Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Scope

The "Journal of Medical Internet Research" (JMIR; ISSN 1438-8871, Medline-abbreviation: J Med Internet Res), founded in 1999, is a leading health informatics and health services/health policy journal (ranked first by impact factor in these disciplines) focussing on emerging technologies in health, medicine, and biomedical research. JMIR was the first open access journal covering health informatics, and the first international scientific peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of research, information and communication in the healthcare field using Internet and Internet-related technologies; a broad field, which is nowadays called "eHealth" [see also What is eHealth and What is eHealth (2)], which includes mHealth (mobile health). This field has also significant overlaps with what is called "consumer health informatics.", health 2.0/medicine 2.0, or participatory medicine. This focus makes JMIR unique among other medical or medical informatics journals, which tend to focus on clinical informatics or clinical applications. As eHealth/mHealth is a highly interdisciplinary field we are not only inviting research papers from the medical sciences, but also from the computer, behavioral, social and communication sciences, psychology, library sciences, informatics, human-computer interaction studies, and related fields.
The term "Internet" is used in its broadest sense, so we are also interested in studies and applications of mobile technologies and social media (which often use the Internet as an underlying technology) or even the "Internet of things" (e.g. connected home appliances, domotics etc).
Manuscripts are invited which deal for example with

  • studies evaluating the impact of Internet/social media use or specific eHealth/mHealth interventions on individual health-related or social outcomes
  • evaluations and implementations of innovative mhealth (mobile health) applications, social media apps, ubiquitous computing, or innovative and emerging technologies in health
  • descriptions of the design and impact of Internet and mobile applications and websites or social media for consumers/patients or medical professionals
  • use of the Internet, social media and mhealth in the context of clinical information and communication, including telemedicine
  • use of the Internet, social media, and mhealth in medical research and the basic sciences such as molecular biology or chemistry (e.g. bioinformatics, online factual databases)
  • medical information management and librarian sciences
  • e-learning and knowledge translation, online-courses, social media, web-based and mobile programs for undergraduate and continuing education,
  • eHealth/mHealth and social media applications for public health and population health technology (disease monitoring, teleprevention, teleepidemiology)
  • evidence-based medicine and the Internet and mhealth (e.g. online development or dissemination of clinical guidelines, measuring agreement about management of a given clinical problem among physicians, etc.)
  • the impact of eHealth/mHealth/pHealth/iHealth, social media, the Internet, or health care technologies on public health, the health care system and policy
  • methodological aspects of doing Internet/mhealth/social media research, e.g. methodology of web-based surveys
  • design and validation of novel web-based instruments
  • ecological momentary assessment, sensors, mobile technologies for gathering and analyzing data in real-time
  • analysis of e-communities, social media communities, or virtual social networks
  • comparisons of effectiveness of health communication and information on the Internet/mHealth/social media compared with other methods of health communication,
  • effects of the Internet/mhealth/social media and information/communication technology on the patient-physician relationship and impact on public health, e.g. the studies investigating how the patient-physician relationship changes as a result of the new ways of getting medical information
  • ethical and legal problems as well as cross-border and cross-cultural issues of eHealth/mHealth
  • systematic studies examining the quality of medical information available in various online venues
  • methods of evaluation, quality assessment and improvement of Internet information or eHealth applications
  • proposals for standards in the field of medical publishing on the Internet, including self-regulation issues, policies and guidelines to provide reliable healthcare information
  • results and methodological aspects of Internet-based and social media studies, including medical surveys, psychological tests, quality-of-life studies, gathering and/or disseminating epidemiological data, use of the Internet/mobile apps/social media for clinical studies (e-trials), drug reaction reporting and surveillance systems etc.
  • electronic medical publishing, Open Access publishing, altmetrics, and use of the Internet or social media for scholarly publishing (e.g. collaborative peer review)
  • information needs of patients, consumers and health professionals, including studies evaluating search and retrieval behavior of patients
  • web-based studies, e.g. online psychological experiments
  • evaluations of mhealth (mobile) applications, as well as ambient / ubiquitous computing approaches, sensors, domotics, and other cutting edge technologies
  • personal health records, patient portals, consumer health informatics applications
  • behavior change technologies
  • Reviews, viewpoint papers and commentaries touching on the issues and themes listed above are also welcome, but should be grounded in data and/or a thorough literature review
In addition, the Journal will occasionally publish original research, reviews and tutorials on more generic, related topics such as
  • Internet standards
  • cybermetrics
  • security and confidentiality issues
  • Internet demographics
  • social impact of the Internet
  • digital imaging and multimedia
  • health care records
  • high-speed networks
  • telecommunication
  • electronic publishing
  • software development




In order to be considered for JMIR, clinical informatics papers should have a clear connections to the major themes in this journal of consumer/patient empowerment and participatory healthcare, and/or evaluate the use of mobile/Internet-based/emerging technologies.
Other clinical informatics studies with no relationship to consumer health informatics, or more technical papers can still be submitted and be peer-reviewed within JMIR, but are likely to be transferred to other JMIR sister journals, most notably the Interactive Journal of Medical Research (i-JMR, a general medical journal with focus on innovation), JMIR mHealth and uHealth, JMIR Medical Informatics, or JMIR Human Factors (in prep.). Formative work such as usability studies, pilot studies, proposals and protocols are transferred to JMIR Research Protocols. Papers with focus on games in health or gamification aspects of apps and theoretical issues/commentary on gaming are now primarily published in / transferred to JMIR Serious Games.



Submitted manuscripts are subject to a rigorous but speedy peer review process. Starting in 2012, we aim for a standard review time of less than 2 months, and a fast-tracked review time of 3 weeks (see Current Statistics, in particular 1.4 Time from submission to initial decision).
The review process is designed to help authors to improve their manuscripts by giving them constructive comments on how to improve their paper, and to publish only those articles which comply to general quality criteria of a scholarly paper, especially originality, clarity, references to related work and validity of results and conclusions.

Journal Format

The Journal of Medical Internet Research publishes articles "continuously," i.e. articles are published online as soon as they are available (peer-reviewed and copy-edited). Since 2013, the journal publishes daily (weekdays only).
The Journal collates articles into archival "issues" (before 2012, about 4 issues per year; since 2012 6 issues per year, since 2013 12 issues per year) and "volumes" (one per year).

