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Electronic Physician is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The COPE’s code of conduct guidelines are available at: http://www.publicationethics.org

Electronic Physician has zero tolerance for academic misconduct, including "Duplicate Publication," "Salami Publication," "Plagiarism", "Fake Submissions", "Ghost Authorship", "Fabrication of Data", and "Fake External Reviewer Suggestions". All manuscripts are investigated thoroughly regarding any potential unethical conduct. All of the required documents about the research (clinical trial registration ID, research ethics approval, authorization letter for publishing case reports, etc.) are required. Regarding the plagiarism, all submissions will be checked for potential copy-paste jobs using iThenticate.

Part A. Editor’s Responsibilities:

A.1. Publication decisions

Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts should be published. Editors and reviewers treat all manuscripts as confidential documents do not show to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor. 

 

A.2. Fair play

The editor evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the nature of the authors or the host institution including race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

 

A.3. Confidentiality

The editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers as appropriate. In the case of a misconduct investigation, the editor-in-chief may disclose material to third parties (e.g., an institutional investigation committee or other editors). 

 

A.4. Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research.

 

A.5. Corrections and retractions

When genuine errors in published work are pointed out by readers, authors, or editors, a correction will be published as soon as possible. If the error renders the work or substantial parts of it invalid, the paper should be retracted with an explanation as to the reason for retraction.

Regarding the retraction of published items and corrections we follow the COPE  and ICMJE guidelines that can be found here:

https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines

and:

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/corrections-and-version-control.html

 

A.6. Ensuring the integrity of the published record

If serious concerns are raised by readers, reviewers, or others, about the conduct, validity, or reporting of academic work, the editor-in-chief will initially contact the authors and allow them to respond to the concerns. If that response is unsatisfactory, the journal will take this to the institutional level. In cases when concerns are very serious and the published work is likely to influence clinical practice or public health, the journal may consider informing readers about these concerns, while the investigation is ongoing. Once an investigation is concluded the journal will publish comment that explains the findings of the investigation. Editor-in-chief may decide to retract a paper if a serious misconduct has happened even if an investigation by an institution or national body does not recommend it.

 

Part B. Reviewers’ responsibilities:

B.1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive comments on the manuscript that help the author(s) to revise the manuscript in higher standards and quality.

 

B.2. Promptness

Reviewers that feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

 

B.3. Confidentiality

The reviewers should treat as confidential document any manuscripts received for review. They manuscript should not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

 

B.4. Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

 

B.5. Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

 

B.6. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

 

B.7. Reviewer misconduct

Electronic physician will take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage. 

 

Pat C. Authors responsibilities:

C.1.Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

 

C.2. Data Access and Retention

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

 

C.3. Originality and Plagiarism

Electronic physician checks the originality of the manuscripts by iThenticate and presents the “Similarity Report” to the authors. Authors should ensure that submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Applicable copyright laws and conventions should be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) should be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. 

 

C.4. Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

 

C.5. Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

 

C.6. Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommends the authorship criteria at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html  

 

C.7. Individual and organizational acknowledgments:

All of the individuals or organizations that made a contribution to the work but they do not meet the criteria for authorship, should be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript. The corresponding author should not acknowledge any individual or organization without a written permission.

 

C.8. Hazards

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

 

C.9. Reporting of research involving humans or animals

Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals). If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms). Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative).

All the procedures in studies on human must be in conformity with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the local Human Research Ethics Committee. Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals). Authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms). Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative). The researchers must obtain informed consent from all participants (or their parents in the case of pediatrics research).

 

C.10. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

 

C.11. Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. 

Update (October 2021):

The journal is moving to Knowledge Kingdom Publishing, Tlemcen, Algeria.

Address: EURL Knowledge Kingdom 69A Lots Modjahidine Mansourah, Tlemcen, Algeria. 13000.

Tel: +213550168666

The new manuscript submission page and email will be announced soon!

