institution or research grants. The article processing fee, payable upon acceptance, is waived if the corresponding author is from a department or university that is a JMIR institutional member at the time of submission and acceptance. Authors should encourage their department or university to become an institutional JMIR member prior to submitting an article, as this actually costs less than the fee for a single article.

For authors not affiliated with institutional members, articles accepted by JMIR are subject to an article processing fee, payable in the period between article acceptance and copyediting. This fee is usually paid by a grant of one of the authors (most if not all funding agencies allow payment of APFs from their grants) or by the academic department of the author (much as they already pay for reprints, page charges, or color plates in subscription-based journals). Authors who have no sources of support to pay for the processing fee should lobby their department to become an institutional member prior to submission.

The APF and possibly other fees do not apply to letters to the editor, editorials, or solicited material. No APF is charged for declined papers (however, the submission fee is non-refundable).

The full fee will also be charged (and is non-refundable) if the article has been accepted by the editor but cannot be published due to factors which are the responsibility of the author(s), for example, (a) the paper is, for any reason, withdrawn by the author after acceptance; (b) a copyright violation, case of plagiarism, undisclosed duplicate publication, or other form of scientific misconduct (eg, fabricating data) is discovered after acceptance, thereby preventing us from publishing the paper or requiring a retraction; (c) the paper cannot be published because the authors fail to provide the signed publication forms. In all these cases, the full fee will be charged, regardless of the stage the manuscript is at, as long as the manuscript has already been accepted by the editor before withdrawal.


We also reserve the right to charge the full or partial fee if a copyright violation, case of plagiarism, undisclosed duplicate publication, multiple journal submission, or other form of scientific misconduct is discovered during peer review, preventing us from processing the paper further.

 

How to Pay

The preferred option is to pay by credit card via a secure credit card processing gateway, or via PayPal, which accepts all major credit cards (you do not need to open a PayPal account). Payment may also be made by cheque; however, a 7% administrative surcharge applies for all memberships and fees which are not paid through PayPal.

To pay, log in and click on the author role on the user homepage. After acceptance of the manuscript, a payment link will appear underneath the the manuscript title. Please pay immediately after article acceptance. Copyediting and typesetting of accepted papers can only be initiated after payment, thus any delays in paying the APF will lead to delays in the publication process.

 

Fee Waivers

We regret that the Open Society Institute / Soros Foundations Network  has discontinued its support for open access authors from developing countries. We are therefore currently unable to waive any fees for students or authors from developing countries.


Open Publication License, Authorship Responsibility, Declaration of Competing Interests

JMIR papers are published under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution License.

The license grants others permission to use the content in whole or in part, and insures that the original authors and publisher / publication venue (the Journal of Medical Internet Research) will be properly credited/cited when content is used. It grants others permission to redistribute the content. Under this license, JMIR becomes the original publisher of the work, but the article may be redistributed by anyone (eg, on the Web, in books as book chapters, or on a CD-ROM) However, authors should not publish the same article again in the academic body of literature, as this constitutes duplicate publication and scientific misconduct. This ensures the widest possible distribution of research for the authors.

Can I republish, print, distribute, or resell JMIR content?
Yes, however, redistributors of JMIR content are required to adhere to the following:

  1. Acknowledge the original author and publisher/journal, that is, the original source must be exactly cited as indicated at the bottom of each published article, including the URL of the original article on the JMIR website.
  2. It must be clear that the material published has been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

If these two conditions are met (usually by including the entire "please cite as" and copyright statement which is at the end of each article), no written permission is required from the copyright holder to redistribute or reprint the material. 

While not required, it is considered good practice to inform the editor, author, and publisher if articles are redistributed. If books or CD-ROMs are produced, the author and publisher should receive a free copy.

We do not recommend mirroring the entire JMIR site, unless you can ensure that the content (including instructions for authors, editorial board, etc) is updated automatically. We want to avoid having multiple outdated copies of the same article or Web page on the Internet.

Publication agreement

If the paper is accepted, authors must sign and return by fax a publication agreement, an authorship responsibility form, and a declaration of competing interests form before the manuscript can be published. A preview of these forms is available here.