Journal Lay-Out and Instructions to Authors

OJHAS is the first peer reviewed, 'Online Only' biomedical journal from India, promoted by a group of biomedical professionals from Mangalore, South India.

OJHAS publishes peer reviewed articles of contemporary research in biomedical and dental sciences and current opinions of biomedical and healthcare professionals. The editorial board of OJHAS shall strive to maintain highest standards of quality and ethics in its publication.

OJHAS is published every three months. However, articles of Current Interest may be published as supplements in between.

OJHAS is available FREE online. Being in the public domain, the journal shall take all the care to preserve confidentiality.

OJHAS is divided into the following sections:

Editorial
Current Interest
Review Articles
Original Article
Opinion
Case Reports
Short Communications
Comments/Letters to the Editor

Submission of articles:
Articles can be sent by e-mail to The Editor

File Format:
OJHAS accepts materials in the following electronic formats:
1. Text: Microsoft Word or HTML document.
2. Illustrations*: .png, .gif or .jpg format
Materials sent in any other format shall not be accepted.

Illustrations (figures/photos/graphs) in .gif, .png or .jpg format should be inserted into the body of the text and also e-mailed as attached files. The photographs used in case illustrations should be the original, unedited images.

Submitted materials shall not be returned, whether or not they are accepted; therefore please retain a copy of all materials sent.

Correspondence:
All submissions should be accompanied by the e-mail ID of the first author. All correspondence regarding the papers, including proofs, will be sent to the first author unless specifically indicated otherwise at the time of submission. All correspondence from the Editorial Board shall be through e-mail only.

Article Format:
Editorials, Review Articles and articles of Current Interest are solicited by the Editorial Board and therefore should be sent only on our request. Guidelines for other articles are given below:

Basic Requirements:
Articles submitted to OJHAS shall conform to the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med. 1997;336:309-15. See)

Originality: All articles submitted for publication in OJHAS should be original material. The submission should have been made exclusively to OJHAS and should not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The first author should certify to this effect. Any author/s found to falsify or mislead the editors will be disqualified from future submissions to OJHAS.

Authorship: Each quoted author should have contributed substantially to the represented work in terms of conceptual design or analysis, writing of the article and final approval of the article in order to take public responsibility for the content. First author must guarantee this to be so.

Articles published in OJHAS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License

Disclosure of commercial interests: Sources of support for the research or article must be acknowledged in the paper and any financial involvement that might indicate a conflict of interest should be disclosed at the time of submission.

Patient Anonymity and Consent: Since On-Line journals are largely available for public access, ethical and legal considerations mandate that patients' anonymity be preserved. Research papers must indicate informed consent for procedures and the involvement of an ethical committee, proof of which may be required in the review process of the paper.

Format:
The First Page should comprise of the Title; Full name/s [Title, Given name, Family name, Lineage (ancestral family name)], qualifications and designation of the author/s; Address for correspondence; e-mail of corresponding author; Key words and Abstract.

The article, in the format given below, should follow in the subsequent pages.

Suggested length of articles:
Original Work - 5000 words, 4 tables, 4 graphs, 3 images/photos
Case Reports - 1500 words, 2 tables, 2 graphs, 2 images/photos; references limited to 10
Short Communications - 1200 words, 1 table, 1 graph, 1 image/photo; references limited to 10
Comments/Letters to the Editor - 800 words; references limited to 8

Components of articles:
Articles submitted to OJHAS shall conform to the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med. 1997;336:309-15 See).

