Author Guidelines

IJVLMS is the official publication of the Virtual School, Comprehensive Center of Excellence for Electronic Learning in Medical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. It is a multidisciplinary journal publishing articles on technology enhanced learning in formal and non-formal education. The journal accepts manuscripts in the form of original research articles, review articles, special reports, brief reports, short communications, news, software article, commentary and letters to the editor.

Manuscript Preparation

• Prior to submission, authors are advised to check the scope of the journal, and carefully read the Publication Ethics and provided guidelines.

• Only original works that have not been submitted or published elsewhere (wholly or in part), will be considered for publication in IJVLMS. They must not be submitted anywhere else until the editorial process is completed.

• Manuscripts must be carefully checked for grammatical, spelling, factual and bibliographical errors. In case English is not your native language then your paper may need to be reviewed in advance, preferably by an academic English-editing service.

• All manuscripts should be submitted through the online submission system. This journal does not charge authors for processing, reviewing and publishing their articles.

• Authors are recommended to use Times New Roman font (size 12) for the body, size 12 bold for subheadings, size 14 for headings and size 14 bold for the title.

Peer Review Process

All submitted manuscripts undergo a preliminary editorial screening to ensure compliance with the journal's guidelines. They will then be subject to a double blind peer review process by at least two external (peer) reviewers.

Authorship

It is incumbent upon the submitting author to ensure the accuracy and inclusion of all contributing authors' names and affiliations upon the original submission. The order of authors should also be decided in this step. Changes or rearrangements in authorship after acceptance and publication are strictly prohibited.

Informed Consent

All patients and participants of the research must be thoroughly informed about the aims and procedures of the study, including the potential risks/benefits of the intervention and exclusion criteria. Written informed consent from the participants or their legal guardians is necessary for any such studies. The Journal reserves the right to request the related documents.

File Submission

The following files must be uploaded during the submission process:

• Manuscript Main File (Without Authors’ Names) contains all parts of the manuscript, and is presented in Microsoft Word (docx) format. To ensure the integrity of the double blind review process, authors' names and affiliations must not be included in this file. For further details on the structure and content of the articles please follow the guidelines for different article types (see below).
• Cover Letter is an official letter addressed to the Chief Editor. In this letter the authors highlight the major findings in their study and confirm their compliance with ethical principles regarding the submission and publication of their article. They must specifically declare that the article is an original work, has not been published before, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere (in part or in whole) either in printed or electronic form.The letter is written by corresponding author and signed by all authors. Click here to download a Microsoft Word template for a standard cover letter.
• Title Page should list:
• Title of the article (should be clear, concise and informative, without any abbreviations).
• Full names of all authors (in order of their contribution) and their affiliations, along with the telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• Word count (excluding title, abstract, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest, references, figures and table legends), and abstract word count.

• Reply to Reviewers is submitted only after the review process. It should be uploaded as a separate document. Authors need to reply each reviewer’s comments one by one. In order to better clarify their points, authors can write both the reviewers’ comments and their own replies one by one.

Example:

Q: [reviewer's first question]

R: [author's first reply]

Please note that the revised parts in the main manuscript file must also be highlighted. Authors may find it useful to specify the pages and line numbers of these highlighted parts in their replies.

Article Types

Before submitting your manuscripts, please click on the links below to read the general instructions for different article types: 

Research Article               Review Article

Special Report                  Letter to the Editor

Brief Report                      Short Communication

Software                            Commentary

News

References

References conform to the style outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), also referred to as the “Vancouver” style.

References in the text should be numbered sequentially and placed in parentheses. At the end of the manuscript, references are listed in numerical order as they appear in the text.

At least 80% of the references must have article identifiers, such as digital object identifier (DOI) or PubMed PMID (or PubMed central PMCID). Please add these identifiers at the end of your references when available. You can visit the following link to search for DOIs and PMIDs of articles: http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery. It is highly recommended to use EndNote software for writing and managing references.

Copyright and Permissions Policy

If a manuscript contains any third-party materials (e.g. image, text, table, speech, etc.), it is the responsibility of the author to obtain authorization from copyright holders. The author is required to obtain and submit the written original permission letters for all copyrighted material used in his/her manuscript.

Authors retain copyright and other intellectual property rights such as patent and trademark, provided explicit acknowledgment is made of the initial appearance in IJVLMS.  All readers are permitted to copy, print, link, reuse, and distribute the articles, in whole or in part, subject to appropriate acknowledgement of the original source.

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.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.