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For all of the information and guidance concerning the preparation of manuscripts, Research Reporting Guidelines, and Review Process, please click here to visit "Guide to Authors".

Since Some authors prefer to submit manuscripts by email and some are not familiar with the online submission system, we may accept submissions by email or By Online Submission System. In the first case, our technical personnel will enter the details and files associated with the manuscript into the online submission system for the authors. 

Important news (January 2021) for Online Submission:

This is to announce that the journal is planning to replace its current user interface and its old online manuscript submission system to "Scholar One", a product of "Clarivate Analytics". So, until the next update (Around June 2021) the authors are required to submit the manuscripts only by email. Please do not use previous online submission system (http://my.ejmanager.com/ep).

Please send the manuscript and required files to the editor In-chief at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  and c.c it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

When an author submits a manuscript, the following 3-6 files must be attached (based of the manuscript type, but the first three files are mandatory for all submissions): 

1. Cover letter (updated on April 28, 2019 with Table of Role of Authors based on ICMJE):

Please click here to download a sample cover letter. In the cover letter, you must state that the manuscript, in whole or in part, has not been published by and will not be submitted for publication in any other journal. If your manuscript has been published elsewhere in another language, please indicate this in the cover letter.

The author must provide complete contact information, i.e., postal/mail address, e-mail address, and telephone number. Also, the first and last names, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations of all co-authors must be provided. Please include the first and last names of all authors in the cover letter. Please ensure that you have written all of the affiliations separately along with the correct email addresses of all authors. In writing the affiliations, please consider the following items for each of the authors: latest degree (for example MD or PhD of Public Health or M.Sc. of Microbiology, etc.), academic position (if they have one, for example Assistant Professor, Lecturer, etc.), name of department (for example Department of Environmental Health, Department of Neurology), name of faculty or school (for example Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Public Health), and research institute, name of the university, name of city, and name of country. Regarding the email addresses of the authors, please provide us with both academic email (if they have one) and the general email addresses (e.g. gmail, yahoo mail, etc.) for each author.

2. Manuscript (Without any information about authors):

The manuscript must include the title of the paper, an Abstract (250 words or less for original articles, 200 words or less for reviews, and 150 words or less for case reports), three to five Keywords (chosen from MeSH), and the body of the manuscript without any information regarding the names of the authors. Abstracts are not required for Letters to the Editor, Opinions, and Editorials.  

Please include all of the tables in the manuscript file. Graph files must be attached to the email separately. The acceptable file formats are ".doc" for texts and ".tiff,” “.jpg,” and “.jpeg” for graphs, plates, artwork, and photos. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. We will not publish images downloaded from the Internet without permission.

3. Conflict of Interest (COI):

All submissions must be accompanied by a completed Conflict of Interest (COI) form and clearly stating the source of funds and any potential conflict of interest. 

The COI form is available at: http://www.ephysician.ir/tasavir/ConflictOfInterestForm.pdf  

Please read the COI form carefully, print out the second page, and fill the second page, which must then be signed by all authors. Then, make a simple camera photo of the second page and send it to the journal.

4. Research Ethics Approval:

Please submit a copy of the approval letter of the Research Ethics Committee, if your manuscript is written based on an original research involving humans, which needs to consider research ethics.

5. Ethics of Case Report:

If the manuscript is a case report, please submit an approval letter from the hospital / university, in which they clearly state that the authors are allowed to publish the result of that case report and the patient has authorized them to publish the analysis of their medical records anonymously. Usually, when a patient attends a hospital or clinic, they read and sign a form that allows the institute to use their data anonymously for the progress of the medical science. So, any approval letter from the institute / hospital that states such things are accepted.

6. Clinical Trial Registration:

If the manuscript is based on a clinical trial, please also mention the website address and the unique clinical trial registration ID for the study.

