Submission Declaration and Verification

Originality

Only articles that have not been published previously, that have not been simultaneously submitted elsewhere, and that are not under review for another publication should be submitted to this journal. The journal editors will assume that submission of an article to this journal implies that all the foregoing conditions are applicable, and that any co-authors or collaborators have been made aware of the submission and have consented to the submission of their work to UJES.

Grey literature (e.g., conference papers, presentations, white papers, blog posts, and other unpublished work) may be submitted for review and publication in UJES if all copyrights still reside with the submitting author(s).

Plagiarism

UJES does not accept articles which contain material plagiarized from other publications.

For the purposes of this policy, plagiarism is defined as the copying of a previously published work – including text, images and data – of others or self without proper attribution. Please be aware that you can plagiarize yourself and that you need to provide proper attribution in all cases where previously published material is included in your manuscript. In those cases where plagiarism is detected prior to publication, the manuscript will be rejected.

In those cases where plagiarism is detected after publication, the published article will be amended to state that it contains plagiarized material; in extreme cases of plagiarism, the publication will be removed and a note made on the journal’s website as to the reason.

Authorship, Ownership, and Copyright

It is the responsibility of every individual listed as an author of the article being published in UJES to have contributed in a meaningful and identifiable way in terms of the study design, overall study performance, statistical analysis, reporting of the results of the study, and agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the research. At least one of the submitting authors has to be an undergraduate student in order to publish in UJES.

The statements and opinions expressed in the published articles are those of the author(s) and not those of the editors and UJES, which also disclaim any responsibility or liability for such material. Neither UJES nor its editorial and governing boards endorses or warrants any product or service advertised in any published material and does not guarantee any claim made by any manufacturing product or service.

Authors who publish with UJES agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication of the work, simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, in a journal or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process. Examples include:

• Posting a PDF document on a personal web page or website
• Making copies for personal, professional, and educational use
• Republishing sections or the entire article in a book
• Utilizing figures, tables, or extracts of texts (less than 250 words) in other publications published by a third party

Third parties that desire to reproduce an article published in UJES will need to acquire permission by emailing the UJES editors-in-chief.

UJES may perform originality checks using third party software to determine originality. By agreeing to publish with UJES, you automatically agree that your work will be added in a database for future originality checks.

Changes to Authorship

Submitting authors are expected to consider the definitive list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript. Requesting to delete or rearrange the author names or order in the authorship list must be made before the manuscript has been accepted for publication and will occur if approved by the assigned editor.

To request such changes, the UJES editors-in-chief must receive a reason for the change in authorship list and written confirmation via email from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal, or rearrangement of the authorship list. Decisions will be made on a case-by-case-basis.

Only under exceptional circumstances will the UJES editors-in-chief consider adding, deleting, or rearranging the authors after the manuscript has been accepted for publication. While attending to this request, publication of the manuscript will be delayed. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests for modification will not be allowed.

Open Access and Publication Fee

UJES is an open access online-only journal, which grants access to published material immediately, completely, to anyone worldwide. UJES is committed to keeping research articles openly accessible. International open access enables free access to everyone (irrespective of who funded the research) while allowing authors to retain the copyright of their articles. Refusing to comply with the UJES open access policy will lead to the article being unpublished. UJES permits immediate open access to all full-text research articles freely available on www.ujes.ca once the manuscript has been made available for publication.

Submitting research articles to the journal is free of charge and does NOT require any authors to submit or deposit any payments.

Patient Consent/Confidentiality

Investigations on patients and volunteers must require the appropriate Research Ethics Board (REB) approval and must retain any related documentations and informed consents for the duration of the review process. Authors wishing to include study subjects details, personal information, images of the study subject, or any other individual information must provide appropriate consent documentation. Images depicting study subjects must utilize eye bars or blur the study subjects’ face, in addition to providing consent documentation. Human subjects should also be identified as numbers or alphanumeric codes and not by initials. Identifying information, including names or hospital/medical numbers, should not be published in written descriptions or photographs unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent/guardian) gives written informed consent for scientific publication. Informed consent should be obtained if authors are not confident if patient anonymity can be maintained. When informed consent has been obtained, authors should indicate it in the published article, preferably in the methods sections. UJES will not release any information regarding test subjects in order to protect the confidentiality of the individual(s) without appropriate, adequate, and justified documentation.

