DOWNLOAD CALL FOR PAPERS (pdf)

> INTRODUCTION
> SCOPE OF ELIGIBLE WORK
> AUTHORSHIP, CONTRIBUTORSHIP & GUARANTORS
> FORMAT OF SUBMISSIONS
> SECTION-SPECIFIC GUIDELINES

-The View From Here
-For Example
-Research + Evaluation
-Policy & Practice
-Service in School

>HOW TO SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT
>POLICIES REGARDING EDITORIAL DECISION RESPONSIVENESS, REVISION DEADLINES FOR AUTHORS & CONTACT INFORMATION CHANGES
>OPEN PEER REVIEW PROCESS
>APPEALS PROCESS

Thank you for considering Context Journal as a home for your work in communities. These submission guidelines are provided to increase the transparency of the publication process at Context and to ease the work of authors and editors as we strive to publish a quality electronic-journal for our readers. This document describes the desired scope of manuscripts, eligibility criteria for authors, manuscript format, online submission process, and peer-review process. We also provide policies for appeals, human subjects research, and multimedia tools.

Context Journal has the following five sections:

-The View From Here
-For Example
-Research + Evaluation
-Policy & Practice
-Service in School

Context Journal accepts electronic submissions only. Authors submit manuscripts to the section of the journal that best fits their work. Descriptions of each section and their particular submission requirements are provided below.

SCOPE OF ELIGIBLE WORK

Context – the journal recognizing student health professionals engaged in their communities, electronically publishes the manuscripts of graduate-level students working for the health of their communities in any number a ways including: direct community service, health policy and advocacy, fundraising, and peer-to-peer education. In addition, we seek perspectives pieces, descriptions of student-initiated projects, research regarding healthy communities, program evaluations, proposed changes to formal curricula, and analyses of the impact of current health policies. Articles must be original submissions that have not been previously published.

We do not publish basic science or clinical research unless there is a direct connection to the health of communities and that connection is discussed at length. Manuscripts related to international health issues must link this work directly to domestic interests, problems, or policies.


AUTHORSHIP, CONTRIBUTORSHIP, AND GUARANTORS

Eligibility. At the time of submission, corresponding and first authors must be graduate-level students of any discipline who have not accepted faculty appointments or fellowships in specialty areas. Authors have completed a four-year degree and enrolled at an educational institution located in the United States or Canada. Authors must not necessarily be citizens of those countries. There are some special considerations to authorship eligibility:

>Recent Graduates Though work may have been completed when the author was a student, manuscripts from recent graduates are not eligible for submission.
> Physicians Physicians who have begun or completed a residency are not eligible.
> Undergraduates If their involvement was extensive, undergraduate students may receive authorship credit, but may submit work only in conjunction with graduate students and then may not be listed as first authors. In general, we prefer to publish only the work of graduate students.
> Nursing students (i.e. BSN, RN candidates) who have completed a four-year degree are eligible.
> Professors or Advisors & Community Members While professors, advisors, and community members cannot be co-authors, we encourage their recognition in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript.
> Peer Reviewers We encourage peer reviewers to submit their work.

Number of Authors. There is no limit to the number of authors who can be recognized for the same manuscript; however, listing ten or more names as authors further stresses the importance of the contributor section as mentioned below.

Authorship Credit Criteria. In concordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Context agrees that authorship credit should be based on the fulfillment of all three of the following criteria:

1. Authors have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Authors have assisted in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. Authors have given final approval of the version to be published.

Contributors. Manuscripts with more than one author must have a “contributors” section at the end of the article that states each author’s contribution to the work. Note that editors will question the inclusion of any author whose contribution description does not meet all three of the above authorship criteria. Conversely, excluding any person who meets the authorship criteria is unethical.

Order of Authors. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the coauthors and the contributor section should help explain the order in which authors are listed. Some teams choose alphabetical listing to emphasize equal contribution. In any case, the rationale behind order of authors should be clear to the editor.

Guarantors. The Contributors section should assign one individual as a guarantor – the individual who guarantees the integrity of the entire project. Context Journal retains the right to request original data and/or “proof of project.” This means that authors must be able to prove that they performed the work described and Context retains the right to request such evidence and to decide the merit of evidence provided. Such proof can be personal references, a letter from a community person with contact information provided, or photographs.