Suggestion of External Reviewers

Please propose us 2-3 external reviewers who are expert on the area of the manuscript. They should not be from the same department as the authors and must not have a conflict of interest with them. Please provide their full name, their email addresses, and their highest degree or academic position. The journal will use the opinions of well-known experts on the submissions; however, the journal may also consider the opinions of external reviewers. The journal is free to consider any of the suggested external reviewers for this submission and use their opinions on other submission.

Attention (zero tolerance to fake external reviewers):

Since some authors in the past have suggested non authentic external reviewers, it is important for us to know the academic email addresses of the suggested external reviewers, so that the journal’s IT experts can identify them and also to ensure there is no unethical behavior.

Research Reporting Guidelines:

The authors are advised to use the standard checklists for presenting their research. A list of supporting documents for CONSORT 2010 (Randomized Controlled Trials), CARE checklist (case reports), PRISMA checklist, STROBE, STARD, MOOSE and SPIRIT checklists are available here.

Expected time required for the peer-review process:

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

Monitoring the progress of the manuscript:

Since the journal is moving to a new online submission (Scholar One, a product of Clarivate Analytics), please use email to check the status of the manuscript for the temporary period that we are moving from the current online manuscript submission system to the new one. To monitor the progress of your manuscript, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Be sure to include the manuscript ID number and send a copy of the e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Update July 2020:

Research Reporting Guidelines and Supporting Documents for Authors are available to download. Click here to download CONSORT template and checklist, STROBE statement, PRISMA Checklist, MOOSE checklist and other resources for preparing and reporting clinical trials, observationbal studies, case reports, systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

 

OPEN ACCESS POLICY AND REDISTRIBUTION

Electronic physician is an open access journal, which means that all articles are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication. Our articles our published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

 

AUTHOR GUIDELINE

1. Types and scope of articles:

Electronic Physician is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes original articles, reviews (traditional reviews and systematic reviews), Meta-analyses, case reports and other common types of articles related to all areas of basic and clinical medical sciences and all disciplines of health sciences. Editorials, letters to the editor, opinions, and other short articles are also welcomed. Topics of interest include all subjects that relate to the practice of medicine and the betterment of public health worldwide. Commencing on January 2018, the following research designs have the highest chance of being published in our journal:

1) Meta-analyses

2) Randomized Controlled Trials

3) Prospective Cohort studies

4) Systematic-reviews with high impact on great policy makings of health and clinical practice

5) Matched case-control studies

6) Rare and unique Case-Reports, and those case-reports with high value in education of clinical science

2. Manuscript preparation:

The "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals" is incorporated into our review and publication process. Please visit http://www.icmje.org for more details. You are encouraged to prepare the reference section of the manuscript using the standard introduced by URM. Please click here to download the template of the manuscript. Authors should use the template to prepare their manuscript, especially the font, the size of the font, list of authors, references, acknowledgment section, and other instructions in the template file. The authors are advised to use the standard checklists for presenting their research. A list of supporting documents for CONSORT 2010 (Randomized Controlled Trials), CARE checklist (case reports), PRISMA checklist, STROBE, STARD, MOOSE and SPIRIT checklists are available here.

3. Research ethics and publication ethics:

Electronic Physician is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Electronic Physician has zero tolerance for academic misconduct, including "Duplicate Publication," "Salami Publication," "Plagiarism", "Fake Submissions", "Ghost Authorship", "Fabrication of Data", and "Fake External Reviewer Suggestions". All manuscripts are investigated thoroughly regarding any potential unethical conduct. All of the required documents about the research (clinical trial registration ID, research ethics approval, authorization letter for publishing case reports, etc.) are required. Regarding the plagiarism, all submissions will be checked for potential copy-paste jobs using iThenticate. 

All the procedures in studies on human must be in conformity with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the local Human Research Ethics Committee. Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals). Authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms). Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative). The researchers must obtain informed consent from all participants (or their parents in the case of pediatrics research).