Financial Associations/Conflict of Interest

UJES is committed to publishing high-quality research that is free from commercial interest and influence. For all published research articles, authors must disclose any and all study sponsorship and relevant financial information. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include the following: employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. The disclosures provided by the author can be located at the end of each full-text article. Additional information about the contributions from external sponsors to the authors may also appear in the Methods section of research articles.

With regards to review articles, UJES expects authors to not have any significant financial interest from any health, performance, or biomedical/pharmaceutical company relevant to the topics and products discussed in the article. When an author does have financial ties to disclose, UJES editors and editors-in-chief will decide whether it is relevant to the topic and the overall research conducted.

Authors are requested to identify parties or individuals that have provided financial support towards conducting and preparation of an article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s) during any process of the research or in writing the report. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated in the article.

Ethics Approval

a. Human Subjects:

Articles involving research conducted on human subjects must provide a clarified statement in the Methods section indicating approval by an international or local Research Ethics Board (REB) and that informed consent was obtained prior to investigation, as appropriate. Articles emerging from a particular institution must have approval by the requisite authority. Authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (at the institutional and/or national level). Finally, all manuscripts utilizing human subjects must provide a scanned copy of the approved documentation by Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethical Committee Approval at the national or regional equivalent in the authors’ geographic area.

b. Animal Experimentation:

Manuscripts reporting the use of animal models and experiments must provide a clear statement in the Methods and Materials section indicating animal care and handling complied with the author’s institutional guidelines. When experimenting on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. All manuscripts that utilize animal subjects within their study must also provide a scanned approved documentation by an Institutional Review Board (IRB), Ethical Committee or an Animal Utilization Study Committee indicating’s the study’s approval.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in UJES will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of UJES and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. More information on our Privacy Policy can be viewed under Privacy and Ethics: Privacy Policy.

Final Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items. Note that if authors need to update or submit any information or documentation following submission, they need to email submissions@ujes.ca or email the editors-in-chief directly at editor-in-chief@ujes.ca and should never email editors, section editors, or any members of the Editorial Board.

1. Ensure that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere in the past and is not being currently considered by another journal at the time of submission.
2. Authors have adhered to the submission guidelines for the respective article type.
3. The manuscript is submitted in a Word (.doc or .docx) document.
4. The manuscript is doubled spaced and in Times New Roman font using a 12-point font; Figures and Tables are in accordance with UJES requirements.
5. All supplementary documents ( e.g., ethics, permissions, etc.) are submitted along with the manuscript.
6. All of the author information as stated on the manuscript is up-to-date.
7. At least ONE of the submitting authors is an undergraduate student.
8. Reported any potential or suspected conflicts of interest

Peer Review Process and Publishing Model

UJES employs a peer-review process to evaluate manuscripts for scientific accuracy, validity, and significance. The peer-review process works to improve research validity while preventing overstated or redundant results. UJES utilizes a triple-blind system, in which the assigned editor(s), the independent reviewer(s), and author identities are concealed throughout the peer-review process. Only the Co-Editors-in-Chief have access to the authors’ identities before blinding is complete. To facilitate this, authors should include two types of submissions. The first should just be the title page, which includes author details such as names, affiliations, and the corresponding author’s information (see above) to submissions@ujes.ca or through a special link listed that can be requested from the same email. The second submission will be the blinded manuscript, which includes the introduction, methods, results, the main body of the paper (including the references, figures, and tables), and conclusion (see above for specific manuscript formatting), but should not include any identifying information related to the authors.

