BJGP editorial process & policies

Articles are considered on the basis of quality and originality alone. The professional background of the authors (and whether or not they are RCGP Members) is of no importance. Priority is given to research articles asking questions of direct relevance to patient care.

BJGP is published by RCGP, based in the UK, but has complete editorial independence. Opinions expressed in BJGP should not be taken to represent the policy of RCGP unless specifically stated.

 

Authorship

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This will be all those who have made a substantial contribution to the concept and design, conduct, analysis, or writing up of a study. Normally we would not expect to list more than 12 authors.

Authors of research articles will be required to provide details of their individual contributions to the work on submission of the revised version of the article (following peer review). The data will not be published.

Contributions are expected to fall into at least two of the following categories:

  • conceiving and designing the study
  • obtaining funding and/or ethical approval
  • collecting the data
  • analysing the data
  • interpreting the data
  • writing the report (wholly or in part)
  • revising the report

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content relevant to their own contribution. We do not require all authors to sign the initial letter accompanying submission but all authors must sign the declaration form sent with the Editor’s response at the conclusion of peer review.

In addition, at least one author should be designated as the guarantor for the integrity of the data on which the article is based. This will normally be the author for correspondence.

Submission of articles

Please address a covering letter to the Editor, briefly explaining why your submission is likely to be of interest to the BJGP and of importance to its readership. This is an opportunity to highlight the novelty and likely impact of your research. If there has been previous discussion or email correspondence about the submission please remind the Editor about this.

It is not essential that the first submission conform to these instructions in every particular. However, where there are obvious major breaches (for instance, if your article is much longer than recommended) it may be rejected without being sent out for peer review.

Normally, we only insist on strict adherence to submission guidelines in revised files. The Editor's letter will provide instructions to help you achieve this.

Feedback on your submission

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to comment on anything that has not been formally submitted, unless it concerns an Editorial or a Clinical Practice article.

Authors considering submitting an editorial should either contact the Editor via the BJGP office and discuss it, or email an outline to journal@rcgp.org.uk so that we can advise you whether it is likely to be welcomed, and whether someone else is already working on that topic

Processing submitted articles

All articles are screened by the Editor. Any that are unlikely to be accepted, whatever the result of peer review, are rejected at this stage. The grounds for rejection at this stage are usually either:

  • a major flaw in the design
  • the work falls outside the BJGP remit

Since the grounds for rejection are so clear, it is not possible to appeal against a decision at this stage. Each year the BJGP Editorial Board reviews a sample of screening decisions to ensure that this policy is being followed consistently.

Plagiarism

As a member of CrossRef, BJGP uses Similarity Check, a plagiarism detection tool, which enables us to screen articles on submission, to ensure that all content is original.

Preprints

A preprint is a scholarly paper that is posted on a public server prior to formal peer review and BJGP will consider for review articles that have been made previously available as preprints on non-commercial servers, such as medRxiv.

BJGP does not consider preprints in dedicated preprint repositories to be prior publication. BJGP also places no restrictions on the licence chosen when posting a preprint, however authors must retain copyright of their work when posting to a preprint server

On submission to BJGP, authors should disclose that a version of the paper has been deposited in a preprint server and must include a link or DOI to the preprint.

Following publication of the article in BJGP we request that authors to update their preprint with a link to the version of record on BJGP and include the new article DOI.

Preprints should not be used for clinical decision making or reporting of research to a lay audience without indicating that it is preliminary research that has not been peer-reviewed.

Editorial standards

You will be sent a formal acknowledgement of your initial submission whether or not the article is likely to be accepted for publication.

Most articles require some form of revision, and we ask you to submit the revised version within 2 months of receiving the Editor’s letter. We aim to respond to revised submissions within 2 weeks.

Peer review

BJGP operates an open peer review system, so the identities of the authors and reviewers are known to each other. Articles are assessed according to clearly-defined criteria. We advise authors to view these criteria before submitting an article.

We aim to have reviewers’ comments back in the BJGP journal office within 2 weeks of receipt of the article, and to give authors an initial decision about acceptance within a further 2 weeks.

Transfers to BJGP Open

We now have the facility to automatically transfer articles to BJGP Open that we are unable to accept in BJGP. During the submission process we will request that you confirm whether you are happy for your manuscript to be transferred to BJGP Open if it is rejected at any point during the submission or peer review process. If you agree, all versions of the article and its supporting files will be transferred for consideration in BJGP Open if appropriate, and you will be notified by email if the transfer has occurred.

The standard peer review and decision-making process will then follow in BJGP Open. The article processing charge for publication in BJGP Open is £1000 (plus VAT where applicable).

Appeal

If your article has been rejected and you feel that a mistake has been made, you can appeal. Write to the Editor within 2 months of receiving the Editor’s decision, setting out where you think the reviewers’ reviews or the Editor’s letter is incorrect.

At this stage, you must not make any revisions to take account of reviewers’ comments. The appeal process will go ahead if a reviewer or the Editor could have made a mistake with the technical aspects of a study, misinterpreted some aspect of the article, or if bias could have entered into the reviewers’ comments. The process is unlikely to be used where an article has been rejected on the basis of editorial policy.

If the Editor feels that there are grounds for challenging the original decision, the views of the Editorial Board will be sought and the article may be sent out to a new reviewer. The Editor will be guided by this reviewer’s report. Reviewers used in the appeal process will usually be members of the Editorial Board. Appeal reviewers will be sent a copy of the appeal letter and the previous reviews.