4. References:

References should be written in compliance with the ‘Citing Medicine, 2nd edition: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers’ published by National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (Aailable from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256 ). Some authors do not use correct abbreviations for journals. Please use the abbreviations of the titles of journals in the reference section. For more information, visit the ISSN website at http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php and the National Library of Medicine at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/ (Look at the appendix section of that page for abbreviation of journals) for further details. The correct abbreviations for journals also can be found at the journals’ websites. Please add PubMed PMID (or PubMed central PMCID) of articles (if the references appear in Pubmed), and add the digital object identifier (DOI) or the URL (in the DOI system) if the reference has a DOI. Visit the following link to search the PMIDs and DOIs of articles: http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery (This link provides doi for those journal articles that use CrossRef doi service, therefore there are many articles with DOI, but not available on Crossref).

5. Expected time required for the peer-review process:

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

6. Language of Journal Articles:

6.1. English editing:

The manuscripts submitted to Electronic Physician should be written in English. All accepted manuscripts must go under advanced English editing by native editors from USA or Britain (such as AJE: https://www.aje.com, Editage https://www.editage.com, and MehrPub: http://www.mehrpublishing.com). The authors can use the editing service of any native language editor of their choice. Native English editors proofread and grammar check the manuscripts and perform the highest quality of advanced copy editing and re-writing of sentences and paragraphs to ensure that their meaning is clear and professional in tone.

Since Native English editors provide numerous comments to the authors, we consider the editing step as the final reviewers' comments before preparing the pre-publication version of the manuscripts. The authors will find English editors' comments, suggestions, and corrections to be very valuable guidance for appropriate scientific writing for academic journals. Thus, our authors can use the skills they learn during this step to their own advantage in writing future manuscripts. 

7. Conflict of Interest (COI):

All submissions must be accompanied by a completed Conflict of Interest (COI) form. 

The COI form is available at: http://www.ephysician.ir/tasavir/ConflictOfInterestForm.pdf  

8. Publication fee:

Publishing in this journal is free of charges for all authors from low and middle income countries (more than 90% of our authors). Also, authors from high income countries are eligible to apply for 20-80% discount. Click here to read more about our new scheme for a waiver of the publication fee.

9. Withdrawal policy:

In general, and as we stated on the Cover Letter Template, submitting author confirms that the submitted manuscript cannot be withdrawn by author without agreement of the journal. Submitting author may request manuscript withdrawal before initiating the peer-review process, normally within 3 days of submission. Such application will be considered immediately without asking any reason. During review process, the author may withdraw the manuscript by providing a compelling ethical reason. Manuscript withdrawn will not be allowed for the accepted manuscript (whether published galley/early version or not). We don’t allow authors to play an unethical game of withdrawing the article after acceptance to submit in another journal/publication and waste precious editorial and reviewer resources. 

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We recommend our authors to read the following carefully before submitting the manuscripts:

1. Manuscripts are accepted on condition that they have not been previously published or submitted for publication, and are not going to be sent to other journals. This restriction does not apply to works published in a form of abstracts or summaries. The "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals" is incorporated into our review and publication process. All of the submissions should meet the highest standards of publication ethics, which are: 1) Manuscripts should only report results that have not been submitted or published before, even in part, 2) Manuscripts must be original and should not reuse text from another source without appropriate citation, 3) For biological studies, the studies reported should have been carried out in accordance with generally accepted ethical research standards.

2. After admin processing, the corresponding author will receive a Manuscript ID Number. All of the manuscripts are subject to be under Review process. Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers). However, if a manuscript does not meet the minimum requirements (such as poor language, unclear methods, inappropriate presentation of the findings, inappropriate research design), the manuscript is subject to "Immediate Rejection" within 1-2 weeks after submission.

3. Final decision on an article will be made by Editorial Boards after consideration of reviewers' evaluation. Possible decisions on a manuscript are: accept as is, minor revision, major revision, or reject; however, no one of the manuscripts have been accepted "as is" during our ten years of publishing.

