Manuscript Submission Overview

Types of Publications

AHFE Proceedings has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. AHFE Proceedingsrequires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible.

Manuscripts submitted should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another Journal or Proceedings. The main article types are as follows:

Submission Process

Manuscripts should be submitted online at journal-cms.org. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. 

To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website. Once you have registered, click here to go to the submission form for AHFE Open Access. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system, if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.

For inquires or more information, please send email to [email protected]

Accepted File Formats

Authors must use the Microsoft Word template to prepare their manuscript. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. The total amount of data for all files must not exceed 100 MB. If this is a problem, please contact the Editorial Office [email protected]. Accepted file formats are:

Disclaimer: Usage of these templates is exclusively intended for submission to the Proceedings for peer-review, and strictly limited to this purpose and it cannot be used for posting online on preprint servers or other websites.

Cover Letter

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the Proceedings. Confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another Proceedings. Any prior submissions of the manuscript to AHFE Proceedingss must be acknowledged. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.

Author Biography

Authors are encouraged to add a biography (maximum 100 words) to the submission and publish it. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:

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Manuscript Preparation

General Considerations

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Front Matter

These sections should appear in all manuscript types

Research Manuscript Sections

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Back Matter

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the ACS style guide. Style files for Endnoteand Zoteroare available.

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

Journal Articles:

1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

Books and Book Chapters:

2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.

3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

Unpublished work, submitted work, personal communication:

4. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. status (unpublished; manuscript in preparation).

5. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name stage of publication (under review; accepted; in press).

6. Author 1, A.B. (University, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Institute, City, State, Country). Personal communication, Year.

Conference Proceedings:

7. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).

Thesis:

8. Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.

Websites:

9. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).

Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:

10. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

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Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

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Supplementary Materials, Data Deposit and Software Source Code

AHFE Research Data Policies

AHFE is committed to supporting open scientific exchange and enabling our authors to achieve best practices in sharing and archiving research data. We encourage all authors of articles published in AHFE Proceedingss to share their research data. Data sharing policies concern the minimal dataset that supports the central findings of a published study. Generated data should be publicly available and cited in accordance with Proceedings guidelines.

AHFE data policies are maintained. Where ethical, legal or privacy issues are present, data should not be shared. The authors should make any limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement upon submission. Authors should ensure that data shared are in accordance with consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data.

Data Availability Statements provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study.

Below are suggested Data Availability Statements:

Data citation:

Computer Code and Software

For work where novel computer code was developed, authors should release the code either by depositing in a recognized, public repository or uploading as supplementary information to the publication. The name and version of all software used should be clearly indicated.

Supplementary Material

Additional data and files can be uploaded as "Supplementary Files" during the manuscript submission process. The supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable, however we recommend that common, non-proprietary formats are used where possible.

Unpublished Data

Restrictions on data availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. "Data not shown" should be avoided: authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as Supplementary Material. "Unpublished data" intended for publication in a manuscript that is either planned, "in preparation" or "submitted" but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text and a reference should be added in the References section. "Personal Communication" should also be cited in the text and reference added in the References section. (see also the AHFE reference list and citations style guide).

Remote Hosting and Large Data Sets

Data may be deposited with specialized service providers or institutional/subject repositories, preferably those that use the DataCite mechanism. Large data sets and files greater than 60 MB must be deposited in this way. For a list of other repositories specialized in scientific and experimental data, please consult databib.org or re3data.org. The data repository name, link to the data set (URL) and accession number, doi or handle number of the data set must be provided in the paper. The Proceedings also accepts submissions of data set papers.

References in Supplementary Files

Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the reference list of the main text.

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Research and Publication Ethics

Research Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to an AHFE Proceedings. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. 

You may provide a detailed justification of why informed consent is not necessary. For the purposes of publishing in AHFE Proceedingss, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The Proceedings reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

Borders and Territories

Potential disputes over borders and territories may have particular relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address, and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved.

AHFE stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Publication Ethics Statement

We fully adhere to Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines.

The editors of this Proceedings enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of AHFE take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in AI must abide to the following:

Citation Policy

Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.

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Reviewer Suggestions

During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide detailed contact information (address, homepage, phone, e-mail address). The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. You may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the Proceedings as potential reviewers. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper.

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English Corrections

To facilitate proper peer-reviewing of your manuscript, it is essential that it is submitted in grammatically correct English. 

If you are not a native English speaker, we recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague. This can be carried out by AHFE's English editing service. Professional editing will enable reviewers and future readers to more easily read and assess the content of submitted manuscripts. All accepted manuscripts undergo language editing, however an additional fee will be charged to authors if very extensive English corrections must be made by the Editorial Office: pricing is according to the service as shown below:

Specialist Edit: Includes all features of the Regular Edit, followed by a check of subject-specific terms and style by an expert in your research field. Completed within 6 business days. ($199 per manuscript up to 22 Pages)

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Preprints and Conference Papers

AHFEaccepts submissions that have previously been made available as preprints provided that they have not undergone peer review. A preprint is a draft version of a paper made available online before submission to a Proceedings.

AHFE operates Preprints, a preprint server to which submitted papers can be uploaded directly after completing article submission. Note that Preprintsoperates independently of the Proceedings and posting a preprint does not affect the peer review process. Check the Preprintsinstructions for authors for further information.

Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper. AHFE does not publish pilot studies or studies with inadequate statistical power.Unpublished conference papers that do not meet the above conditions are recommended to be submitted to the Proceedings series.

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Authorship

AHFE follows the International Committee of Medical Editors guidelines which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed:

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the AHFE International Editors. 

Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

Reviewers Recommendation

Authors can recommend potential reviewers. Journal editors will check to make sure there are no conflicts of interest before contacting those reviewers, and will not consider those with competing interests. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest. Authors can also enter the names of potential peer reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer review of their manuscript, during the initial submission progress. The editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

Editorial Independence

Lack of Interference With Editorial Decisions

Editorial independence is of utmost importance and AHFE does not interfere with editorial decisions. All articles published by AHFE are peer reviewed and assessed by our independent editorial boards, and AHFE staff are not involved in decisions to accept manuscripts. When making an editorial decision, we expect the academic editor to make their decision based only upon:

In all of our journals, in every aspect of operation, AHFE policies are informed by the mission to make science and research findings open and accessible as widely and rapidly as possible.

Editors and Editorial Staff as Authors

Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in processing their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their own work submitted to any AHFE journals.

Conflict of Interests

According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose.”

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process. Declarations regarding conflicts of interest can also be collected via the AHFE disclosure form. The corresponding author must include a summary statement in the manuscript in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflict of interest disclosures in the form.

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chiefor Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A single-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board Membersand Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past five years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews and communications published in AHFE go through  blind peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The in-house editor will communicate the decision of the academic editor, which will be one of the following:

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.

Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editorof the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The academic Editor being consulted will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

In the case of a special issue, the Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chiefwho will be asked to give an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage will be final and cannot be reversed.

Production and Publication

Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final corrections, pagination, and, publication on the www.journal.ahfe.org
website.

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Promoting Equity, Diversity and Inclusiveness Within AHFE Journals

Our Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of AHFE journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

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