The journal is entirely free, subscription is not necessary. However, we encourage authors and readers to support the journal by considering our subscription (membership) scheme where PDF reprints of single articles and "issues" are made available as value-added service.

 

 

Section Policies

General Original Articles (Editor: G. Eysenbach)

Submit all original papers here, unless they fall under another section category.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Commentary

These are usually invited commentaries published alongside other articles. They may or may not be peer-reviewed.

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Viewpoint

Opinion Articles or papers which would not otherwise qualify as "original papers", because they do not have much original data, but would also not qualify as reviews, because they are based on personal experiences, workshop results, etc.

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Tutorial

A"how-to" paper on an important practical or research issue. We recommend to contact the editor to discuss suitability of a topic before submitting it.Submission of slides or audio/video files as supplementary files is strongly recommended.

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Policy and Policy Proposals

Policy proposals should be based on a thorough review of the literature and stakeholder consultations, workshops or consensus building processes etc. If it is just the opinion of an individual (or small group of individuals), submit as viewpoint.

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Letters to the editor*

* Letters to the editor are exempt from Article Processing Fees.
While some other journals publish "Research Letters" (short articles containing original data), JMIR only publishes letters responding to a previously published article. Short articles containing original data should be submitted as general article.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Epublishing and Open Access

Commentaries, opinion pieces, and original research related to Open Access to the research literature.

Editors
  • James Till PhD, University of Toronto & Ontario Cancer Institute
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Journal Club CATCH-IT Reports*

CATCH-IT reports are "Critically Appraised Topics in Communication, Health Informatics, and Technology" and are typically short evidence-based critical summaries of a topic or a paper published in another journal. They are typically 1000-1500 words in length. Papers to be discussed in CATCH-IT reports should be selected from the current body of literature, and should not be older than 6 months (in exceptional cases up to 12 months). Selection criteria for papers discussed in a CATCH-IT report include one or more of the following: High quality papers with great potential impact on one or more groups of decision-makers in the health system; Papers illustrating methodological flaws worth discussing (seeking to prevent them in future studies) Papers providing an elegant solution to a (methodological) problem or otherwise addressing timely methodological issues or problems; Illustration of new ideas or concepts that could represent food for reflection and discussion; Direct impact on ongoing research CATCH-IT reports cannot be submitted by authors of the original paper. They should be an unbiased, balanced third-party appraisal of research published elsewhere. CATCH-IT reports may contain questions for the original author and may be peer-reviewed by the author of the original research. The author of the original research will have the opportuniy to publish a response.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Randomized trials (Editor: G. Eysenbach)*

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are highly welcome. RCTs must be reported in accordance with the CONSORT statement. A diagram illustrating the flow of participants through the trial is required. Please fill in and enclose a CONSORT checklist with your submission (upload as "supplementary file"). In addition, application for and report of a International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) is highly recommended. The ISRCTN should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section next to funding information.

 

Meta-analyses and/or systematic reviews are also highly welcome and should be reported in accordance with the QUORUM statement.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Editorials*

Editorials are submitted by invitation only. *Article processing fees are waived.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Protocols/Grant Proposals (JMIR Res Protoc)

The Journal of Medical Internet Research is no longer offering to peer-review and publish protocols and grant proposals, but we are happy to consider submissions in this section for a new spin-off journal to be launched in 2012 - JMIR Research Protocols.
If your protocol is already peer-reviewed (e.g. as part of a grant proposal), please upload the peer-review report as supplementary file (we may decide to review the protocol only internally if the protocol is already reviewed). Please note that there is a limit of 15 manuscript pages.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

eHealth Service, Product, Resource Reviews

Guidelines for Electronic Resources Reviews
Revised December 2009

The purpose of the new electronic resources reviews section in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) is to provide critical appraisals of electronic products and services that assist health care consumers and health professionals to select resources to manage or improve health. The focus is on consumer health informatics products, i.e. applications that have a direct interface to the consumer (although many of these products also have interfaces to health professionals, EMRs etc.).

We have two different pathways of soliciting/getting reviews: developer/company-sponsored vs author sponsored.
First, for "developer/company sponsored" reviews, the manufacturer, developer, or distributor of a service or product submits a description of a product/service (with access codes, if required) to JMIR, and the journal editor will try to find a reviewer. Whether or not a product/service/ressource is being reviewed is at the discretion of the editor. SUBMISSION AND (in case of review + publication) PUBLICATION FEES ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SPONSORING DEVELOPER/COMPANY. The sponsor has no influence on the content of the review.
Second, author- or journal-sponsored reviews, publication fees are the responsibility of the submitting author (or are subsidized by the journal). We require that the author has no conflicts of interests, in particular no relationships (financial or otherwise) to the developer, manufacturer, or distributor of the product/service.

Reviewers will evaluate many types of resources such as websites, databases, research and reference tools, educational instruments, online behavior change programs, iphone/mobile phone applications, personal health record (PHR) systems and PHR platforms. Web-based and mobile phone resources are the primary focus of reviews, though innovative hardware and consumer devices are included as appropriate. To be reviewed, resources must be readily accessible for use by consumers, preferably in multiple locations and jurisdictions. We prefer to have reviews of products which have a potentially large impact, and are not only used locally, e.g. products which are launched by influential corporations. We also prefer to focus on new products (launched within the last 12 months or so).

Some comparative information (competitor products and services) is useful and appreciated, although the focus should be on a single product or service. (Major comparative evaluation studies should be submitted as JMIR articles rather than reviews).

The following guidelines are adapted from JMLA’s Electronic Resource Review guidelines http://www.webcitation.org/5mMZX6v7D. As with book reviews, electronic resources reviews should include a general description of the resource, the intended audience, and its good and bad points. The reviewer should include sufficient description to give others a clear idea of the purpose of the resource (include 1-2 screenshots), its major features, the accessibility and usability of the resource, the quality of the accompanying documentation and/or the effectiveness of the resource if tested in evaluation/research studies. Below is a list of some of the items to consider when writing reviews; not all items may be appropriate for all resources.