4. Constructive reviewers' comments: All of the accepted manuscripts receive constructive reviewers' comments from our editorial office. Being constructive is one of the main features of peer-review process in Electronic physician. Our authors can consider the constructive reviewers comments as an educational class to improve the quality of the manuscript and they acquire new skills and knowledge that can use it to perform their future research in higher standards and quality of the methods and validity of the findings.

6. This journal is a member of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows their flowcharts and guidelines for ethical publication of the medical research. The journal is also a member of World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

 

Editorial workflow and review system in Electronic Physician Journal

Step 1. Manuscript submission

This means that the author of the paper submits the article to the journal. The authors should not ask others to submit the manuscript on their behalf. The authors should state their contribution to the work (the research proposal or idea, the research design, analysis, and writing or revising the manuscript) at the time of submission. Please refer to the criteria of authorship provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on this link: http://www.icmje.org , and clearly state the individual contribution of each author in the cover letter.

Authors are required to submit three files, i.e., a cover letter, the manuscript, and a completed conflict of interest (COI) form. Please visit the section “Instruction for authors/ authors’ guidelines”, on our website for further information and to download the COI form and a sample cover letter. The authors need to attach a copy of ethical approval of the study for original works, and a letter from the hospital / university that clearly states the author is allowed to publish the results of a specific patient (for case reports). The clinical trials must be registered and received a unique clinical trial registration ID. The authors are invited to follow the standards of reporting biomedical research such as those recommended by National Library of Medicine (NLM), CONSORT check list, COREQ, PRISMA, CARE checfklist, SPIRITS checklist, STARD, STROBE statement. please click here to read and use the Research Reporting Guidelines and Supporting Documents for Authors.

An automated manuscript submission and review system is available on the website. Any authors who are not familiar with online manuscript submissions may submit their manuscripts by email, and we will add the manuscripts to the automated system. The journal is switching to the new manuscript submission system (Scholar One, a product of Clarivate Analytics). So, until the next update (around June 2019), the authors are required to submit the manuscripts only by email. However, our previous online submission system is still available . For more information about manuscript submission please click here.

 

Step 2. Acknowledgments of submission

By online submission system, the authors are notified of their submission automatically upon successful submission. By email submission, the author(s) will receive an email from the editorial office referring to the manuscript number and acknowledging receipt of the manuscript within 1-3 days.

If the acknowledgement email from the editorial office has not been received within one week, authors should contact us mentioning their email address, their names, and the title of manuscript.

 

Step 3: Review sessions

In this step, the editor will send the manuscript to the expert reviewers; however, the authors should suggest external reviewers to be considered for reviewing the submission. Manuscripts submitted to Electronic Physician are reviewed by at least three experts, and the number of experts who reviewed any manuscript is clearly stated on the first page of all of our published papers. Reviewers evaluate the quality of the manuscripts for: Originality/Novelty, Significance, Quality of Presentation, Scientific Soundness, Interest to the Readers, Overall Merit, and English Level. 

In our experience, most of the delays in peer review arise from inadequate communication between the associate editors of academic journals and the reviewers. Sometimes the invited reviewers forget to check their email or may not have time to open emails identified as “Invitation for manuscript review.” Sometimes, they do not inform the journal’s editors concerning whether or not they plan to review the manuscript. Sometimes, they agree to review a manuscript and forget to do so or do not provide their review comments in a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, beginning in December 2014, Electronic Physician Journal planned a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for its peer-review system.

In the new system, if a reviewer does not respond within 1-2 weeks to the invitation to provide a review, someone from editorial office will call them by phone to ask if they received the invitation and whether they plan to provide a review or not. 

We ask all reviewers to perform their reviews as soon as possible, preferably within 2-6 weeks. However, we understand that, sometimes, reviewers will require additional time. In any case, members of our editorial office will contact the reviewers weekly to ensure that the reviews are received in the shortest possible time.

