Article Types / Special Report

Special reports allows authors to introduce a topical problem in technology-based education, and provide an account of the applied solution(s) in their local environment. They are required to present a detailed description of the problem at hand, explain how it was addressed, and report their findings and experiences. Special Reports may not necessarily comprise research-based information, yet they should meet the standards of originality, clarity and significance, so that others can replicate the presented approach or adopt similar practices in their own environments.

The IJVLMS generally accepts Special Reports of 2500-3500 words (including references), 3 tables/Figures, and 7-15 references.

The following are the structure and specifications of a Special Report:

  • Abstract: (100-200 words, unstructured)
  • Keywords (4-7 keywords should be provided for indexing and online searches based on the MeSH Browser).
  • Problem (provide an introduction to the problem and its context to help readers make comparisons with their own environment)
  • Solution (explain in detail how the problem was addressed, and how much time and resources, if any, were allocated)
  • Results and Conclusion (report the outcomes, present your insights, and make suggestions for improvements)
  • Footnotes
  • References (Vancouver style)

Footnotes

 

  • Abbreviations: In articles where abbreviations are frequently used, it is better to provide an abbreviation list for readers to reference and understand the concepts more quickly.

  • Acknowledgments: Recognize the individuals, institutes, or organizations that have contributed to the preparation of the article but do not meet the criteria for authorship. Contributions may include academic, technical, financial, or personal assistance in preparing the articles. The authors must indicate the contributors' affiliations and their specific contributions. The use of AI for writing assistance should be reported in the acknowledgment section.

  • Authors’ Contribution: Authors specify their contributions to the research process and writing of the manuscript. They indicate their contributions to different aspects of a project such as conceptualization, study design, experimentation, data acquisition, statistical analysis, preparing the manuscript, etc. Please note that the authors’ initials, rather than full names, should be used for identification.

  • Conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose any financial and non-financial competing interests in advance of the review process. They need to declare if they received financial payment for the research, or if they have close relationships with people or entities that could inappropriately influence (bias) their study. Non-financial interests may include the disclosure of any personal, political, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual interests that might bias a study. General institutional support for an author’s time on the work should be distinguished from direct overall funding of the work. An appropriate funding statement might be: “The study was funded by A; Dr. F’s time on the work was supported by B.” If there are no competing interests, add the following statement: “The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper”.

  • Ethical Considerations: If a study involves human participants/or animals, authors need to obtain approval from the ethics committee/Institutional Review Board of their institution and be prepared to provide documentation when requested by editors. They must provide the name of the committee/board along with the Ethical Approval Code/ID. Authors should also declare that they have obtained written informed consent from each potential research participant. It should be clearly stated that the researchers were properly introduced before the research, and the participants understood the objectives of the research. The authors also maintain that the consent was not obtained under coercion and that the participants had the choice to withdraw at any stage of the research. Finally, it should be indicated that the participants were assured of confidentiality regarding the information provided.

  • Funding/Support: All sources of financial and material support for the research work are acknowledged in this section. Authors should identify the roles of the sponsor(s) if any, in study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, and in preparing the manuscript. Please include the name(s) of the funding organization(s) along with the grant number(s). If no funding has been provided for the research, please add the following statement: "This research did not receive any outside funding or support".

  • Availability of Data and Materials: A Data Availability Statement should be included in all manuscripts. Your data availability statement should describe how the data supporting the results reported in your paper can be accessed. With a data statement, an author can provide information about the data presented in an article and provide a reason if data is not available to access. Click HERE to see a template for different kinds of statements.

  • 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. 

The following general instructions must be observed when citing references. Moreover, IJVLMS has its own EndNote style. Authors are advised to prepare their references based on this style and add the file to the style folder of their Endnote in program files. This style is available HERE.

  • Referencing AI-generated material as the primary source is not acceptable.
  • References should be made to published articles rather than to abstracts whenever possible.

In-text citation:

  • References in the text should be numbered sequentially and placed in parentheses.
  • For in-text citation of a work with more than one author, use ‘et al.’ after the first author.
  • When citing several references for the same statement, use a hyphen to link the first and last numbers that are inclusive. For instance, (4, 5, 6, 7) must be abbreviated to (4-7). Use commas where the numbers are not consecutive in a multiple citation, e.g. (8, 13).

Reference List:

  • The reference list appears at the end of the paper and is titled ‘References’.
  • References are listed in numerical order, and in the same order, they are cited in the text.
  • The reference list should include all and only those references that appear in the text.
  • If a work has more than 6 authors, please list the first six authors, followed by ‘et al.’
  • The number of references from theses, conference papers, and websites should not exceed 5 percent of the total references.
  • Please note that the journal titles in the reference list should be abbreviated in the style used in the NLM Catalog.
  • At least 80% of the references must have article identifiers, such as digital object identifier (DOI) and 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. EndNote software is highly recommended for writing and managing references.

Listed below are sample references for different types of work. For further details and examples, authors may consult Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2nd edition).

 

Journal Article:

Almarzooq ZI, Lopes M, Kochar A. Virtual Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Disruptive Technology in Graduate Medical Education. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;75(20):2635-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.04.015. PubMed PMID: 32304797; PubMed Central PMCID: PMCPMC7159871.

Complete Book:

Secker J. Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment: A Guide for Librarians. Edition (if not first) - ed. Oxford: Elsevier Science; 2004.

Chapter in an Edited Book:

Fournier H, Kop R, Molyneaux H. New personal learning ecosystems: a decade of research in review. In: Becnel K, editor. Emerging technologies in virtual learning environments. Harshey: IGI Global; 2019. p. 1-19.

Thesis:

Kaplan SJ. Postgraduate students’ professionalism [dissertation]. St. Louis (MO): Washington University; 2021. (DOI is required)

Conference Paper:

Kimura J, Shibasaki H, editors. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct 15‐19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam (NL): Elsevier; 1996. (DOI is required)

Website: 

Meyer D. Virtual learning is the way forward for educators. Elmhurst: Elmhurst University; 2020 Oct 8. [Cited 2021 Nov 10]. Available from: https://www.elmhurst.edu/blog/virtual-learning/.