• purpose
• general description (also mention the reviewed version here)
• contents (with screenshot)
• intended audience
• major features
• accessibility (costs?)
• usability
• advantages / strong points
• deficiencies and disadvantages, weak points
• technological administration issues
• review and critical appraisal of any effectiveness studies or other research published about the specific resource (if any); discuss possible impact on health services, health policy, public health, if any
• timeliness
• brief comparison to other similar products
• rate the application on a Medicine 2.0 rating scale as defined below

If the reviewed resource is web-accessible, then please create snapshots using webcitation.org.

Reviews should be double-spaced and typed and normally should not exceed two to three pages in length (four pages is the maximum). Reviews exceeding four pages, double-spaced, eleven-point type may be edited for length. The number of photos, figures, illustrations, and tables is limited to one per review.

The following elements (when available or applicable) should be included in the bibliographic information at the beginning of the review:

* title (including version number)
* date of publication
* ISBN, ISSN, and/or URL
* author or editor (last name, first name, and/or initials)
* publisher with electronic and postal contact information
* price (or pricing structure)
* technical requirements

Examples:

Turning Research Into Practice (TRIP). Jon Brassey, TRIP Database, 12 Llansannor Drive, Cardiff, United Kingdom, CF10 4AW. jon@tripdatabase.com; http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html; free Website.

Evidence Matters. Evidence Matters, 78 St-Joseph West #209, Montreal, QC, H2T 2P4, Canada; 866.843.0756; ContactUs@EvidenceMatters.com; http://www.evidencematters.com; institutional subscriptions only, contact for pricing.

At the end of the review, include:

* reviewer's full name
* abbreviations of any advanced academic degrees, professional degrees, or certifications (e.g., MLS, PhD, MD, RN, AHIP)
* email address
* institutional affiliation, city, and state (do not abbreviate)

Examples:

Richard Nollan, email@ut.edu, University of Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee

Carolyn M. Brown, brown@emory.edu, Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia

Conflicts of Interest.
State any actual or perceived conflicts of interest here. For electronic resource reviews we require that author add the following statement: “The author(s) of this review certify that they have no relationship (financial, spousal, or otherwise) to the developer or sales agents of the product/service reviewed.”

References. For electronic resource reviews there is a strict reference limit of 5. References in electronic resources reviews including cited URLs (which should be webcited) should conform to JMIR/AMA style. See Reference Style in the Information for Authors and References on the JMIR site for further information.




The editors reserve the right to make editorial changes if these changes do not affect the overall content of the review. Substantive changes will be discussed with reviewers. The editors reserve the right to reject reviews that are deemed unsatisfactory in quality.


The JMIR requires authors to sign the copyright license agreement and disclosure form in case of acceptance; it is the responsibility of the first author to ensure that coauthors sign and submit the forms.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Medicine 2.0'10 (Full Paper of Conference Presentation)

Contains the best papers from the Medicine 2.0'10 Maastricht Conference

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
  • Lisette Van Gemert-Pijnen, universiteit twente
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Medicine 2.0'11 (Full Paper of Conference Presentation)

This section is ONLY for presenters at Medicine 2.0'11 in Stanford. Special, discounted APF apply if the paper is submitted within 2 months after the conference (use the generic "Medicine 2.0" section if this timeframe has expired).

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Medicine 2.0'12 Boston (Full Paper of Conference Presentation)

For Medicine 2.0'12 presenters only. To be eligible for a 20% discount, the corresponding author must be fully registered for the med2 congress in Boston (no discounted/student registrations), the title/abstract must match the med2 presentation, and the paper must be submitted before Nov 15th, 2012. Late papers can still be considered for publication, but are not eligible for a discount.

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Medicine 2.0'13 London (Full Paper of Conference Presentation)

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Medicine 2.0'14 Maui/Malaga (Full Paper of Conference Presentation)

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e-Learning and Medical Education

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
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Ethics, Privacy, and Legal Issues

We welcome high-impact original research, well-researched reviews, viewpoints and tutorials on emerging privacy and confidentiality issues in the age of personal health records, Google Health, Patient-Accessible Health Records, and Web-based behavior change interventions.

Editors
  • Khaled El Emam, University of Ottawa
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Theoretical Frameworks and Concepts

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Special Theme Issue (2013) "Internet of Things" (Guest Editors: Jara, Koch, Ray et al.)

The evolution of the Internet towards the Future Internet with IPv6, Wireless Personal and Local Area
Networks (e.g. 6LoWPAN, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), mobile computing (e.g. smart phones, tablets), as well
as the capabilities for global and uniqueness identification of objects (e.g. RFID, NFC), are making it
feasible to identify, sense, locate, and connect people, machines, devices and everyday equipment.

These new capabilities to link Internet with everyday devices, forms of identification and communication
among people and things, and exploitation of data capture, define the so-called Internet of things. This
is opening an opportunity not only to extend the current e-Health approaches to a more pervasive and
mobile healthcare prevention, by connecting citizens’/patients’ clinical and everyday devices to the
Internet, but also to interconnect them with clinical platforms through the advantages from technologies
such as smart clinical devices and wireless technologies. Furthermore, new identification and tracking
solutions are being defined for hospital equipment, and smart knowledge-based algorithms are developed
to support personalized decision-making in the health and home care sector, in addition to supplementary
sectors such as pharmaceutical, in order to improve drug compliance and avoid adverse drugs reactions.

The objective of this issue is to report high quality research on recent advances developed in various
aspects of e-health, more specifically the state-of-the-art approaches, methodologies, and systems in the
design, development, deployment, and innovative use of the technologies, tools, and applications from the
Future Internet of Things, People and Services for healthcare and prevention. We invite authors to submit
their original papers and contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

Medical communications, protocols, standards and interoperability
Personal healthcare informatics solutions
Wireless Sensor Networks technologies for e-Health (e.g. 6LoWPAN/Bluetooth/WiFi)
Sensor technologies for e-Health and personal healthcare (e.g. ISO/IEEE 11073)
Identification technologies for e-Health, surgical and medical systems (e.g. QR/RFID/NFC)
Wearable and continuous health monitoring
e-Health service management (e.g. Web of Things)
Elderly homecare, Tele-health, and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)
Usability and HCI interfaces based on mobile computing and the Internet of Things
Personal Health Record, Information Systems, and Knowledge-Based Solutions
Global Healthcare and Citizens’ Prevention
Medication adherence, clinical guideline compliance and pharmaceutical applications
Tools and techniques to design, implement, and deploy IoT solutions
Mobile computing and Ubiquitous Healthcare applications
Living labs and field trials with the Internet of Things technologies

Editors
  • Antonio Jara, University of Murcia
  • Sabine Koch, Karolinska Institutet
  • Pradeep Ray, University of New South Wales, Australia
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Special Theme Issue (2013) "Medical Education Informatics" (Guest Editors: Bamidis, Giordano, Zary, Pattichis et al.)