Corresponding Author. For the purposes of Context Journal, the corresponding author is the author who submits the article online at www.contextjournal.org/submitwork.php. This person will receive reviewer feedback, copyright agreement, and will provide an email for readers to solicit further information.

Ghost Authors and Professional Writers. Context Journal strongly discourages the use of ghost authors or paid-professional writers of any kind. However, if such a service is used, this information must be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of manuscripts.

Acknowledgements. Context Journal highly encourages the acknowledgement of key participants in the work or those who assist with the manuscript, but who do not merit authorship. Context follows ICMJE guidelines, which state, “All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgments, and what they did should be described.”

Removing an Author’s Name. Only the author may request that Context Journal remove his/her name from an article. In such a case, the editors reserve the right to request signed documentation that explains the author’s rationale for name removal.


FORMAT OF SUBMISSIONS

In general, Context Journal accepts submissions in the form of Microsoft Word Documents that are written in active voice with about 25 paragraphs in the standard IMRAD sequence as described below. Documents should have one-inch margins, be single-spaced with 12 point font. Photographs, tables, or figures should be imbedded in the text as deemed most useful for authors to convey information to readers. The uploaded article should contain all of the following information:

· Title – Use action titles that highlight main findings or lessons learned

· Byline – List all authors, the institutions they represent, and degree candidacy

· Abstract (200 words or less)

· Introduction (2 paragraphs)

· Method (7 paragraphs)

· Results (7 paragraphs)

And

· Discussion (6 paragraphs) – Discuss findings, limitations, strengths, future work, implications for clinical practice, student education, service or activism.

· Action Items – Provide ways for readers to further your work, resources to learn more, or other ways to become involved in the issue.

· Suggested Readings – Are there particularly good sources to recommend? These may be references, magazine articles, books, websites etc.

· References – reference format in American Psychological Association (APA) style. One helpful website: APA Online http://www.apastyle.org.

· Contributor Section – designate guarantor and corresponding author’s name and email address

· Acknowledgements


SECTION-SPECIFIC GUIDELINES

Context Journal accepts electronic submissions only. Authors submit manuscripts to the section of the journal that best fits their work. Though the general format as described above is true for Context Journal overall, each section’s editor has refined formatting and content interests.

Context Journal has the following five sections:

-The View From Here
-For Example
-Research + Evaluation
-Policy & Practice
-Service in School

Descriptions of each section and their particular submission requirements are provided below.

Description of The View From Here. The View From Here is the section of Context that offers health students the opportunity to reflect and comment on the work they are doing in their communities. The goal of this section is to provide a forum for health students to write about their observations and experiences and to communicate with readers about issues that are important for students engaged in their communities.

Submission Guidelines for The View From Here. In addition to the guidelines provided for articles submitted to Context, consider the following when submitting a manuscript to this section:
- Graduate students from a vast area of health disciplines are invited to submit their reflections on student community service, education, and policy advocacy.
- Submissions can be in the form of editorials, essays, critiques, or creative writing, such as short stories or poetry.
- These reflections should be on topics or issues of importance to health students engaged in their communities.
- Students should focus, where possible, on personal experience from initiatives and programs they have taken part in, both with their universities and in their communities.

Format for The View From Here. This section of the journal is flexible in terms of format. Still, we expect appropriate references to the literature. Even if the work is poetry, please also submit an abstract.


Description of For Example. Download For Example Guidelines (pdf)For Example seeks submissions that describe student-led programs that are innovative in their approach, collaborations, organizational structures, and/or leadership styles. This section of Context aims to recognize innovation and ingenuity in student-led community health programs and to provide a venue for the exchange of ideas between health students across the United States and Canada. Community health programs can be service-oriented or advocacy-oriented in nature.

Format of Submission to For Example. All general submission guidelines on the Context website apply to submissions to For Example. However, For Example articles should be submitted following the B.R.I.O. (Background, Resources, Implementation, Outcomes) format (1). This format is predominantly descriptive and enables readers to gain an appreciation of how a program operates and how it could be replicated. The BRIO format is not meant to elicit an exhaustive account of all program operations, but rather to give readers an idea of the process involved in creating the program, the ideals behind it, and the resulting outcomes both quantitative and qualitative.

