Advertisers
Access Statistics Resources
Authors are the souls of any journal, and deserve much respect. To publish a journal manuscripts are needed from authors. Authors have a great responsibility for producing facts of their work in terms of number and results truthfully and an individual honesty is expected from authors in this regards. Both ways its true "No authors-No manuscripts-No journals" and "No journals�No manuscripts�No authors". Reviewing a manuscript is also a very responsible and important task of any peer-reviewed journal and to be taken seriously. It needs knowledge on the subject, sincerity, honesty and determination. Although the process of reviewing a manuscript is a time consuming task butit is expected to give one's best remarks within the time frame of the journal.
Salient features of the JCDR: It is a biomedical, multidisciplinary (including all medical and dental specialities), e-journal, with wide scope and extensive author support. At the same time, a free text of manuscript is available in HTML and PDF format. There is fast growing authorship and readership with JCDR as this can be judged by the number of articles published in it i e; in Feb 2007 of its first issue, it contained 5 articles only, and now in its recent volume published in April 2011, it contained 67 manuscripts. This e-journal is fulfilling the commitments and objectives sincerely, (as stated by Editor-in-chief in his preface to first edition) i e; to encourage physicians through the internet, especially from the developing countries who witness a spectrum of disease and acquire a wealth of knowledge to publish their experiences to benefit the medical community in patients care. I also feel that many of us have work of substance, newer ideas, adequate clinical materials but poor in medical writing and hesitation to submit the work and need help. JCDR provides authors help in this regards.
Timely publication of journal: Publication of manuscripts and bringing out the issue in time is one of the positive aspects of JCDR and is possible with strong support team in terms of peer reviewers, proof reading, language check, computer operators, etc. This is one of the great reasons for authors to submit their work with JCDR. Another best part of JCDR is "Online first Publications" facilities available for the authors. This facility not only provides the prompt publications of the manuscripts but at the same time also early availability of the manuscripts for the readers.
Indexation and online availability: Indexation transforms the journal in some sense from its local ownership to the worldwide professional community and to the public.JCDR is indexed with Embase & EMbiology, Google Scholar, Index Copernicus, Chemical Abstracts Service, Journal seek Database, Indian Science Abstracts, to name few of them. Manuscriptspublished in JCDR are available on major search engines ie; google, yahoo, msn.
In the era of fast growing newer technologies, and in computer and internet friendly environment the manuscripts preparation, submission, review, revision, etc and all can be done and checked with a click from all corer of the world, at any time. Of course there is always a scope for improvement in every field and none is perfect. To progress, one needs to identify the areas of one's weakness and to strengthen them.
It is well said that "happy beginning is half done" and it fits perfectly with JCDR. It has grown considerably and I feel it has already grown up from its infancy to adolescence, achieving the status of standard online e-journal form Indian continent since its inception in Feb 2007. This had been made possible due to the efforts and the hard work put in it. The way the JCDR is improving with every new volume, with good quality original manuscripts, makes it a quality journal for readers. I must thank and congratulate Dr Hemant Jain, Editor-in-Chief JCDR and his team for their sincere efforts, dedication, and determination for making JCDR a fast growing journal.
Every one of us: authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher are responsible for enhancing the stature of the journal. I wish for a great success for JCDR."
Thanking you
With sincere regards
Dr. Rajendra Kumar Ghritlaharey, M.S., M. Ch., FAIS
Associate Professor,
Department of Paediatric Surgery, Gandhi Medical College & Associated
Kamla Nehru & Hamidia Hospitals Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462 001 (India)
E-mail: [email protected]
On May 11,2011
Dr. Shankar P.R.
"On looking back through my Gmail archives after being requested by the journal to write a short editorial about my experiences of publishing with the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (JCDR), I came across an e-mail from Dr. Hemant Jain, Editor, in March 2007, which introduced the new electronic journal. The main features of the journal which were outlined in the e-mail were extensive author support, cash rewards, the peer review process, and other salient features of the journal.