The final decision will be made with reference to the following criteria:

  • the article is new, innovative, representing a discovery
  • it is timely or interesting
  • it is methodologically sound
  • the quality of analysis and data presentation
  • the conclusions warranted
  • the quality of discussion, analysis, and writing; and
  • the importance and impact

Author accepted manuscripts

BJGP now publishes an Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) ahead of the full publication of a Research article. The AAM is the final version of the manuscript accepted by the journal following changes made during peer review, but before typesetting, subediting, and correction. An AAM will have the same DOI as the final, fully published article, meaning that the article can be cited as soon as its AAM is posted online. If you do not want your article to be published first as an AAM, please notify the journal office by email.

We require confirmation that the author has permission to include any third-party content in their manuscript.

If you are required to submit a revised version of your manuscript with tracked changes, you will also be asked to provide a ‘clean’ copy as a supplementary file not for review. If this is not provided, the tracked changes version will form the AAM. The author(s) retain(s) copyright and responsibility for the content of the AAM.

Errors discovered and corrected during the subediting process may materially alter the content of the manuscript, and the latest published version (the Version of Record) should be used in preference to any preceding versions (such as the AAM).

Fast tracking

As a monthly journal, BJGP cannot usually respond to requests to ‘fast track’ articles. However, the Editor has discretion to move articles upwards in the queue if there are good reasons to do so. Authors must supply compelling arguments to accelerate their article in the covering letter to the Editor and mark the article ‘urgent’.

Publication of articles

All articles and letters are accepted subject to copy editing, which may be considerable. Proofs of articles are sent to authors who are asked to check them for errors and return them promptly.

However, the exact month of publication can be decided only when all the articles have been returned and collated with other sections of BJGP. We aim to publish all Research articles online first ahead of print publication.

Offprints are available on request. Contact us for details of availability and pricing.

Principal authors who are not RCGP Members will be sent a complimentary copy of the issue in which their article appears. To purchase additional copies, contact:

Turpin Distribution on +44 (0) 1767 60 4951 or at custserv@turpin-distribution.com

Copyright

Authors of articles assign copyright to BJGP when they return the proofs (see below for open access arrangements). With non-open access articles, authors may use minor parts (up to 15 per cent) of their own work after publication without seeking written permission, provided they acknowledge the original source. We would, however, be grateful for notice of when and where such material has been reproduced. Authors retain the right to post the accepted version of the article on a secure network (not accessible to the public) within their institution.

Authors may not reproduce substantial parts of their own material without written consent. However, requests to reproduce material are welcomed and consent is usually given. Individuals may photocopy articles for educational purposes without obtaining permission, up to a maximum of 25 copies in total over any period of time. You should seek permission to reproduce an article for any other purpose. See the Get Permissions link, on the right navigation, on each article page.

Open access publication

The BJGP operates an open access publication policy for research papers. We make accepted papers freely available where the funder of the research has agreed to pay for open access publication, and the authors can claim the Article Processing Charge (APC). Payment of APCs and open access publication do not affect the Journal's usual peer review processes.

Many funders such as the Research Councils, the National Institute for Health Research, the Wellcome Foundation and some major charities now require authors to make their research available through open access, and the costs of the APCs are included in research funding applications. The APC for the BJGP has been set at £2000 (plus VAT where applicable) and refunds will not normally be issued. Payment for this transaction will be processed by PayPal. We do not store credit card details not do we share financial details with 3rd parties. Open access not only allows free publication of publicly funded research to everyone, but also enables it to be shared and re-used with minimal restrictions.

Authors of open access articles retain copyright. Open access articles are published under a Creative Commons licence that allows reuse and to the article being fully attributed. The default license type is CC BY 4.0. The articles are fully available on publication via the BJGP website and are also sent to PubMed Central, where they are also made fully available. The BJGP also offers open access publication, using the same mechanisms, to any author wishing to pay the APC, irrespective of the source of funding for the research. Authors may self-archive their articles without seeking permission, however please acknowledge the source and link to the final published version, and label the article CC BY 4.0 where applicable. Please contact us if you would like further information on open access, including discounts and waivers.

Research Excellence Framework

The UK Higher Education funding bodies state that outputs accepted from 1 April 2018 must be deposited in an institutional or subject repository within 3 months of the date of acceptance and the policy allows repositories to respect embargo periods set by publications. All BJGP content is deposited in PubMed Central on publication of an issue with an embargo period of 12 months (unless published under the Open Access licenses CC BY 4.0). The UK Higher Education funding bodies state that where a publication specifies an embargo period, such as 12 months, authors can comply with the policy by making a ‘closed’ deposit. Closed deposits must be discoverable by anyone with an Internet connection before the full text becomes available to read and download (which will occur after the embargo period has elapsed). If still under embargo at the submission date of the next REF, closed deposits will be admissible to the REF. This means that the BJGP is compliant with the requirements of the REF. In addition to this, as stated under Copyright authors retain the right to post the accepted version of the article on a secure network (not accessible to the public) within their institution, during the 12-month embargo period. After the 12-month embargo period has elapsed the full content can be made publicly available.

Contact BJGP

BJGP Journal Office
Royal College of General Practitioners
30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB
Tel: 020 3188 7400 / Fax: 020 3188 7401
E-mail: journal@rcgp.org.uk

 

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