Invitation to Propose Special Issues

2025-04-01

Proposal for special issue: Babcock University Medical Journal Guidelines

The Editor-in-Chief wishes to appreciate your interest in submitting a proposal for a Special Issue in Babcock University Medical Journal. A synopsis of the process is provided here for your kind consideration.

  1. Proposal for Special Issue

The Lead Guest Editor should lead the process and make the submissions to bumj@babcock.edu.ng from the institutional email address. The requirements for an acceptable proposal are provided in the Special Issue Proposal Form for the proposer’s consideration. You are required to adhere strictly to the requirements.

  1. Proposal consideration

The Editorial Board will review the proposal and revert within 14 working days of a properly submitted proposal. If it is favourable, an in-house special issue editor will be selected to liaise with the Lead Guest Editor to take the process further. The call for papers and other submissions may be edited.

  1. Terms and conditions
  • The Guest Editors may also be the author or co-author of a maximum of two articles, excluding the Editorial.
  • No person may be an author of more than two articles, excluding the Editorial.
  • The papers should be either original or empirical research; however, exceptional theoretical contributions may be acceptable.
  • In general, the initial Special Issue proposal should include at least 15 contributions, out of which at least 7 will be published. If fewer than seven out of the proposed contributions are accepted, the Special Issue will not be published as such. The papers may, however, be published as regular papers in the journal based on an agreement between the Lead Guest Editor and the Special Issue Editor.
  • The submissions must adhere strictly to the journal’s guidelines, which will be provided to the proposers.
  • The Guest editors are required to write an editorial (not more than 1000 words and a maximum of 20 references) to give a high-level overview of the aim, accepted papers, and outcome of the Special Issue considering the current state of knowledge in the field. The specific format of the editorial is not predefined.
  • Upon approval of the Special Issue, the Guest Editors choose two reviewers for each submission, who may be authors of other submissions if they have no Conflict of Interest, but at least one reviewer. At least one of the reviewers must be external to the Special Issue. The Special Issue Editor is entitled to choose additional reviewers, deemed necessary.
  • The Guest Editors are given the necessary rights within the journal’s submission system to upload papers, assign and follow reviewers, and enter a decision. There will be one Guest Editor (“Lead Guest Editor”) who will be the main contact within the system.
  • Once a sufficient number of reviews (at least two) are obtained, the Guest Editors are required to make and justify their decision based on the Special Issue aims and the Guest Editor and reviewers’ expert opinions.
  • Special issue submissions will be handled on an incoming basis.
  • The Special Issue Editor (not Guest Editors) has the final responsibility for determining the quality of the SI and the articles contained in it and, as such, makes the final decision on each submission.
  • Acceptance/invitation for submitting a manuscript to the Special issue does not guarantee publication of the submission. All submissions must undergo independent peer review.
  • The journal is published open access, and for each accepted paper, the authors or their representatives are required to pay an Article Processing Charge of 350 US Dollars. In very rare circumstances, the Editorial Board may approve a partial waiver for accepted papers in a Special Issue. Such requests must be made within the proposal, as no such requests will be entertained afterwards. In any case, the editorial board rarely approves APC waivers.
  1. Thank You

Thank you again for your interest in publishing a Special Issue with the Babcock University Medical Journal. We look forward to receiving your proposal (please consult the Special Issue Proposal Form.

 

Yours,

Prof Olumide Abiodun

Editor-in-Chief