Over a span of over four years, we (I and my colleagues) have published around 25 articles in the journal. In this editorial, I plan to briefly discuss my experiences of publishing with JCDR and the strengths of the journal and to finally address the areas for improvement.
My experiences of publishing with JCDR: Overall, my experiences of publishing withJCDR have been positive. The best point about the journal is that it responds to queries from the author. This may seem to be simple and not too much to ask for, but unfortunately, many journals in the subcontinent and from many developing countries do not respond or they respond with a long delay to the queries from the authors 1. The reasons could be many, including lack of optimal secretarial and other support. Another problem with many journals is the slowness of the review process. Editorial processing and peer review can take anywhere between a year to two years with some journals. Also, some journals do not keep the contributors informed about the progress of the review process. Due to the long review process, the articles can lose their relevance and topicality. A major benefit with JCDR is the timeliness and promptness of its response. In Dr Jain's e-mail which was sent to me in 2007, before the introduction of the Pre-publishing system, he had stated that he had received my submission and that he would get back to me within seven days and he did!
Most of the manuscripts are published within 3 to 4 months of their submission if they are found to be suitable after the review process. JCDR is published bimonthly and the accepted articles were usually published in the next issue. Recently, due to the increased volume of the submissions, the review process has become slower and it ?? Section can take from 4 to 6 months for the articles to be reviewed. The journal has an extensive author support system and it has recently introduced a paid expedited review process. The journal also mentions the average time for processing the manuscript under different submission systems - regular submission and expedited review.
Strengths of the journal: The journal has an online first facility in which the accepted manuscripts may be published on the website before being included in a regular issue of the journal. This cuts down the time between their acceptance and the publication. The journal is indexed in many databases, though not in PubMed. The editorial board should now take steps to index the journal in PubMed. The journal has a system of notifying readers through e-mail when a new issue is released. Also, the articles are available in both the HTML and the PDF formats. I especially like the new and colorful page format of the journal. Also, the access statistics of the articles are available. The prepublication and the manuscript tracking system are also helpful for the authors.
Areas for improvement: In certain cases, I felt that the peer review process of the manuscripts was not up to international standards and that it should be strengthened. Also, the number of manuscripts in an issue is high and it may be difficult for readers to go through all of them. The journal can consider tightening of the peer review process and increasing the quality standards for the acceptance of the manuscripts. I faced occasional problems with the online manuscript submission (Pre-publishing) system, which have to be addressed.
Overall, the publishing process with JCDR has been smooth, quick and relatively hassle free and I can recommend other authors to consider the journal as an outlet for their work."
Dr. P. Ravi Shankar
KIST Medical College, P.O. Box 14142, Kathmandu, Nepal.
E-mail: [email protected]
On April 2011 Anuradha
Dear team JCDR, I would like to thank you for the very professional and polite service provided by everyone at JCDR. While i have been in the field of writing and editing for sometime, this has been my first attempt in publishing a scientific paper.Thank you for hand-holding me through the process.
Dr. Anuradha
E-mail: [email protected]
On Jan 2020
Legitimate / Non‐Predatory working of the Journal
When a journal is wide scope, not associated with a high-end publishing house, based in Southeast Asia, moves in and out with major indexers, it is easy to attract a label of predatory by a cursory observer. It has been previously observed that often small scholarly journals from developing countries are considered predatory. Journals in the developing world face challenges in becoming known and respected in the international research landscape. Concerns are often raised about the perceived quality and transparency of publication processes for Southern journals. This, in turn, limits the perceived credibility of the research published within those journals [Ref]. Similar issues remain for journals originating from Southeast Asia.
Non‐Predatory / Legitimate working of the Journal Detail
- The Lists: JCDR was neither mentioned in the Beall’s Predatory Journal list ( now ceased) nor is apart of the Cabell’s list for predatory journals.