For Review Articles, Current Interest, Original Work: Title, Authors and affiliations, Summary/Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Statistics, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References

For Case Reports, Short Communications: Title, Authors and affiliations, Summary/Abstract, Introduction, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References

For Comments/Letters to the Editor: Title, Authors and affiliations, Introduction, Discussion, References

• Title: Short, meaningful and interesting, preferably not more than 12 words (or 72 characters) in length.
• Authors and affiliations: Full name, qualifications, designation and institutional affiliation of all authors, complete postal address and e-mail ID of the first author for correspondence.
• Summary/Abstract: Not more than 150 words, stating the purpose(s) of the study or investigation, basic procedures and methodology, important findings and principal conclusions. Emphasis should be on new and important aspects of the study or observations. No references allowed.
• Introduction: Brief review of the subject or background; purpose of the article and /or rationale for the study; pertinent references only.
• Methods: Selection criteria, details of the methods/procedures so that others can reproduce the same. For established methods, give references; for not so well known methods, give brief description and references; for new or substantially modified methods, give details, reasons for use and for modification(s) and limitations. Drug(s) and chemical(s) should be precisely identified by generic name(s), dose(s) and route(s) of administration.
• Statistics: Clearly state the statistical methods used in the design and analysis of the studies. Where relevant the exact statistical tests must be stated with reference to confidence intervals.
• Results: Present in logical sequence in text, tables and illustrations, avoid repeating the data. All tables must be prepared using the Table option on the MS-Word (or similar word processor) menu.
• Discussion: Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow, the implications and the limitations; relate to other relevant studies; avoid repeating the details given in introduction and/or results.
• Acknowledgements: For contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, with prior permission from the persons being acknowledged. Limit to ten.
• References: Accuracy of citation is the author's responsibility. The reference style is given below and conforms to the Vancouver style.

Each reference should be assigned a number, consecutively in the order of mention in the text. The original number should be reused each time the same reference is cited in the text. The number should be placed in the text within round brackets (1), outside the full-stops and commas and inside colons and semi-colons. When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive and use commas to separate non-inclusive numbers (2-5,7,10).

The list of references should be given at the end of the paper. Where there are 3 or less authors, list ALL the authors. Where there are more than 3 authors, use et al after the third author.

Examples:

Citing a book:

Peter Speelman. Leptospirosis. In Fauci AS, Braunwald E, Isselbacher KJ, et al, editors. Harrison’s principles of internal medicine. 14^th ed. New York: McGraw Hill; 1998. p. 1036-38.

Citing a journal:

Singh SS, Vijayachari P, Sinha A, et al. Clinico-epidemiological study of hospitalized cases of severe leptospirosis. Indian J Med Res. 1999 Mar;109:94-9.

Citing conferences:

Kakkilaya BS, Motha B, Rajeev, et al. Investigation of a leptospirosis outbreak in Surathkal. In Bundy D, Warrel D, Co-Chairman, Scientific committee. Final programme and abstract book, Oxford 2000, New Challenges in tropical medicine and parasitology, 2000 Sep 18-22; Oxford. Cheshire: Complete Congress Services Ltd; 2000. p. 139

Citing Internet:

International Chemical Safety Cards: Chloroaniline, p-. [Screens 9]. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcs/ipcs0026.html. Accessed May 18^th, 2001.

Further details: Vancouver Style

Review Process:

Papers will usually be acknowledged upon receipt.

All scientific papers will be independently peer reviewed to determine the originality of research and the viability of publication.

Anonymity of authors/institutions and referees to each other shall be maintained so that the review process remains uninfluenced. Reviewers' comments may be sent to authors when revisions to the paper are found necessary. The authors can verify the status of their submitted articles online by logging onto the website of OJHAS.

Generally the review process shall be completed within three months of submission. Papers submitted (and revised) between Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct -Dec., shall be reviewed and published by the subsequent months of Apr., Jul., Oct., and Jan., respectively.

The editorial decision is final. The editorial board reserves the right to make revisions aimed at greater clarity or conformity of style.

Post-publication Revision:

Electronic publishing allows post-publication revision of the text and other materials. Under special circumstances, the editorial board will allow authors to amend text and/or other materials to a limited extent, after publication. This can be done only until the deposition of the published articles in Cogprints and Openmed archives. All amendments will be detailed on the amended paper.

For further details: editor.ojhas@gmail.com