Editors
  • Panagiotis Bamidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  • Daniela Giordano, University of Catania
  • Constantinos Pattichis, University of Cyprus
  • Nabil Zary, Karolinska Institutet
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ISRII Theme Issue 2013

JMIR Publications and the International Society for Research in Internet Interventions invite you to publish your presentation from the ISRII Conference (May 16-18, Chicago) as full paper in a special JMIR-ISRII Theme Issue (e-collection).
20% off regular Article Processing Fees

To be eligible for the APF discount, the full paper must be submitted between May 16th and Aug 16th, 2013 in the ISRII 2013 section of any JMIR Publications journal (http://www.jmir.org/about/editorialPolicies#custom10). The e-collection may include papers published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), JMIR Research Protocols (ongoing/planned/formative work welcome), JMIR mHealth and uHealth, and interactive Journal of Medical Research (i-JMR).
For pre-submission inquiries, please contact
gerhard.andersson@liu.se
(email subject: JMIR-ISRII theme issue)

Editors
  • Gerhard Andersson
  • Per Carlbring
  • David Mohr, Northwestern University
  • Heleen Riper, Vrije Universiteit
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Special Theme Issue (2013): "REHAB 2013" (Guest editors:Lange, Fardoun, and Mashat)

Editors
  • Habib Fardoun, King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Information Systems Department
  • Belinda Lange, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
  • Abdulfattah Mashat, King Abdulaziz University
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ISRII-JMIR Mental and Behavioural Health journal

JMIR Mental and Behavioural Health is a new journal focussing on interventions in mental and behavioural health.

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Business and Entrepreneurship in eHealth

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Corrigenda and Addenda

This section lists all substantive corrections, additions or changes made to articles and reviews subsequent to their first publication in the journal. Corrigenda are usually submitted by the corresponding author of the original article, or the section editor. Published papers are considered "final", thus JMIR makes corrections to published papers only in exceptional circumstances.

Editors
  • Gunther Eysenbach, Editor/Publisher, JMIR Publications Inc. & Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

When we receive a manuscript, the Managing Editor and/or Assistant Editor and/or the Section Editor will first decide whether the manuscript meets the formal criteria specified in the Instructions for Authors and whether it fits within the scope of the journal. When in doubt, the editor will consult other members of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts are then assigned to a section editor, who sends it to 2-4 external experts for peer review. Authors are required to suggest at least 2 peer-reviewers (who do not have an conflict of interest) during the submission process. JMIR reviewers will not stay anonymous their names will be revealed and stated below the article in the event that the manuscript will be published. Authors and reviewers should not directly contact each other to enter into disputes on manuscripts or reviews.

 

  • Speed of Peer-Review The Internet is a fast-moving field and we acknowledge the need of our authors to communicate their findings rapidly. We therefore aim to be extremely fast (but still thorough and rigorous) in our peer-review process. For example, the paper "Factors Associated with Intended Use of a Web Site Among Family Practice Patients" (J Med Internet Res 2001;3(2):e17) was reviewed, edited, type-set and published within only 16 days. Including the two weeks time authors needed to revise their article, from first submission to final publication less than 1 month passed. (note that actual times needed to review and edit papers vary, and primarily depend on the quality of the paper upon first submission!). Normally we can not give any guarantees on the speed of peer-review or publication - except if a paper has been submitted under the new fast-track scheme, where we guarantee an editorial decision within 15 working days (3 weeks) and publication of the article within 4 weeks after acceptance. 
  • Starting in 2012, we aim for an average decision time of 2 months after submission for papers sent out for peer-review. There will however always be outliers (papers which are more difficult to evaluate)

  • Current statistics on turnaround time show that on average it takes 50 days to make an initial decision (29 days for fast-tracked papers). (see 1.4 on the stats page)
  • Criteria for Selection of Manuscripts Manuscripts should meet the following criteria: the study conducted is ethical (see below); the material is original; the writing is clear; the study methods are appropriate; the data are valid; the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data; the information is important; and the topic is interesting for our readership. It is recognized that many submissions will describe websites and other Internet-based services. The Editorial Board strongly recommends that authors of such submissions make efforts to evaluate and if possible quantify the impact of these services. Submissions containing evaluations are more likely to be accepted than those containing descriptions of services alone, unless the service includes significant innovation. 
  • Ethical Issues: Internet-based research raises novel questions of ethics and human dignity. If human subjects are involved, informed consent, protection of privacy and other human rights are further criteria against which the manuscript will be judged. Papers describing investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, in accordance with all applicable regulations, and that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the studies were explained. JMIR is also encouraging articles devoted to the ethics of Internet-based research. In addition, as mentioned in the conflicts of interest, we will ask authors to disclose any competing interests in relation to their work.

 




GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS

Dear reviewer,
thanks for agreeing to peer-review this article for us. Our aim is to be extremely rapid in our review process, so please look at the manuscript immediately after you agreed to review it. Review in JMIR should be a matter of days, not weeks, as in other journals.
Should you due to some unforeseen circumstances not be able to review the manuscript within the allotted timeframe, please notify us immediately.

All communication should be done via this manuscript tracking system. That way, all communications related to this manuscript are automatically logged and stored.

If you are reviewing a fast-tracked manuscript (in JMIR authors may request to fast-track a paper for an additional fee), the first two reviewers who return their peer-reviewers report are eligible for a honorarium of $25. As NIH and other government officials are often not allowed to accept a honorarium, please explicitly note this in the confidential section to the editor when returning your report that you wish to be considered for the honorarium.
If you have any questions as to the form and scope of the journal, please refer to the Instructions for Authors (http://www.jmir.org/instruction.htm) .
We mainly wish to get your comment on the originality of the paper, validity of the conclusions and clarity of the writing - it is not necessary to copy-edit grammatical or spelling errors.


