Special Issues
Special Issues
A Special Issue in the Journal of Medical Informatics and Decision Making is a curated collection on a defined question, assembled by guest editors with standing in the subject and reviewed to exactly the same standard as any other submission. This page sets out how one is proposed, how it is governed, and what a guest editor takes on.
ISSN 2641-5526Open accessCC BY 4.0Same peer review as regular submissions
01 · Propose a Special Issue
The Journal of Medical Informatics and Decision Making welcomes proposals for focused collections that address important questions in medical informatics and healthcare decision science. Researchers with relevant expertise are invited to review the proposal requirements below and contact the editorial office.
A proposal is assessed on the scientific question, not on the volume of submissions it might attract. Collections that duplicate the regular flow of the journal, or that restate a subject rather than ask something of it, are not taken forward.
02 · What a proposal contains
- Title
- The working title of the collection.
- Scientific rationale
- The question the collection addresses, why it is open now, and what a reader would be able to do with the answer. One to two pages.
- Scope
- What the collection includes and what it excludes, expressed so that an author can tell whether their work belongs in it.
- Fit
- How the subject sits inside the journal's Aims and Scope. A Special Issue does not extend the journal's scope.
- Guest editors
- Two to four proposed guest editors with affiliations, ORCID iDs, and a short statement of standing in the subject. A single guest editor is accepted only with a named co-editor from the journal's board.
- Article types
- Which of the journal's accepted categories the collection expects, and roughly how many articles.
- Competing interests
- Declared for every proposed guest editor, including commercial relationships in the subject area.
The editorial office replies with a decision on the proposal and, where it is taken forward, agrees an opening date and a closing date with the guest editors before anything is announced.
03 · How a Special Issue is governed
These safeguards are what make a curated collection trustworthy, and they are not negotiable as part of a proposal.
The same peer review
Every manuscript submitted to a Special Issue goes through the journal's normal screening and independent peer review, on the same criteria as a regular submission. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Inclusion in a collection is not a route to publication.
Independent editorial oversight
The Editor-in-Chief retains responsibility for every decision in the collection. Guest editors recommend; the journal decides, and may decline a manuscript a guest editor supports.
Guest-editor submissions
A manuscript authored or co-authored by a guest editor is handled entirely outside their access, by an editor with no involvement in the collection, and the guest editor sees neither the reviews nor the decision.
Competing interests
Guest editors declare competing interests before appointment and recuse themselves from any manuscript where one arises, including work from their own institution or research group.
Closing a collection
A collection that does not attract work of sufficient quality is closed, and the accepted articles are published in a regular issue. Nothing is published to fill a collection.
04 · Submitting to a Special Issue
When a collection is open, its call states the subject, the guest editors, the article types sought and the closing date, and submissions are made through the journal's normal routes with the collection named in the submission.
Everything else is unchanged: the article types and limits in the Instructions for Authors, the requirements of the Editorial Policies, and the article processing charge and its terms on the Article Processing Charges page. Publication in a Special Issue carries no different charge and no different standard.
Related pages
JMID · Editorial office
Discuss an idea before writing a proposal
A paragraph describing the question, why it is open, and who would guest edit it is enough for the editorial office to say whether a full proposal is worth preparing. Write to [email protected].
Journal of Medical Informatics and Decision Making · ISSN 2641-5526 · Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302 · published open access by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0. Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role.