Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health
Journal / Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health / About the Journal

 

Publisher

The Ethiopian Pediatric Society.

Sources of Support

http://ejol.ethernet.edu.et/

Peer Review

1. Overview of the EJPCH editorial policy

EJPCH is an open-access journal dedicated to the advancement of science, discovery, and health care in the area of pediatrics, child health, and related issues. It is the official organ of the Ethiopian Pediatrics Society It is a bi-annual journal that publishes issues in January and July, with both online at http://ejpch.net/index.php/ejpch (eISSN2519-0334) and print versions available (ISSN2413-2640).  EJPCH endorses the national journal accreditation guideline of Ethiopia and other international guidelines including the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) editorial policy. By default, authors submitting a manuscript to EJPCH are assumed to have read and agreed to the journal editorial. EJPCH online publications are open access and can be fully accessible under CC BY 4.0 public copyright licenses.

1. Manuscript review procedures

To ensure the best possible publication quality and hence reputation, the journal will subject all submissions to an independent rigorous review by a minimum of two reviewers for Original Articles before making a decision on acceptance or rejection. EJPCH follows the double-blind review system for review processes. The Editorial Board will guide as well as oversee the quality of the review of submitted manuscripts, including the identification of the qualified expertise and acceptance or rejection of a contribution that falls under the sole discretion of the Editorial Board. In addition, the Editorial Board will implement the utmost effective, efficient, and objective possible review system. Likewise, the Editorial Board will adhere to the fundamental ethical principles throughout the review process. Detail review form template prepared to remind all scientific and format contents of the manuscript shall be sent to the reviewers with the manuscript. 

The procedures for manuscripts review include:

Within one week of receiving a manuscript, the Editorial Board will review it in reference to (i) conformity with the journal’s style and format according to guidelines to authors (http://ejpch.net/index.php/ejpch/about/submissions#authorGuidelines) (ii) relevance of the article to the scope of the EJPCH, (iii) clarity of presentation, and (iv) anti-plagiarism software.

The Editorial Board has three options when it comes to manuscripts; accept manuscripts for external review, return them to the author for revision, or reject them. A manuscript not accepted by a board member is blindly reviewed by another board member. If not accepted by both, the manuscript is rejected by Editorial Board. A decision will be made by the suggestion of a third Editorial Board member if the decisions of the first two do not concur. The Editor in Chief manages the manuscripts review process for papers submitted by any of the editorial board members or editors.

When a manuscript is accepted for external review, the Editorial Board identifies one (for Brief communication, Case reports, and teaching articles) or two reviewers (for original articles, protocol, or review article) with appropriate expertise. The reviewers will be asked to review and return manuscripts with their comments online within two weeks of their receipt. Reviewers have four options; accept, accept with major revision, Accept with minor revision or reject. During the peer-review process, all EJPCH reviewers are obliged to adhere to the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

A manuscript accepted subject to revision as suggested by reviewers will be returned to the corresponding author. The author(s) will have four weeks to respond to reviewers’ comments, make all necessary changes, and return the manuscript to the Editorial Board. The Editorial board with clear and accept manuscripts with minor revisions. Those with major revisions will be sent to external reviewers, who will follow the same procedures as outlined for the initial review.

General information

• The Editorial Board reserves the final decision on whether to accept, reject, or correct papers submitted.
• Accepted papers are subject to Editorial revisions as required and become the copy-right of the EPS.

The first/corresponding author receives twenty-five complimentary reprints of published articles.

• The Editorial Board encourages Journal readers to provide comments on the guidelines..

III.         Galley Proof:

Galley Proofreading is a standard requirement for being able to address potential editing and type errors. The time limit for Galley Proof review and revision is 98 hours or one week. The Corresponding Author will be solely responsible for ensuring that this condition is met.

1. Authorship

Before submitting of the manuscript to EJPCH, authors need to clear the authorship roles and acknowledgments upon merit right. The Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health will require optimal ethical fulfillment of research processes and hence thereof products subject to possible publication. Likewise, a prior declaration of possible conflict of interest of the author(s) is a standard requirement. An “author” is someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. For anyone listed as the author of any manuscript submitted to EJPCH, ALL FOUR of the following criteria shall require to be met:

1. Substantial contribution(s) to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. Final approval of the version to be published, and
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

NOTE: Authorship can not be established solely on basis of funding, data collecting, or general supervision of the research group.

1. Uniformity of the Standard of Practice

The Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health shall adhere to uniformly applied standards of practice, including formats and style, that Contributing Author(s) must meet when submitting a contribution.

1. Ethical Standard

Human and Animal Participants and Registration of Clinical Trials.

For manuscripts submitted to the Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee should approve the conduction of the studies. A brief description of the ethics committees approving the conduction of the study should be included. For all experiments involving human participants, information about the securing of informed consent should be included or whenever there is the exemption of ethics approval, the reason for the exemption shall be explained and the decision by the official IRB should be included in the manuscript under ethical consideration section. All experiments conducted on humans must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' policy and trial information should be deposited into the accepted clinical trial registry before the onset of patient enrollment and the registry name and registration number should be included on the title page. For animal studies, authors must report the species, strain, sex, and age of the animals.

Allegations of Misconduct. 

Suspected errors and allegations of misconduct will be investigated with absolute confidentiality, following the procedures provided in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts. Please be aware that all investigations are confidential. For any error identified or misconduct that happened, the journal will try to correct it with erratum or retraction if the condition is severe enough. The final decision will be subjected to the editor-in-chief of the journal. Investigations that result in no error or misconduct found will not be publicized.

VII. Privacy Statement

EJPCH may collect and use personal information that is necessary for the processing and publication of manuscripts submitted to us. This information may include names, affiliations, and contact details; including postal addresses, emails, phone numbers, and fax numbers. Any personal information received by EJPCH will be used solely to process and publish the manuscripts and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

VII. Conflict of Interest

EJPCH adheres to the policy and uses the standardized disclosure form of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The corresponding author must include a statement regarding the conflict of interest and should disclose any possible conflict of interest when submitting of the manuscript,. The author/s should declare that there is no conflict of interest that could jeopardize the impartiality of the research reported, or clearly declare any financial or other potential conflicts of interest.

1. Copyright privileges:

Papers that have already been accepted for publication in the Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics will automatically become Journal’s copyright which Contributing Authors must clear by completing and signing the Copyright Form in accordance with Journal’s copyright policy before actual publication.

1. Reprints:

Upon publication of the corresponding contribution, a limit of 25 reprints of the specific issue will get supplied to the Corresponding Author.

1. Retention policy:

The Editorial Board reserves the right to retain manuscripts that have been rejected.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

In accordance with our Open Data policy, the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver applies to all published data in Ethiop J Pediatr Child Health open access articles.

Publication Scheduling

This journal publishes twice a year.

General

The journal does not charge subscription fees, does not allow advertising, and/or does not charge article processing fees. The journal publication cost is covered by the Ethiopian Pediatric Society, which is the sole publisher of the Journal.