STEP I: Please copy and paste the form below into a word processor, fill in the form, and save the file for your own use.

STEP II: To submit your review, please go back to this site, click on the review icon above (under 4.), and copy & paste your review back into the two textboxes (confidential comments for editors and open comments for author and editor) which appear in the REVIEW window after you clicked the review icon.
Please note that all formatting will be lost, so do not use bold, italics etc.
After you clicked "save", your submitted comments should appear in the REVIEW window.
Once submitted, you cannot edit your review, but you can scroll down in the REVIEW window to add additional comments at any time.

STEP III: Close the REVIEW window, and upload any supplementary files under 5., if you have any.

STEP IV: Finally, do not forget to also select a recommendation in the drop-down box under 6. (above), even if you have already pasted these recommendations into the textbox for editors.

STEP V: IMPORTANT: Do not forget to click "Submit review to editor" next !!!

Do not discuss the paper with its authors either during or after the review process. Although it may seem natural and reasonable to discuss points of difficulty or disagreement directly with an author, especially if you are generally in favor of publication and do not mind revealing your identity, this practice is prohibited because the other reviewer and the editor may have different opinions, and the author may be misled by having "cleared things up" with the reviewer who contacted him/her directly. The manuscript sent to you for review is a privileged document. Please protect it from any form of exploitation. Do not cite a manuscript or refer to the work it describes before it has been published and do not use the information that it contains for the advancement of your own research or in discussions with colleagues.

In your comments intended for the author (section I), do not make statements about the acceptability of a paper; suggested revisions should be stated as such and not expressed as conditions of acceptance (you can make such remarks in the confidential comments). Organize your review for the author so that an introductory paragraph (general comments) summarizes the major findings of the article, gives your overall impression of the paper, and highlights the major shortcomings. This paragraph should be followed by specific, numbered comments, which, if appropriate, may be subdivided into major and minor points. (The numbering is important as it facilitates both the editor's letter to the author and evaluation of the author's rebuttal.) Criticism should be presented dispassionately; offensive remarks are not acceptable.

Confidential remarks directed to the editor should be typed in section II. of the peer-review template. Advise the editor of your recommendation for acceptance, modification, or rejection.

Best regards
G. Eysenbach MD MPH
Editor-in-chief, JMIR


--------------------------
Reviewers Report Form
--------------------------

Please copy & paste the sections below into a text editor of your choice, complete all sections, and then click the review icon above (4.) to copy & paste the two parts into the two separate textboxes.

-------------------------- PART I: For author and editor ------------------------------------

I. Suggestions for Authors and Editors (will be forwarded to authors) .
[When writing the Suggestions for Authors, please 1) do not mention acceptability for publication, and 2) number your specific comments]

General comments
=============
This paper....

Specific comments
=============
Major comments
---------------------
1.
2.
3.
...

Minor comments
---------------------
4.
5.
6.
...

-------------------------- PART II: For editor ------------------------------------


II.1. Confidential comments for editors

[tell us what you think and especially comment if the manuscript does not meet one of our acceptance criteria: the study conducted is ethical; the material is original; prior/related work is discussed and cited appropriately; the writing is clear; the study methods are appropriate; the data are valid; the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data; the information is important; and the topic is interesting for our readership.]
...
...
...
...

II.2. Please note any potential conflicts of interests, which would interfere with your objectivity

II.3. If there are any parts of the manuscript, which you cannot referee because of lack of expertise in this area (e.g. statistics, English), please specify here. If you have suggestions for external reviewers, who could assess the respective part, please make them here:

II.4. Note here if you are interested in writing a editorial or commentary about this paper (outline its content)

II.5. Recommendation (please also select the respective drop-down box under 6. after submitting your narrative review under 4.):
A ( ) Accept Submission
B ( ) (Minor) revisions required
C ( ) Resubmit for (re-)review (after revisions)
D ( ) Resubmit elsewhere (or try major revision and rereview)
E ( ) Decline Submission - fatal flaws that cannot be corrected or topic unsuitable for JMIR

 

Publication Frequency

The Journal of Medical Internet Research publishes articles "continuously," i.e. articles are published online as soon as they are available (peer-reviewed and copy-edited). The Journal collates them into archival "issues" (1999-2011: 4 issues per year, 2012: 6 issues per year; since 2013: issues per year) and "volumes" (one per year).

 

Author Self-Archiving

In JMIR, authors keep the copyright of their material and are allowed to self-archive their work as HTML or Word file in institutional repositories and on the web, or to republish it for example as a book chapter (note that publication in another scholarly journal - while possible from a copyright point of view - is generally considered duplicate publication and scientific misconduct). In all cases of republication or self-archiving, the original source (citation) should be provided, including the link to the original JMIR article on www.jmir.org, and a note should be included that the work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 2.0.

 

Why you should choose JMIR to publish your research - advantages of the journal

  • Fast-track review and rapid publishing: guaranteed peer-review and editorial decisions within 3 weeks, guaranteed publication within 4 weeks after acceptance (peer-reviewers are paid to deliver rapid and high-quality peer review reports) 
  • Open Access: FREE access, NO subscription required to read articles, first open access journal in health informatics (since 1999)
  • Authors retain the copyright and can republish their work for example as book chapters or their personal homepage (as long as the original publication in JMIR is acknowledged)
  • Fully indexed in: Medline [Index Medicus], CINAHL, Information Science Abstracts, INSPEC (Institution of Electrical Engineers), Communication Abstracts, The Informed Librarian Online, and other databases and abstraction services 
  • High impact:
    Impact Factor (2010): 4.7 (5-yr impact factor: 5.0): JMIR is top-ranked in the ISI Thompson Reuters disciplines medical informatics (#1) and health services research (#2) !