The following four sections comprise the B.R.I.O. article format:

Background- Includes a thorough description of how the idea for the program arose, what community need(s) it sought to fulfil, who was involved, and the process of program start-up and development. This section may or may not include a brief literature review outlining why this program was needed or what strategies have been tried in the past.

Resources- Describes all resources used to initiate and maintain the program, including human and financial resources.

Implementation- Describes the operational aspects of the program and should include the following details: 1) program structure, 2) roles and duties of different people working within the program, 3) difficulties encountered and how they were overcome, and 4) the process of program implementation.

Outcomes- This section is analogous to the ‘results’ and ‘discussion’ section of a traditional journal article and should include the following: 1) program outcomes, as defined by qualitative and/or quantitative measures, 2) ideas for future directions, 3) potential for program expansion and/or replication. If appropriate, authors are encouraged to include a ‘how to get involved’ link at the end of the article if the program is on-going and the authors are interested in soliciting reader involvement.

1. Volpe, Richard, The Challenge of Injury Prevention, In Volpe, Richard and Lewko, John (Editors). Preventing Neurotrauma: A Casebook of Evidenced Based Practices. (Toronto: Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, 2004)


Description of Research + Evaluation. Research + Evaluation is the section of the Context Journal that profiles original contributions from community-oriented student researchers. This section welcomes articles on research initiatives and evaluation projects that are developed, implemented, and managed by graduate-level health students. Articles considered for this section may include manuscripts on a variety of topics, including qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method studies on health-related issues and evaluative studies of health interventions or models. Community-oriented projects and initiatives are preferred, and participatory approaches that promote community involvement are encouraged.

Submission Guidelines for Research + Evaluation. Graduate level health students that are interested in submitting articles for peer review to the Research + Evaluation section of Context should follow the submission guidelines outlined for the journal. Additionally, student authors should consider these guidelines:

> Only original articles will be considered. Any articles that have been previously published are not eligible for publication in the Context Journal.

> Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All authors are responsible for ensuring that ideas and quotes from published texts are properly cited and acknowledged throughout the submitted article.

> All articles should comply with American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines, as outlined in the most recent edition of the Publication Manual. Additional information is available at http://www.apastyle.org/.

> Article manuscripts should be double-spaced in 12 point text. Acceptable typefaces include Times New Roman, Arial, or New Courier. Margins should be one inch on all sides of the page.

> While there is no page limit, the generally accepted page limit is a maximum of 20 pages (not including appendices and references). Allowances may be made based on the breadth and scope of the research detailed in the article. This decision will be made on a case-by-case basis by the Managing Editor.

> We expected that all articles be well-written with no grammatical errors.

Format of Submissions to Research + Evaluation. The basic format of the article will consist of the following sequential sections: an abstract, introduction, scope of research or problem statement, methods, results, discussion, and references. The abstract should be limited to a maximum of 150 words and should highlight each of the sections of the article (excluding the references).


Description of Service-in-School. Service in School is actively seeking articles that contribute to the development, understanding, and analysis of the impact that changes in health professional education have on the care that is given by medical practitioners. To this end, articles may reflect one of three types of specific circumstances:

1. Student-driven changes in curriculum that have resulted in a direct, measurable impact on the care that medical practitioners provide;
2. Academic programs that have initiated a unique or specialized curriculum to drive students to affect a positive change in a healthcare arena; and
3. Proposals for integrating community health, advocacy, or service in formal curricula of any health profession.

Preferred Submissions for Service-in-School. Education-specific research, best practices, analysis of teaching methodology and improvement, and unique and innovative approaches will be given high priority for publication consideration. Regardless of the specific curriculum involved, the ultimate goal of this section of Context is to highlight work that addresses education initiatives making a real-world difference in healthcare. The mission of Service in School is to spark the passion of healthcare educators, students, and practitioners to affect very real and substantive changes in healthcare education based on peer-reviewed innovative best practices.


Description of Policy & Practice. The Policy & Practice section seeks research, analytic and descriptive articles related to health policy, public policies with an impact on health, public health practice, and health advocacy. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• policy evaluations or forecasting;
• analyses of the policy process ;
• analyses of the impact on health of particular public policies;
• descriptions or analyses of public health practice initiatives such as government or community-based programs;
• descriptions of organized health advocacy efforts.

