SCOPE
SEAJME is a means for communication among medical educators as well as others who are interested in medical education. The journal welcomes articles addressing areas in medical education such as curriculum design,
teaching methods,
student assessment,
programme evaluation, etc.
The journal also publishes articles reviewing state of the art information as well as articles offering perspectives in education. Articles are accepted on the basis of the originality and novelty of their findings.
TERMS OF AGREEMENT
Points to consider before submission
Submissions are accepted on the understanding that they have not been published in their current form or a substantially similar form (in print or electronically, including on a web site), that they have not been accepted for publication elsewhere, and they are not under consideration by another publication.
Conflicts of interest
Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should be explicitly stated. All sources of funding should be acknowledged.
Permissions to reproduce previously published material
Authors should include with their submission copies of written permission to reproduce material published elsewhere (such as illustrations) from the copyright holder.
Subject consent forms
Subjects have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying details (written or photographic) should be omitted. Details regarding obtained informed consent should be indicated in the published article.
Ethics committee approval
All authors must declare that the research was conducted within the guidelines below and under the terms of all relevant local legislation.
Authorship
All authors must confirm that they have met the criteria for authorship as established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, that they believe that the paper represents honest work, and that they are able to verify the validity of the results reported.
Copyright assignment
Papers are accepted for publication on the understanding that exclusive copyright in the paper is assigned to the Publisher. Authors are asked to sign a copyright transfer form to accompany their submission.
The journal encourages the submission of papers by e-mail with attached file. For those authors who have no option but to submit by mail, please send one copy of your article together with an electronic version on disk or CD-ROM to,
Medical Education Development And Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, No 25, Kynsey Road, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka.
tel: +94 112 695300 ext 243
e mail : karunathilake@hotmail.com
Please also include a copy of the Author Submission Form, preferably in an electronic form. Manuscripts should be submitted on high quality white paper and on a word-processing disk.
PRESENTATION OF PAPERS
Title page
The title page should carry the full title of the paper (up to 100 characters including spaces) and a short title to be used as a 'running head' (45 characters including spaces). The first name, middle initial and last name of each author should appear. If the work is to be attributed to a department or institution, its full name should be included. The name and address of the author responsible for correspondence should appear on the title page.
Abstracts and key words
The second page should carry an abstract. The length is limited to not more than 250 words. The abstract should be followed by a list of 3-10 keywords or short phrases. When possible, the terms used should be from the Medical Subject Headings list of the Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).
Text
Full papers of an experimental or observational nature may be divided into sections headed Introduction, Methods (including ethical and statistical information), Results, Discussion and a short Conclusion, although reviews may require a different format.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledge only those who have made a substantial contribution to the study. You must obtain written permission from people acknowledged by name.
References
Try to keep the number of references to the minimum. Not more than 30 references are recommended.
Tables
Each table should be typed on a separate page in double spacing. Do not submit tables as photographs. Assign each table an Arabic numeral, e.g. (Table 3), in accordance with order of citation, and a brief title. Do not use vertical rules. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
Illustrations
References to figures and tables should be made in order of appearance in the text and should be in Arabic numerals in parentheses, e.g. (Fig. 2). The format of figure file must be compatible with tif or jpeg.
If you need to submit hard copies, label them clearly with the figure number, the title of the paper, the first author's name and a mark indicating the top of the figure. If photographs of people are used, their identities must be obscured or the picture must be accompanied by written consent to use the photograph. If a figure has been published before, the original source must be acknowledged and written permission obtained from the copyright holder.
MANUSCRIPTS CATEGORIES
Original research papers
A maximum of 3000 words with five tables or figures and 30 references using the Harvard style; all articles must include a structured abstract.
- Review articles
A maximum of 3000 words with 30 references using the Harvard style. All articles must include an abstract.
- Short Communications
Up to 1000 words plus abstract with one table or figure (optional); 5 references
- Letters
A maximum of 400 words in length, including title, text, name and address of author(s), and maximum two references included. Tables and figures are not permitted.
- Country papers
Reports on matters of regional interest, current scope of medical education, innovations and curricular reforms and quality assurance limited to 2000 words with 3 tables or figures and up to 10 references.
- Speaker's corner
Personal viewpoints and debates on controversial issues can be included. Up to 1000 words and 5 references; up to 3 "pull-out" quotations. Tables, figures, and abstract are not permitted.
- Outside the box
Short structured reports of innovations in medical education; 750 words with subheadings; Tables, figures, and abstract are not permitted.
THE REVIEW PROCESS
All articles submitted to the journal will undergo,
- Immediate review by publishing editors to assess compatibility with the house style and format and check for plagiarism (manually and electronically).
- The manuscripts that pass compatibility and plagiarism check will be sent for peer review. The panel of peer reviewers are experts in medical education. A single-blind peer review process will be followed. The reviewer recommendations will be,
| a. |
Accept without changes |
| b. |
Accept without changes |
| c. |
Reject |
| |
If the reviewer recommendation is to reject, manuscript will be sent to a second reviewer. |
The Editorial committee will take the final decision based on reviewer recommendations and inform the corresponding author.