  • High visibility: JMIR website is among the most visited health informatics sites on the web - higher traffic than AMIA, JAMIA, IMIA websites 

  • Social Media Presence: Facebook & Twitter. Top articles are being tweeted over 100 times over the first week after appearance.
  • International Editorial Board
  • Printed version
  • Multimedia appendices" such as video (example) or Powerpoint-attachments (example) 
  • Author-friendly services and
  • proofreading and copyediting services 
  • Institutional affiliate status for departments and universities (Centers for Excellence in eHealth and Internet Research) available (http://www.jmir.org/support.htm) 
  • Full web-based manuscript submission and tracking system: Authors can track their manuscript through the peer-review process online. 
  • No space/length restrictions: JMIR also publishes full research reports with dozens or hundreds of pages. These articles, including book-length reports, will also be Medline indexed (copyediting surcharges may apply) 
  • Special issues: JMIR is happy to publish special issues or theme issues around a certain topic, e.g. as accompanying/follow-up publication to a conference or workshop. Contact the editor for details.

 

Indexing and Impact Factor

JMIR is indexed in more than 18 bibliographic databases and abstracting services, including Medline [Index Medicus], CINAHL, Information Science Abstracts, INSPEC (Institution of Electrical Engineers), Communication Abstracts, The Informed Librarian Online, LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts), EMBASE, Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, PsycINFO, LISTA (Library / Information Sciences & Technology Abstracts), ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts) database, CSA Social Services Abstracts database, Pubmed Central, and others.


Impact Factor (2010): 4.7 (5-yr impact factor: 5.0): JMIR is top-ranked in the ISI Thompson Reuters disciplines medical informatics (#1) and health services research (#2) !

 

Editorial Board Policy

Purpose: The Editorial Board is a group of outstanding individuals committed to helping JMIR to produce an excellent multidisciplinary scientific publication of the highest quality Selection criteria for EB members: Editorial Board members are appointed by the publisher/editor-in-chief for a 3-year-term that is renewable. Editorial Board members should have reviewed for JMIR and should have published at least one article in JMIR. Editorial Board members should not sit on editorial boards of competing journals during their term, but exceptions are possible. Nominations for Editorial Board appointments come from a variety of sources including self-nominations, the current Editorial Board, journal authors, and readers. The editorial board should constitute an appropriate interdisciplinary mix from a wide range of disciplines, including health care researchers, researchers from the engineering sciences, social sciences, and even patient representatives. EB members should be productive and respected members of the scientific community. In addition, JMIR is actively looking for consumer presentation on its board. Being a editorial board member for JMIR means that actual work is required, so EB members should have appropriate time and motivation. Main responsibilities • General advocacy for open access publishing in general and publishing high-quality work in JMIR specifically • Strategic and operational advice (unsolicited, as well as in editorial board meetings) • Guiding papers in their area of expertise through the peer-review process Individuals interested in sitting on the Editorial Board should contact the editor-in-chief.

 

Record Keeping and Research Policy

For record keeping, accountability and research purposes, JMIR preserves the right to retain all communications and manuscripts (including rejected manuscripts) indefinitely in its manuscript management system, unless submitting authors explicitly ask for removal of the records. While authors retain the copyright to their work, they agree with submitting a manuscript that JMIR has the right to (but is not obliged to) internally store and retain manuscripts and communications indefinitely. Submitting authors also acknowledge that the JMIR publisher, editor, or their designates have the right to analyze communications and statistics e.g. for peer-review research, education, marketing, or other purposes. Excerpts from communications may be quoted in a research, educational or marketing publications if the author remains anonymous.

 

Subscriptions (Membership)

Readers are invited to join the FREE electronic content alert service by registering here. Registered readers also receive access to a free PDF sample issue.
JMIR is an open access journal - articles are available free of charge as HTML files. Frequent readers and researchers working in the ehealth field are encouraged to become a paying/supporting individual or institutional member, which provides additional benefits such as downloading articles or entire issues as PDF files, or (for some institutional memberships) Article Processing Fee waivers or discounts, to encourage faculty and students to publish in JMIR. With becoming a member you support the overarching mission of the journal, which is to improve health through prudent use of information and communication technology.

 

 

Theme Issues and Guest Editors

JMIR reaches tens of thousands of readers interested in information and communication technologies in health, and is therefore the preeminent knowledge translation venue in this area. We are happy to support, produce and co-edit JMIR Theme Issues as major knowledge translation activities in important and emerging areas of ehealth, with leaders in the respective fields as guest editors. We are looking for guest editors who wish to compile a theme issue on a special topic (for example: electronic publishing, telemedicine, quality of health information, patient education, decision-support, Internet in psychiatry, theory in ehealth, mobile technologies, Web 2.0, ...). This may be particularly interesting for workshop and conference organizers putting together a grant-funded event (e.g. with invited experts) on an eHealth-related topic. JMIR is an excellent dissemination vehicle of ehealth-related workshop results. Theme issues may also be used as a knowledge dissemination vehicle for results from large collaborative grant-funded projects. Theme issues may contain for example state-of-the-art papers from selected/invited experts, research results from a large grant proposal (e.g. a series of connected studies), or simply articles submitted in response to a specific open call for papers. The task of the guest editor(s) is generally

* to solicit manuscripts from colleagues/experts concerning the selected topic,

* to select peer-reviewers for incoming manuscripts,

* to make decisions (together with the editorial board) on article revisions and acceptance,

* to write an editorial for the theme issue

* to secure funding to sponsor the APFs {Article Processing Fees) for published papers (usually in the $10-25k range, please budget $1590 per paper). If the guest editor has a network of colleagues who have indicated that they can carry the APF themselves, then author-funded theme issues are also possible.

Funding through grants or other sources is usually required and should be budgeted for in grant proposals. In the past, funding agencies such as NIH/NCI, CIHR, or private foundations have successfully been approached by the Guest Editor(s) to secure the funds. For example, CIHR has launched a new program called "End of Grant Knowledge Translation Supplement," worth $25k, which enables the funding of a theme issue (more information here). Peer-reviewers at granting agencies also expect a portion of the budget devoted to knowledge dissemination and knowledge translation, and JMIR theme issues can be proposed to facilitate dissemination of research results (due to the Open Access policy, results reach a broader audience beyond the research community). We urge principal investigators of any larger team grant proposals related to health and information/communication technology to budget for a theme issue (or at least a series of JMIR papers). Letters of support and quotes from JMIR are available on request (please contact the editor-in-chief). Another possible funding venue are workshop funding programs. Again, that granting agencies such as NIH or CIHR usually expect to see some sort of knowledge dissemination activities in workshop proposals, and have in the past funded the JMIR APFs.