The review process is presented in the diagram below.

After a submission is made, the editors-in-chief will assign submissions to editors. Editors will screen submissions for meeting the minimum requirements of publishing as explained in the various tabs of the submissions section in the UJES website. If the assigned editor deems the submission to meet the minimum requirements, it will undergo the editing process. The assigned editor will work in conjunction with one or several section editors in evaluating and assessing the manuscript. At the same time, editors will send the manuscript to 2-3 reviewers. Reviewers are experts in their fields and typically hold qualifications equivalent to PhD, post-doctoral fellowships, academic tenure, or substantial experience in the field. Reviewers are up-to-date on recent developments in their fields and have a valued opinion on the academic merits and limitations of studies that fall in their areas of expertise. Reviewers will coordinate with the assigned editor and reach a recommendation. Triple-blinded contact will be conducted between the editors-in-chief and the corresponding author via email for decisions of approval, rejection, or modification. Timelines will be set to complete said modifications that is determined by the editor on a case-by-case basis. If modifications are recommended, these will be sent to the corresponding author in the same process explained earlier. Once the editor is satisfied with the changes, the article is flagged as “accepted” and is sent for copy and layout editing.

Copy Editing involves para-content based editing such as referencing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting, abbreviations, symbols, syntax, diction, mechanics, and other technical details. Any changes will be communicated with the corresponding author for confirmation. Once the copy editor completes editing, the manuscript is then sent to another copy editor, and the same process will occur. If the second copy editor is satisfied with the manuscript, it is sent to the layout editor for changes in formatting such as font size, color, alignment, headings, references, hyperlinks, graphics, spacing, and other visual modifications. Following layout editing, the article is ready for publishing and will be released in the following issue.

Timelines

1. Typically within two weeks of submission, an editor will determine if the submission meets the minimum requirements (note that the duration may be prolonged during peak submission times)
2. If the submission passes the minimum requirements screen, it will take around 6-8 weeks for the peer-review process to occur by the editor, section editors, and reviewers; and recommendations will be made to the corresponding author via email (accepted, modifications needed, or rejected).
3. Authors will typically have 3 weeks to make adjustments to minor revisions and 6 weeks for major revisions
4. Step 2 is repeated (time will vary considerably between submissions); and a final decision will be made
5. Copy and layout editing may take up to two months because articles will be published in a single issue rather than on a rolling basis.

UJES will typically have only one annual issue. More issues may be produced in a given year in the future. Deadlines for starting and ending manuscript submissions will be made clear in the UJES website. Please keep updated with changes in the website. UJES is committed to communicating any important changes to its subscribers and authors. It is important for readers and authors to subscribe to UJES (free of charge) by creating an account or ask UJES to add their email on our mailing list in order to receive any updates or reminders by email. Subscription only means that your email will be added to a mailing list for relevant communication of updates, deadlines, new issues, or others. At any time you can request for your email to be removed from our mailing list.

Achieving a high-quality review process requires the necessary time for careful review by acknowledged experts in the field. In particular, this means that the selection of reviewers requires some time to ensure the most sound and polished result are published in UJES. Therefore, once a manuscript has been submitted, UJES requires an extended period of time to allow a critical review and editing to take place. If a manuscript requires extensive or minor revisions, the editors will notify the corresponding author by email. From which, the corresponding author must correct any errors and provide any explanations required, then resubmit the article as they did originally. These timelines will vary by case.

Manuscripts submitted to UJES are reviewed and evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Information is important, and the topic has a general interest to readers of this journal
• The material is original and writing is clear
• Study methods are appropriate and presenting data is valid
• Conclusions are reasonable and are supported by the data presented in the manuscript
• Ethics, patient consent, and patient confidentiality is approved and maintained
• Referencing is appropriate and follows UJES guidelines

For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact submissions@ujes.ca or the editors-in-chief (editor-in-chief@ujes.ca). We are eager to promote academic and research development, and to assist you in every way possible.