Articles submitted to the Policy & Practice section should meet Context’s general submissions criteria, and follow these guidelines:

FORMAT
• Ten to twenty pages double-spaced, 12 point font and 1-inch margins. Acceptable fonts are Times, Times New Roman, and Arial.
• The text of the article should be organized with subheadings to aid the reader.
• For a research-based paper, these may consist of the following: Background and Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables and Figures.
• For descriptive or analytic papers, these subheadings should be adjusted as appropriate. One suggested format for articles describing advocacy efforts is: Background, Resources, Implementation and Outcomes (BRIO). The BRIO format is described in greater detail in the submission guidelines for the For Example and Service-in-School sections.
• References should be formatted according to the guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) Manual of Style, accessible at: http://www.apastyle.org/.

ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES

• Only original contributions may be submitted. No element of the manuscript may have been published previously. No portion of the article may be submitted to another journal while under review by Context.
• Manuscripts should be well-written, concise, and up-to-date.

HOW TO SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT

We are currently in the process of re-working our online manuscript submission system. In the meantime, please submit your manuscript to the following email address: submissions@contextjournal.org.

Please include the following in your email submission:

OPEN PEER REVIEW PROCESS

To promote transparency and peer-to-peer learning, Context Journal supports an open review process. This means that reviewers are NOT blinded to author names, their degree candidacy, or the institutions that they represent. Authors have the right to request their “raw” or unedited reviewer feedback forms and may do so by contacting their managing editor via email. More, every published article will have a “Reviewers byline” that states the name and institution of the article’s reviewers.

Who will review my paper? Reviewers are graduate-level students from across the United States and Canada who have demonstrated commitment to communities. Context Journal keeps a database of up to one hundred reviewers who have a wide range of experience and knowledge. Managing editors request manuscript reviews based on knowledge and experience of reviewers that may lend a new insight, perspective, or understanding of the work described.

How many reviews will my manuscript receive? All manuscripts considered for publication will receive at least two reviews.

Specific reviewers may not be requested. Authors may not request specific reviewers. Likewise, we do not consider requests to eliminate certain reviewers from consideration for manuscript review. A reviewer who attends the same institution as the author(s) is eligible to review their manuscript; however, only one such review will be solicited. At least one more review from a reviewer located at an institution not the authors’ will be solicited.

Tracking a Manuscript through the Peer Review Process. Corresponding authors are notified via email when their manuscript has been recommended by the managing editor of the section for publication. At this point, the manuscript must secure final approval from the Editor-in-Chief who may contact the author directly to request additional revisions or ask questions. Only articles that receive approval from the Editor-in-Chief will be published.

What happens once my manuscript is accepted for publication? Upon acceptance for publication, authors are asked to provide the following materials to our publisher:

1. signed Release Form(s) from both the subjects of photographs AND the photographer;
2. signed Release Form(s) verifying permission to use secondary data sets or other copyrighted materials in articles;
3. signed Copyright Agreement for the manuscript;
4. Conflict of Interest Statement and Funding Source Disclosure;
5. signed Guarantor’s Statement that guarantees integrity for the project.

In addition, authors may be asked for their student identification numbers so that their enrollment as graduate-level students may be verified. Those research projects that involved human subjects will be asked for proof of institution review board (IRB) approval. The Context Journal Editorial Staff expects that even if research were conducted outside of a university’s purview, authors will be able to document that their work has been conducted in the most ethical way.


APPEALS PROCESS

Regardless of the stage in the peer review process from which a manuscript is rejected, an author may submit an appeal for any one of the following reasons:

1. The manuscript was rejected based on false information;
2. There is evidence (more than hearsay) that the review process was unfair;
3. There is evidence that Context Journal policy was not followed.

To appeal an initial decision, email a letter to the managing editor of the section from which the manuscript was rejected. The subject line should read: “Appeal Request.” The letter should explain the reason for requesting an appeal and provide new evidence or information for the managing editor to consider. All appeals will be brought to the attention of the entire Editorial Board. Yet, the decision to reconsider an article must be made by the managing editor who handled the manuscript’s initial rejection.