Is SAJPEC accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DoHET)? Will I be able to claim subsidy from DoHET if my research is published in SAJPEC?
Being a new journal that has not published any issues at present, SAJPEC cannot be accredited. The criteria on which DoHET base their decision to accredit a South African journal require the journal to have produced several issues. We certainly intend applying for accreditation, however this will only be possible after the successful publication of a few volumes of the journal. So for now, you will not be able to claim any subsidy from DoHET for articles published in SAJPEC.
What is SAJPEC’s ISSN?
A publication issue is required when applying for an ISSN number – consequently new publications that have not yet produced an issue will not have an ISSN number (i.e. SAJPEC at the present time). As soon as a first issue is published SAJPEC will apply for an ISSN.
What kind of material is SAJPEC interested in publishing?
The main focus of SAJPEC is original research relevant to South African pre-hospital emergency care. This may be in the form of shorter reports, or longer original research articles. SAJPEC also publishes articles describing original and relevant concepts (which may be related to clinical patient care, education, systems or other aspects of emergency care) and case reports. Lastly, systematic reviews (with or without meta-analysis) focused on any aspect of pre-hospital emergency care theory or practice are also welcome. For more details and requirements, please have a look on the journal website.
Does it cost anything to publish an article in SAJPEC?
SAJPEC does not charge any article processing fees, so you will not be required to pay in order to publish in the journal. The journal’s running costs are covered by the Emergency Care Society of South Africa and Stellenbosch University’s SUNJournals.
Does it cost anything to access any of SAJPEC’s articles, once published?
SAJPEC is Open Access, meaning that access to published articles is not restricted by a subscription of any kind. Please check on the journal website for details of the licence under which SAJPEC is published.
How do I get something published in SAJPEC?
SAJPEC is a peer-reviewed journal, meaning that all of the article types referred to above are subject to critical review by experts in the field who are chosen by the journal. The first step in this process is a check by one of the SAJPEC editors that your work is within the scope of the journal and complies with basic submission requirements as described on the journal website. If this is the case, your work will be allocated to at least two peer-reviewers who will provide the responsible editor with a report on whether or not they feel it is worthy of publication. This feedback may indicate that the work does not meet the critical threshold for publication in SAJPEC, or it may indicate that the reviewers would like certain changes to be made following which they will take another look at your work and make a final decision. More details about the peer-review policy are available on the journal website. Following this, if the reviewers and editor are satisfied with the changes, you will be notified that your work has been accepted, and it will go into production where it will be language edited and then finally translated into the journal’s article layout.
What kind of things do editors and peer-reviewers take into account when considering whether an article should be published in SAJPEC or not?
Generally, to be considered for publication, your work must be original and sound from a research design and methods perspective. In the case of concepts and case reports, there isn’t really an applicable research design or method, but originality is very important here too as is clarity of description. In particular, case reports must be unique and unusual clinical presentations to warrant publication. In addition to originality, the methodology of systematic reviews and meta-analyses is well defined and this must be rigorously adhered to in this type of work. Lastly, it may be the case that your work is sound from a technical (i.e. design and methods) perspective, but still is not accepted for publication. This may occur when the importance of the research problem or relevance of the work is not considered by the journal editors to be in line with SAJPEC’s focus or scope.
If my work is accepted, how long will it take for it to be published and how will it be published?
Once accepted, your work will need to be processed by a language editor and then it will be transformed into the journal’s layout, which the corresponding author will be requested to proof read once complete. After this step, when any outstanding corrections have been made, the article will be published online on SAJPEC’s website and later included in a journal issue (SAJPEC will publish two issues a year).