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

At Electronic Physician Journal, we do more than inform authors that their manuscripts have been accepted or rejected or simply ask the authors some questions about the manuscripts. While we do all of the routine reviews that other peer-reviewed journals do, we also have a higher level review system that provides authors some educational hints on the reviewers’ comments. Authors can use the reviewers’ comments and suggestions as well as the educational hints that we will provide to improve the quality of their manuscripts.

In this way, authors who wish to publish their manuscripts in Electronic Physician Journal will have access to useful guidance on research methodology, applied statistics, scientific writing, and research ethics, allowing them to organize their manuscripts in keeping with the highest standards. The review sessions will be more constructive and add value to each author’s manuscript, the review sessions also might generate some additional ideas that our authors may wish to consider in their future research. On that basis, we wish to introduce our new motto, ‘Excellence in Constructive Peer Review.’ 

 

Review procedure for manuscripts of our editorial board members

Please note that Editorial Board Members (EBM) does not have any advantage in publishing their own manuscripts on our journal. 

Our policy for EBM-authored articles is the same as other submissions, which is the fair blinded peer-review as transparent and rigorous as possible; so reviewer doesn't know the identity of the author, and vice-versa. To minimize any potential bias in the review process, we follow the advice of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) that clearly suggests “having another associate editor handle the peer review procedure independently of the editor”. In reviewing manuscripts submitted by one of our editors we deliberately exclude the editor in question from all aspects of the review process. 

We believe that our policy is fair to other authors competing for journal space and to our editors and their colleagues. As a publisher of medical research, we strive to be thorough and honest to maintain standards for the peer-review system of our journal and to protect it from any potential / systematic abuse by anyone, including our editorial board members.

 

Step 4: Initial result of submission

After the first round of review, the manuscript may be rejected or accepted with minor or major revisions. It is possible that we also could accept a manuscript without revision, but this has never happened in the last 10 years. Thus, manuscripts that are initially accepted must be revised by the author(s) based on the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.

 

Step 5. Publication fee

Publishing in this journal is free of charges for all authors from low and middle income countries (more than 90% of our authors). Also, authors from high income countries are eligible to apply for 20-80% discount.  Click here to read more about our new scheme for a waiver of the publication fee.

 

Step 6. Screening the manuscript against plagiarism

In this step, iThenticate is used to check the manuscript for similarity index and probable plagiarism. The author will receive the report of iThenticate and the similarity index, and, if required, the author must paraphrase some sentences and paragraphs in the manuscript to make it plagiarism free. The journal may conduct plagiarism screening during any step in the review process.

 

Step 7. English editing

The manuscripts submitted to Electronic Physician should be written in English. All accepted manuscripts must go under advanced English editing by native editors from USA or Britain (such as AJE: https://www.aje.com, Editage https://www.editage.com, and MehrPub: http://www.mehrpublishing.com). The authors can use the editing service of any native language editor of their choice. Native English editors proofread and grammar check the manuscripts and perform the highest quality of advanced copy editing and re-writing of sentences and paragraphs to ensure that their meaning is clear and professional in tone. Native English editors proofread and grammar check the manuscripts and perform the highest quality of advanced copy editing and re-writing of sentences and paragraphs to ensure that their meaning is clear and professional in tone.

Since Native English editors provide numerous comments to the authors, we consider the editing step as the final reviewers' comments before preparing the pre-publication version of the manuscripts. The authors will find English editors' comments, suggestions, and corrections to be very valuable guidance for appropriate scientific writing for academic journals. Thus, our authors can use the skills they learn during this step to their own advantage in writing future manuscripts. 

 

Step 8. Galley proof

After revising the manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and the English editor’s input, the final pre-publication version of the manuscript will be prepared and sent to the author(s) for final checking and approval. 

 

Step 9. Publication of paper

After receiving the final approval from the author(s), a digital object identifier (DOI) will be assigned to the article, and it will be sent for final layout design and publication.