Focus and Scope
APSP Journal of Case Reports is owned and published by The Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Pakistan (Registered). APSP J Case Rep is an open access, peer reviewed electronic journal. Our primary mission is to provide a portal for residents in training and junior consultants to get their research published. The journal also provides an open access forum for research scholars to publish high quality case reports that in turn would serve to disseminate manuscripts of clinical value without any barriers of subscription. Case Reports from all across the globe are accepted and published after rigorous peer review. This shall be a learning opportunity as well. It will also help in developing research culture as case reports are the basic research to begin with.
All articles appearing in this publication, including editorials, letters etc represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or opinions of the APSP. Acceptance of any and all articles and advertisement in this publication or any other material published by APSP Journal of Case Reports does not imply endorsement by the publisher or APSP. APSP J Case Rep disclaims any liability to any party for the accuracy, completeness, or availability of any and all publications and other material, or for any damages arising out of the use or nonuse of this publication, and any and all publications (and other material), and any information (and other material), and any information contained therein.
Section Policies
Editorial
This type of manuscipt is usually reserved for editorial team and invited ones. However, before submitting editorial team should be contacted for preliminary approval.
 Indexed |
Case Reports
| Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
Peer Review Process
APSP Journal of Case Reports is a peer reviewed journal. It follows double blind review i.e. both the authors and reviewers are kept unidentified during review. Every manuscript is sent to atleast two reviewers. In case of conflict in the review, a third review from a third reviewer can be performed to resolve the problem. Atleast one external peer review and one internal editorial review is mandatoy to reach the decision.
Reviewer Guidelines
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After a reviewer is assigned a manuscript, the journal editor will ask for declaring conflict of interest, if any, following which the reviewer can accept or decline the review opportunity. Journal follows double blind review i.e. both authors and reviewers do not identify each other.
If a reviewer accepts the review request, the review files will be discovered to him. The reviewer will be given at least 2 weeks for review and the editors think that this is a sufficient time for reviewing a case report. The reviewers should review the manuscript in its true spirit and guidelines for review can be followed. The journal editors recommend Publons academy reviewer course for better understanding and conduct of the review.
The reviewers should comment on the scientific quality; originality or novelty of the content; adequacy of purpose of reporting, adequacy of abstract, relevence of discussion and literature review; figures should be checked for quality and true representation.
References should be checked for journal acceptable format which is Vancouver style, and also it should be checked for latest references and local references if available.
The reviewers can write or upload their review on the reviewers page. Two text boxes are available for reviewers to comment for authors and editors. At the end, the reviewers can record their decision as per the review.
Please also read “Review policy” of the Journal.
Publication Frequency
APSP Journal of Case Reports will publish issueless publications from 2019 onward. The case reports will be published as soon as these are accepted after peer review.
Archiving
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...
Conflict of Interest
Authors and Reviewers have to declare any conflict of interest if any.
The manuscripts submitted from editorial board members or from their institutes are handled separately by other editors, and concerned editor is not invoved in the decision making review process.
Consent and Copyrights Issues
By submitting manuscript, Authors retain copyright and grant right of first publication to APSP J of Case Rep.
By submitting manuscript, the authors agree that they have taken informed consent from patient/Parents/Caretakers (if applicable e.g for clinical picture revealing identity etc.) for publication of clinical material belonging to the patient. This consent form has to be submitted along with manuscript.
By submitting manuscript, the authors also confirm that they have taken permission of copyrighted material from concerned authorities if it is used in the manuscript, however, in that case the authors have to disclose it to editors during submission process and a statement must be written as a caption regarding permission of copyrighted material. The permission should be submitted as supplementary material during submission process.
Publications Ethics and Malpractice Statement
These guidelines are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and EL-MED-Pub Publishers guidelines for publication ethics.
Authors’ responsibilities:
Authors should present an accurate account of the intellectual work (Case Reports- as this is a journal of case reports) along with objective discussion for that specific case to analyze a new event, anomaly, or a procedure with intent not to generalize it as it would base on a single or few individual cases. The paper should contain pertinent details with support from references especially from recent literature.
Publishing a case report with a statement as “First report of its kind” without extensive search of literature in case where the same findings has been previously described by some other authors may be considered unethical behavior if done knowingly. So, due credit to the previous authors should be included in the manuscript.
Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or submitted in some other journal or accepted/ under review of some other journal at the time of submission. We have a check list including this statement. Without agreeing this statement no author can submit their manuscript to our journal.
All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors and those who have participated in certain substantive aspects, they should be acknowledged. The statement regarding authorship criteria is listed in Instruction to Authors. Please Click to see Authorship Guidelines and Policies on PAME web rsources. The editorial board of APSP Journal of Case Reports fully endorses this authorship criteria. We highly recommend to visit this flash presentation before deciding about authors and contributors.
The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the article and have agreed to its submission to the Journal for its publication.
Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest and source of funding. The authors should also agree to the double blind peer review policy of the journal.
In case of significant error or inaccuracy the published work, the authors promptly notify the Journal editor for retraction or correction of the manuscript.
Finally authors should know about what plagiarism means and what are the types of plagiarism. We have a policy to subject the paper to plagiarism check before sending the paper to review. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Where ever, a required a statement verbatim it should be given in double quotes with a proper reference.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities:
Peer review is imperative to optimize the standard of the manuscript and also assists in the editorial decision. However, the reviewers should also follow certain guidelines to help implement publication ethics guidelines.
Reviewers should keep all information, provided for review, confidential. The reviewer should not use the authors report or research for reproducing the same or similar research as it is considered unethical practice as review is a privileged responsibility. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism to the author. The reviewers should do justice to the review and comment on originality, usefulness to the scientific fraternity, and any relevant published work missed or ignored by authors to cite properly. The reviewer should also notify the editor if there is personal knowledge of a duplication publication or submission.
Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest, or not related to their area of interest or experience, or they are not in a condition to review at that time.
Editors’ Responsibilities:
Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article based on the content and overall quality. Editors should improve the paper based on the authors’ perspective to publish and the readers’ expectations when editing to improve the manuscript. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
Editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content and base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope and should not decide on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The editors should not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial board, and the publisher.
Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources. Editors should not disclose the identity of reviewers. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to international ethical guidelines. The editors should avoid any conflict of interest with authors, reviewers, or any third part of interest. Editors should ask other editors to review the manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest.
Editors should act according to COPE’s guidelines if they suspect misconduct in a published or unpublished manuscript and attempt to resolve to the problem.
Publication/Processing Fee
The Journal does not charge authors for article processing or publishing fee at present.