The editor of JMIR is happy to support and actively help with any knowledge translation component in grant proposals incorporating some of the ideas listed above (as well as novel ideas e.g. mutlimedia, podcasting etc., cobranded with JMIR).

 

Trademarks and Service Marks Policy

Certain names, graphics, logos, icons, designs, words, titles or phrases on this Web site or in JMIR articles may constitute trade names, trademarks or service marks of JMIR or other entities. As customary in scholarly articles, trademarks and service marks are not necessarily indicated as such by using the trademark (TM), service mark (SM), or registered trademark (R) symbols. The display of trademarks on pages at this Web site does not imply that a license of any kind has been granted.

 

Subscribe to RSS Feeds / add JMIR headlines to your homepage or blog

Add any of the following Headline Animators (dynamically updated with the latest JMIR articles) to your homepage, your blog, or use your favorite newsread or live bookmarks to stay abreast of the latest research published in JMIR:

Journal of Medical Internet Research: Latest Papers

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

JMIR RSS Feed

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

J Med Internet Res

↑ Grab this Headline Animator



Or add the Facebook badge on your Blog or homepage:



To display the badge above, simply copy & paste the following HTML on your webpage/blog (for a wider representation change width from 200px to 700px in the code):


 

Fee Schedule

As we aim to publish widely indexed, carefully copyedited, high-quality manuscripts, that are also deposited in repositories such as PubMed Central, publication of an accepted paper requires expensive production steps such as copyediting, reference checking and XML tagging. In the editing & production stage, JMIR employs professional full-time staff and freelancers, and we have to pay our bills too. To defray these costs (and because we cannot sell subscriptions like toll-access journals) we require authors to pay certain fees.
Authors publishing in JMIR are paying a nominal submission fee ($90), an article processing fee (APF) only in case of acceptance, and (optionally) a fast-track fee for expedited review.
These fees are usually funded from research grants, and new researchers in the area are urged to budget for open access publications in their grant proposals, much as they budget for conference presentations (please budget about $2000 per article).

When comparing the costs for publishing in JMIR against the cost of publishing in other OA journals, please consider that 1) JMIR is consistently ranked #1 in its field by impact factor, 2) JMIR employs professional copyediting after acceptance, which is a service many OA journals with lower costs do not provide. Given these considerations, JMIR is currently one of the most cost-effective OA journals on the market.

For a detailed fee overview see Instructions for Authors.


JMIR Article Processing Fee Waiver Policy


Only the APF can be waived, and only in exceptional circumstances. Please contact the editor BEFORE submission to get an informal opinion on whether or not a particular paper/topic may get sufficient priority for an APF waiver. You will also need to fill in an application form, signed by ALL coauthors, and ALL of their department heads, confirming that no other funds are available. The application form with all signatures of all coauthors and their department chairs should preferably be made on submission (upload a scanned form as supplementary file).


In exceptional cases we grant fee waivers, but we have to set the bar high for these exceptions, as any APF waiver means that we have to subsidize the publication, even though we are not a granting agency. Usually the onus is on the author to find funding sources from any entity that benefits from publication of the article. For example, due to the high impact-factor ranking of JMIR, usually your department benefits directly or indirectly from publication of the article, so in the absence of extramural funding we would expect the department to carry the costs.

Article Processing Fees (APFs) for Open Access journals have become an increasingly accepted method to defray the costs for publication, and fortunately most institutions have developed mechanisms and funding sources to cover publication costs in high-quality open access journals.

Most researchers pay APFs from their grants (if you have money to travel to conferences, you also have money to pay for an APF – both are knowledge dissemination activities!). If this is not the case, institutions and departments may have funds or bursaries for such purposes. Some institutions or departments may have purchased an institutional JMIR membership – the APF is automatically waived if the corresponding author is from an institutional member.

JMIR is waiving APFs for non-members only under exceptional circumstances if all of the following conditions are met:
1) neither of the authors (including coauthors) have funding sources enabling them to carry the APF
2) or: in case of having a funding source (e.g. a project/research sponsor listed in the “Acknowledgements”), the funding source(s) declined to pay for open access publishing charges,
3) the departments/institutions of all authors have no funds, bursaries, or other means to pay for open access charges.

In order to consider an application for a fee waiver, we require in writing from each coauthor a written declaration that they have explored all avenues of potential funding. We need these declarations from each co-author, each counter-signed by the head of the department or university mentioned in the authors’ affiliation lines.
If an author lists multiple affiliations, we need to have the head/chair/director from each affiliation sign the form (APF Waiver Form).

If a funding source (e.g. granting agency, foundation etc.) is named as a project sponsor in the acknowledgement section of an article, we require a written statement signed by a representative of that sponsor explicitly declining payment of the APF and explaining why (we are not aware of any major funders not covering APFs, so we need assurance that the funder has been approached by the authors). We reserve the right to publish a blacklist and our experiences with certain institutions or funders who have no open access-friendly policies, ultimately to put public pressure on these organizations.

Requests for APF waivers are usually not granted if any coauthor is from a institution which is a signatory of the “Compact for Open Access Equity” (OACOMPACT) (http://www.oacompact.org/signatories/), as in these cases there is documented and guaranteed institutional financial help available to cover publication fees. In this case it is the responsibility of the author to contact the respective university body (OACOMPACT contacts) to request financial support for the APF. This includes for example authors from the following institutions (check http://www.oacompact.org/signatories/ for an updated list and details - do NOT contact us to inquire about details):
• Cornell University
• Dartmouth College
• Harvard University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• University of California at Berkeley
• University of Ottawa
• Columbia University
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

If any author has any of these organizations listed in their affiliation lines, and payment of the APF has been turned down by the OACOMPACT contact, we will require a letter from the OACOMPACT contacts addressed to the author detailing why an author-application for financial help has been rejected.

APF waivers are usually not granted if one author is affiliated with a commercial for-profit organization, or a commercial organization being acknowledged as sponsor of the project. We will make a case-by-case decision if the CEO or another management-level officer of the company provides us with a compelling reason why payment of APF is not possible.


If an article has been approved for a fee waiver, the following statement will be added to the “acknowledgements” of the publication: “Publication of this article was co-sponsored by the Journal of Medical Internet Research. All authors declared that they failed to identify any funding source for the project described in the paper to enable coverage of the publication costs. All department/division heads/chairs of the author institutions have declared that no institutional funding mechanisms for knowledge dissemination activities and/or coverage of open access publishing costs at their department or university level exist.”

