BJGP Open editorial process & policies

Articles are considered on the basis of quality and originality. The professional background of the authors (and whether or not they are RCGP Members) is of no importance. Priority is given to research articles asking questions of direct relevance to patient care and, in the practice and policy section, to articles likely to be of interest to a wide, international primary care readership.

Manuscripts are also considered in relation to current journal priorities. We receive more submissions than we publish and editors may reject, without external peer review, manuscripts whose subject matter, design, or topic do not meet our current priorities and are unlikely to make it through our processes.

BJGP Open is published by RCGP, based in the UK, but has complete editorial independence. Opinions expressed in BJGP Open should not be taken to represent the policy of RCGP unless specifically stated.

 

Authorship

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This will be all those who have made a substantial contribution to the concept and design, conduct, analysis, or writing up of a study. Normally we would not expect to list more than 12 authors.

Authors of research articles will be required to provide details of their individual contributions to the work on submission of the revised version (following peer review) of the article using the CRediT taxonomy. The data will not be published.

Contributions are expected to fall into at least two of the following categories:

  • conceiving and designing the study
  • obtaining funding and/or ethical approval
  • collecting the data
  • analysing the data
  • interpreting the data
  • writing the report (wholly or in part)
  • revising the report

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content relevant to their own contribution. We do not require all authors to sign the initial letter accompanying submission but all authors must sign the declaration form sent with the Editor’s response at the conclusion of peer review.

In addition, at least one author should be designated as the guarantor for the integrity of the data on which the article is based. This will normally be the author for correspondence.

AI tools cannot be listed as an author. We follow the guidance as laid out in the COPE position statement.

Submission of articles

Please address a covering letter to the Editor, briefly explaining why your submission is likely to be of interest to BJGP Open and of importance to its readership. This is an opportunity to highlight the novelty and likely impact of your research. If there has been previous discussion or email correspondence about the submission please remind the Editor about this.

To help streamline submissions to BJGP Open we’ve adopted a format-light submission process for Research articles. This means that when initially submitting your Research to us, you no longer need to format your article to our full requirements.

We understand that detailed re-formatting for different journals is a time-consuming process that is potentially significant burden on authors. It is important that manuscripts have a basic structure that ensures the editors and peer reviewers can evaluate them accurately. We are prepared to be flexible on this, but we do reserve the right to ask for revisions if, in the editors’ opinion, the manuscript is presented in such a way to significantly hamper assessment.  

For further information on format-light submissions see Writing for BJGP Open: research.

For Practice & Policy submissions, it is not essential that the first submission conform to the instructions in every particular. However, where there are obvious major breaches (for instance, if your article is much longer than recommended) it may be rejected without being sent out for peer review.

Normally, we only insist on strict adherence to submission guidelines in revised files. The Editor's letter will provide instructions to help you achieve this.

EDI data

BJGP Open is a signatory of the Joint Commitment for Action on Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing and is part of a group of 56 publishers working together to collect anonymised data to assess biases in our peer review processes. More information can be found in our Editorial. When submitting your manuscript you will be asked to answer three questions on gender, race, and ethnicity ('Prefer not to disclose' is an answer option). These anonymised, aggregated data are held securely within the ScholarOne system, and cannot be seen, accessed, or used by anyone during the manuscript submission or peer review process, but will be used to improve diversity and inclusion across the journal's editorial processes.

Processing submitted articles

All articles are screened by the Editor. Any that are unlikely to be accepted, whatever the result of peer review, are rejected at this stage. The grounds for rejection at this stage are usually either:

  • a major flaw in the design
  • the work falls outside the BJGP Open remit

Since the grounds for rejection are so clear, it is not possible to appeal against a decision at this stage. Each year the BJGP Open Editorial Board reviews a sample of screening decisions to ensure that this policy is being followed consistently.

Plagarism

As a member of CrossRef, BJGP Open uses Similarity Check, a plagiarism detection tool, which enables us to screen articles on submission, to ensure that all content is original.