- Communications: The JCDR editorial is easy to approach through mail or telephone. We have always prioritized the concerns of our authors, readers and reviewers. The Chief Editor, Senior Editors, IT staff, Publication section are open to receiving calls and answering mails regarding any article related issue or publication related query or technical difficulty . There is provision to book a tele appointment with the chief editor. All important information related to methodological step for submission, query response timeline, journey of an article from submission to publication etc are detailed in the website. Even so, we do not shy away from clarifying any query from an author.
- Payments: There is no Article Processing Charges or submission fee to be paid. Publication charges which are detailed clearly on the website need to be paid once the manuscript is accepted. There are no hidden charges.
- Behaviour under stress: When the journal was unceremoniously delisted form Pubmed Central it went ahead and refunded full publications charges for authors who wish to withdraw their works. Thus absorbing all the damage onto itself, minimizing the effect to the authors. No journal is bound to refund publication charges once these have been paid post vetting and acceptance of article. JCDR did not had or has such a policy. A conscious decision was made to make an exception. Even in those hard times, complete transparency was kept, proactively informing each of the current authors of the Indexation status, allowing them to retract their work if they wanted to. Many author commended this honest disclosure. There were serious financial consequences for the journal. Will a predatory journals function like this? JCDR did so and undeterred, continued its work.
- Academics: The JCDR team has been involved in academic activities and its proactive participation at the WAME International Conference for Medical Journal Editors, 2015 where it received Dr. Bruce Squires award is one such example. This poster was later written as complete paper and published in European Science Editing Journal titled “Google versus other text similarity tools in detection of plagiarism: a pilot study in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research“.
- In the same conference, JCDR sponsored an Award of 225 USD for best research poster, which was presented to Dr. Parth Gada for an audit of RCTs published in two high impact journals in 2013 to assess compliance with the CONSORT statement 2010 clik here
- JCDR editorial analysed and published reasons for rejected articles, among thousand consecutively submitted articles. “Why We Say No! A Look through the Editor’s Eye“. Predatory journals do not reject articles and are unlikely to invest their resources in non-profitable academic ventures.
- Student-guide authorship conflicts, which were more unique to Indian scenario, based on journal’s own experience, were published as paper - “The Changing Teacher-Disciple (Guru-Shishya) Equation in Modern Times“.
- Citations: In 2015 the coveted Time Magazine cited one of JCDR’s article on Yoga click here . Till date, quite a number of research studies published in JCDR have been cited by medical magazines, weekly newsletters click here
- Advertisement Policy: Despite the monetary reward offered, JCDR declines any advertisement in its print issue. click here
- External Parameters: Using the parameters advocated by SCOPUS RADAR tool, journal does not classify as predatory. The criteria mentioned in Scopus website are :
- An unexplainable surge in number of articles published:
- Journals work flow has been steady and smooth over the years. (Click to Check)
- Unexplainable shift in authorship geography:
- Our proportion of national and international articles has been consistent over the last years. (Click to Check)
- Self-Citation Rate and other Metrics:
- Journal metrics have remained positive and uniform over many years with low self-citation rates.(Click to Check)
- Ranking: In 2017, JCDR ranked high ( 20th) according to Scopus database for citable docs for three years, medicine:(Click to Check).
- Transparency:
- An inquisitive reader may wonder why if the journal was functioning within the desired norms was it delisted from some indexers. We recognize this and are open to such queries. If a formal request is made to the chief editor from an established academician or an institution we shall forward the complete detail of events which preceded such happening. This will allow them to make their own conclusions.
- Similarly, if any academician wants to visit our office and would like to experience the journal office environment and work, is welcome to put in a formal request to the Chief Editor.
- Peer reviewers and others who have been associated with us but do not live in the city if they visit Delhi are welcome to have a cup of coffee with us at our office.
Last Updated : 09 Dec 2019
First Published : 5 Feb 2007