Note that we will treat any cases of forged signatures or false declarations as scientific misconduct.

 

Instructions for authors

Before submitting, please read our instructions for authors. To submit the paper, create a user account as author and submit the paper in the author section of your user homepage.

A Word-template of an article compatible with journals from JMIR Publications can be downloaded from http://jmir.org/ojs/public/journals/1/InstructionsForAuthorsOfJMIR.docx. Note that the references can be in any format, as long as the in-text citations are sequentially numbered in the manuscript with square brackets and as long as the reference at the end has a PMID in the format PMID:123456. See Instructions for Authors for details. .

As a service for our authors we now offer the possibility to have a submission considered in partner journals, which means that the manuscript and peer-review reports may be transferred to a JMIR sister/partner journal, if the paper is not found suitable for publication in JMIR, but is publishable in another journal. These journals include e.g. i-JMR, JMIR Res Protoc, JMIR mHealth and uHealth, JMIR Medical Informatics, JMIR Human Factors, JMIR Mental Health, JMIR Public Health, JMIR Cancer, Medicine 2.0 and others. The submission fee for that partner journal (if any) will be waived, and transfer of the peer-review reports may mean that the paper does not have to be re-reviewed. Authors will receive a notification when the manuscript is rejected for J Med Internet Res and transferred, and at that time can decide if they want to pursue publication in a sister/partner journal. If authors do NOT wish an automatic transfer to an alternative journal after rejection for JMIR, this should be noted in the cover letter.

 

About the publisher

Vision:
JMIR Publications is the leading ehealth publisher, advancing progress in the health, engineering and social sciences to ultimately help people to live happier and healthier lives using technology.

Mission Statement:
JMIR Publications helps innovators in the health technology space to collaborate and to disseminate their innovations, ideas, and research results to the widest possible audience, in a timely manner, adding value to the quality of the work and adhering to the highest ethical and quality standards.
We achieve this by using the Internet and the latest available technologies as well as by producing conferences and social media, and other innovative knowledge translation products.
We also innovate in the scholarly communication space itself, experimenting with new business models, new models of peer-review and dissemination, and new technologies.

History
JMIR Publications, Inc. is a rapidly growing innovative academic publisher. It builds on the success of JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research), which started in 1998 as a small independent open access project hosted at a university, which subsequently grew into the most influential journal in medical informatics (ranked #1 by Impact Factor by Thomson Reuters for five years, 2013 IF: 4.7) and health services research (ranked #4 by Thomson Reuters among 85 health science journals). Due to the growth in influence and submissions, and to make the operations more sustainable and professional, the journal was incorporated as company in 2011. Shortly after incorporation, several spin-off journals were launched. Currently, JMIR Publications Inc. publishes the following journals:



Several other new journals are in development and will be launched in 2014 or 2015 (the publisher also accepts new proposals by individuals and societies):
  • JMIR Rehabilitation and Cyborg Technologies
  • JMIR Medical and Bioengineering
  • JMIR Cancer
  • JMIR Public Health
  • JMIR Bioinformatics
  • JMIR Healthcare Improvement


JMIR Publications Inc. also produces and organizes the annual Medicine 2.0(R) World Congress series (http://www.medicine20congress.com), is curator of the Medicine 2.0(R) Social Network (http://medicine20.net), and owns several other trademarks in the health field [e.g. Healthbook(R), http://healthbook.com] and altmetrics area [Twimpact Factor(TM), WebCite(R), http://www.webcitation.org].

 

New Journal / Editor-in-Chief Proposals

JMIR Publications is an open access academic publisher based in Toronto, Canada, and is the leading publisher of peer-reviewed journals in the ehealth domain. We are the leading open access publisher focussing on technology and bioengineering in health, and are expanding into other areas. Our mission is to reinvent research communication through grassroots, researcher-driven innovation in every aspect of peer-reviewed publishing, making use of Internet, social media, and mobile technologies, and we are currently expanding into other science domains.

Recent successful journal launches include JMIR Research Protocols and interactive Journal of Medical Research (i-JMR). To expand our journal portfolio we are continuously looking for gaps in the journal market, societies interested in creating new journals or looking for new publishers, and visionary and highly regarded scientists, primarily working at the intersections between technology and medicine, to lead the creation and development of new journals in emerging disciplines and rapidly expanding research areas. Building on the JMIR brand, possible new titles could include JMIR mHealth, JMIR Serious Games, JMIR Bioinformatics, JMIR Biomedical Engineering, or individual titles without the JMIR branding in the title.

Proposed editors-in-chief must be highly regarded and cited individuals (evidenced by their list of publications and their h-index, generally at least 15-20) and must have a clear vision for their journal, including a plan to solicit editorial board members and the first 20 submissions. The application process (which can be done by a society or an individual) consists of developing a journal proposal containing these details.
Ongoing tasks will be to guide submissions through the peer-review process, (light) academic editing of submissions, and liaising with the JMIR production team.

An honorarium/stipend may be paid.


Applications process:
To apply as editor-in-chief for new journals, or as a society/community proposing a new journal, please develop and submit a journal proposal, containing for example:


  1. a short bio of the editor in chief, and a dump of the most cited publications (e.g. from Web of Science, Google Scholar, or Scopus), ranked by the number of citations, showing the h-index of the applicant (e.g. first 20 publications which are cited more than 20 times = h-index of 20).
  2. Name of the future journal ("JMIR [Discipline]" or an independent title not building on the JMIR brand)
  3. Scope and mission of the journal
  4. An estimate of the "market" size in terms of how many papers per year in this discipline are published, with projections (e.g. search PubMed). We are primarily interested in growing disciplines
  5. List competitor/similar journals and their impact factors, and how the new journal would distinguish itself from them
  6. Example titles for 10-20 articles to be published
  7. A list of future possible editorial board members
  8. A clear plan on how to solicit the first 20 papers for the new journal
  9. A list of other publishers you may have contacted or are in negotiation with (and their terms, and what you like or dislike about them, if applicable)



Please email your application documents to jmir.editorial.office@gmal.com with the subject line "editor-in-chief [journalname]".