Preprints

A preprint is a scholarly paper that is posted on a public server prior to formal peer review and BJGP Open will consider for review articles that have been made previously available as preprints on non-commercial servers, such as medRxiv. We have partnered with medRxiv to facilitate direct transfer from medRxiv to BJGP Open (M2J). This can save authors time as their manuscript files and metadata are transmitted directly from medRxiv.

BJGP Open does not consider preprints in dedicated preprint repositories to be prior publication. BJGP Open also places no restrictions on the licence chosen when posting a preprint, however authors must retain copyright of their work when posting to a preprint server.

On submission to BJGP Open, authors should disclose that a version of the paper has been deposited in a preprint server and must include a link or DOI to the preprint.

Following publication of the article in BJGP Open we request that authors to update their preprint with a link to the version of record on BJGP Open and include the new article DOI.

Preprints should not be used for clinical decision making or reporting of research to a lay audience without indicating that it is preliminary research that has not been peer-reviewed.

Editorial standards

You will be sent a formal acknowledgement of your initial submission whether or not the article is likely to be accepted for publication.

Most articles require some form of revision, and we ask you to submit the revised version within 2 months of receiving the Editor’s letter. We aim to respond to revised submissions within 2 weeks.

Peer review

BJGP Open operates an open peer review system, so the identities of the authors and reviewers are known to each other. Articles are assessed according to the criteria listed on our website for Research and Protocol articles, and for other article types. We encourage authors to view these before submitting an article. As much as possible, we aim to give authors an initial decision within 6 weeks. 

All Research articles receive at least two external peer reviews. To expedite decision-making on articles transferred from BJGP to BJGP Open, any external or internal reviews conducted by BJGP are considered within BJGP Open's decision-making process. These transferred reviews may count towards the requirement of two external reviews.
Occasionally, we are unable to secure a sufficient number of peer reviews for a manuscript, determined at the Editor’s discretion, as either an excessive number of rejected invitations to review, or an excessive period of time in which the submission has been awaiting review. In such cases, the Editor reserves the right to make a final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript. This is to minimise inconvenience to authors and ensure that they are able to submit their manuscripts to other journals, which may be more appropriate in scope.

For protocols, we usually conduct one peer review and accept external peer reviews provided by the authors, including grant panel or ethics review feedback. Authors are asked to upload these with their submissions.

Appeal

If your article has been rejected and you feel that a mistake has been made, you can appeal. Write to the Editor within 2 weeks of the decision, setting out where you think the reviewers’ reviews or the Editor’s letter is incorrect. Delayed requests for appeal may be considered if there are extenuating circumstances, noted in the appeal request, but this will be at the Editor’s discretion.

At this stage, you must not make any revisions to take account of reviewers’ comments. The appeal process will go ahead if a reviewer or the Editor could have made a mistake with the technical aspects of a study, misinterpreted some aspect of the article, or if bias could have entered into the reviewers’ comments. The process is unlikely to be used where an article has been rejected on the basis of editorial policy.

If the Editor feels that there are grounds for challenging the original decision, the article may be sent out to a new reviewer. The Editor will be guided by this reviewer’s report. Reviewers used in the appeal process will usually be members of the Editorial Board.

The final decision will be made with reference to the following criteria:

  • the article is new, innovative, representing a discovery
  • it is timely or interesting
  • it is methodologically sound
  • the quality of analysis and data presentation
  • the conclusions warranted
  • the quality of discussion, analysis, and writing; and
  • the importance and impact

Complaints

Please direct all complaints to the Editor or the Editorial Office at BJGPOpen@rcgp.org.uk. All complaints will be considered in a timely manner and where appropriate, these will be referred to the BJGP Open Ethics Advisor. Where a complaint remains unresolved, the complainant can refer the matter to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Corrections & retractions

BJGP Open aims to maintain the highest possible scientific standards. Authors and readers should contact the Editorial Office with correction and retraction concerns. Articles will be updated and correction notices published at the next available opportunity. Where an article is seriously flawed a retraction will be considered. All cases submitted to the Editorial Office will be assessed on an individual basis, initially by the BJGP Open Editor and Ethics Advisor, and may be referred to the Editorial Board. All retracted articles will be clearly labelled as Retracted and a retraction notice published.

Author accepted manuscripts

BJGP Open publishes an Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) ahead of the full publication of a Research or Protocol article. The AAM is the final version of the manuscript accepted by the journal following changes made during peer review, but before typesetting, subediting, and correction. An AAM will have the same DOI as the final, fully published article, meaning that the article can be cited as soon as its AAM is posted online. Practice & Policy articles, and articles forming part of a special themed issue of the journal, are not eligible to be published as AAMs. If you do not want your article to be published first as an AAM, please notify the journal office by email before payment of the APC.

We require confirmation that the author has permission to include any third-party content in their manuscript. 

Please ensure all author information is correct and up to date on the ScholarOne submission system. The order of authors on the submission form will be the order used in the AAM. Errors in the AAM cannot be corrected.

If you are required to submit a revised version of your manuscript with tracked changes, you will also be asked to provide a ‘clean’ copy as a supplementary file not for review. If this is not provided, the tracked changes version will form the AAM. he author(s) retain(s) copyright and responsibility for the content of the AAM. AAMs are published under the CC BY 4.0 license.
 
Errors discovered and corrected during the subediting process may materially alter the content of the manuscript, and the latest published version (the Version of Record) should be used in preference to any preceding versions (such as the AAM).

Publication of articles

All articles are accepted subject to copy editing, which may be considerable. Proofs of articles are sent to authors who are asked to check them for errors and return them promptly.

Open access publication

We believe that it is important that research is freely available to ensure wide dissemination of findings. Open access not only allows free publication of publicly funded research to everyone, but also enables it to be shared and re-used with minimal restrictions. BJGP Open operates an open access publication policy for all its articles. We make accepted papers freely available where the funder of the research has agreed to pay for open access publication, and the authors can claim the Article Processing Charge (APC). Payment of APCs and open access publication do not affect the Journal's usual peer review processes.

Many funders such as the Research Councils, the National Institute for Health Research, the Wellcome Foundation and some major charities now require authors to make their research available through open access, and the costs of the APCs are included in research funding applications. The APC for BJGP Open has been set at £1250 (plus VAT where applicable) for Research articles, £750 (plus VAT where applicable) for Research Protocols, and £250 (plus VAT where applicable) for Practice & Policy articles. Refunds will not normally be issued. Payment for this transaction will be processed by PayPal. We do not store credit card details not do we share financial details with third parties. Open access not only allows free publication of publicly funded research to everyone, but also enables it to be shared and re-used with minimal restrictions.

Authors whose institutions in the UK and Republic of Ireland have taken up our Read & Publish deal with Jisc will not need to pay an APC for BJGP Open research articles. 

This is a cost-neutral deal, agreed with librarians, and it provides unlimited access to all of our content and allows corresponding authors from that institution unlimited free open access publication for research articles in BJGP and BJGP Open. These agreements therefore support institutions and authors working to meet funding requirements and to make open access the default publishing choice.

Authors of BJGP Open articles retain copyright and the default license type is CC BY 4.0. The articles are fully available on publication via the BJGP Open website and are also sent to PubMed Central, where they are also made fully available. Authors may self-archive their articles, however please acknowledge the source and link to the final published version, and label the article CC BY 4.0 where applicable. Requests for waivers should be highlighted during the submission process. Waivers will only be considered for research conducted in HINARI Group A and B countries and authors will need to confirm that they have exhausted other available funding options. We offer a 25% discount on APCs for research where we have previously published the protocol in BJGP Open. This applies to one subsequent submission. This discount does not apply to additional fees incurred for increased word counts. Please contact us if you would like further information on open access, including discounts and waivers.

Contact BJGP Open

BJGP Open Office
Royal College of General Practitioners
30 Euston Square, London NW1 2FB
Tel: 020 3188 7542 / Fax: 020 3188 7401
E-mail: bjgpopen@rcgp.org.uk

 

Intended for Healthcare Professionals