Aims and Scope

The aims of MEO is to disseminate information on the education and training of physicians and other health care professionals.

Manuscripts on any aspect of the process of educating and training health professionals will be considered for publication. Papers dealing with but not limited to the following research areas are of interest:

• Basic science education

• Clinical science education

• Residency education

• Learning theory

• Problem-based learning (PBL)

• Curriculum development

• Research design and statistics

• Measurement and evaluation

• Faculty development

• Informatics/web

MEO publishes Editorials, Original articles, Review articles, Letters to the Editor, and Book reviews.

MEO publishes three general categories of ORIGINAL ARTICLES:

Feature Articles - include articles discussing issues of general interest to the health education community. For example (but not limited to) presenting perspectives as well as reviews and commentary of the literature on a specific topic. With the exception of invited articles and editorials, feature articles are peer-reviewed.

Research Articles - present high quality completed research or evaluation studies. Research articles are peer-reviewed.

Trend Articles - present new ideas as well as studies or descriptions of programs in the early stages of development. Trend articles are envisioned as a means of quickly disseminating innovative ideas, descriptions of new programs and preliminary results from research and evaluation studies. Manuscripts submitted to this section are peer-reviewed. The preliminary nature of the material submitted will be taken into account in the review process though descriptions of new programs are expected to have at least some minimal level of formative evaluation data.


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters will be reviewed by the Journal's editor(s) for appropriateness but will not be sent out for external review. The editor's decision on whether or not to publish the letter will be final and in most cases the decision will be related to the author within two weeks or less.

Section Policies

Editorials

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Feature Articles

Feature Articles include articles discussing issues of general interest to the health education community. For example (but are not limited to) presenting perspectives as well as reviews and commentary of the literature on a specific topic. With the exception of invited articles and editorials, feature articles are peer-reviewed.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Articles

Research Articles - present high quality completed research or evaluation studies. Research articles are peer-reviewed.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Trend Articles

Trend Articles - present new ideas as well as studies or descriptions of programs in the early stages of development. Trend articles are envisioned as a means of quickly disseminating innovative ideas, descriptions of new programs and preliminary results from research and evaluation studies. Manuscripts submitted to this section are peer-reviewed. The preliminary nature of the material submitted will be taken into account in the review process though descriptions of new programs are expected to have at least some minimal level of formative evaluation data.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Performance Assessment

Editors

• Brian Mavis

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letter to the Editor

The Letters Section includes letters discussing topics related to any aspect of educating physicians and other health professionals.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Papers submitted to Medical Education Online are subject to rigorous peer review so as to ensure that the research published is 'good science'.

All manuscripts will undergo preliminary evaluation at the editorial level and those judged to be of significant importance and within the scope of the journal will subsequently be peer reviewed by two or more experts. The Editors will see the papers through peer review to acceptance or rejection.

All articles go through a preliminary review by one of the Editors. When articles are felt to not be appropriate for full peer review, authors are notified at that point, usually within approximately two weeks. Articles that are felt to be appropriative for full review are assigned to a review editor and undergo full peer review by at least two but usually four to six external expert consultants. While we attempt to complete this review as quickly as possible in most cases peer review takes approximately two months. After waiting at least six weeks after submission, authors may contact the editors at editor@med-ed-online.net for an update on the status of their manuscript.

Manuscripts are sent out for review electronically, and all correspondence takes place via e-mail. Medical Education Online has a 'double blind' review process: Authors are not told who reviewed their paper, and reviewers are not told who wrote the paper. Peer reviewers are informed of the identity of the authors immediately after the manuscript is either accepted or rejected. The referees’ identity remains unknown to the authors although it is up to the referee if he/she wants to contact the author at a later stage and reveal his/her identity.

Peer reviewers are asked to give their opinion on a number of issues pertinent to the scientific and scholarly aspects of a paper, and to judge the papers on grounds of originality and urgency. All relevant information will be forwarded to the author(s). Feedback from external reviewers is advisory to the review editor. Based on the feedback from external reviewers and their own reading of the manuscript, the review editor will determine if a manuscript is:

1. Accepted, possibly with suggestions for minor revisions
2. Accepted after major revisions contingent on the review editor’s decision on whether the revisions are adequate. On rare instances, the review editor may decide to send the revised manuscript out for external review to either one or more of the original reviewers or to additional reviewers. The author will be notified and the review process will be conducted as quickly as possible.
3. Rejected, the manuscript is not of sufficient interest or has serious flaws that cannot be address by revisions.

To facilitate rapid publication, authors requested to complete revisions within one month. Additional time will be given if needed but the Editors reserve the right to withdraw acceptance if revisions are not completed within a reasonable time period.

Publication Frequency

All articles published in Medical Education Online are posted online immediately as they are ready for publication, i.e. after final proofreading. The journal does not collate numbered issues published regularly but all articles will be assigned a DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) whereby they become searchable and citeable without delay.

Open Access Policy

Open Access
Medical Education Online is published under the Open Access model and is therefore free for anybody to read and download, and to copy and disseminate for educational purposes. Articles will be published immediately after the final corrections of the master proof have been made. When posted online, articles will be assigned a DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) whereby it becomes possible to search and cite them without delay.

The Open Access model used for Medical Education Online implies that production costs are partly covered by publication fees normally paid for by the author’s institution or funding agency. The total sum will be charged to the author(s) upon acceptance of his/her article. The fee is only charged for manuscripts accepted for publication. Authors from institutions who have difficulty in paying may be eligible for a full or partial waiver of the publication fee. The Publisher would be happy to provide more information or discuss individual cases, please contact info@co-action.net. The ability of authors to pay remains unknown to the Editors prior to acceptance or rejection.

Medical Education Online is accessible via the journal’s website at http://www.med-ed-online.net as well as via international search engines such as PubMed Central and Google Scholar.

Under the Open Access model authors retain copyright. See copyright section.

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.

In addition, all files will be archived with CLOCKSS, PubMed Central and Portico.

Author Self-Archiving

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post items submitted to this journal on personal or institutional websites, prior to and after publication (while providing the bibliographic details of that publication)

Publication fee

The publication of an article in Medical Education Online incurs a charge of 660 Euro, excl. VAT (Europe), USD 900 (rest of the world).

The publication of a Letter to the Editor or Short Communication published in Medical Education Online incurs a charge of 365 Euro excl. VAT (Europe), or USD 500 (rest of the world).

The author's university or institution may cover the publication costs for articles resulting from research undertaken at the university or institution; or money may have been earmarked in the grant or stipend the author has received to be able to carry out the research. For a list of OA-friendly universities and funders, please check here. Additional information on how to claim reimbursement/support for publication fees can be found here.

The total sum will be charged to the author(s) upon acceptance of his/her article. Publication fees may be waived for authors from developing countries whose institution suffer financial hardship. The ability of authors to pay remains unknown to the Editors prior to acceptance or rejection of their article.

The fee is only charged for manuscripts accepted for publication.

Indexing

Articles published in Medical Education Online are indexed/tracked/covered by the following services: National Library of Medicine's MEDLARS system, MEDLINE (2009--) and PubMed Central/PubMed (2008--). Content relevant to psychology is indexed by PsycINFO, the American Psychological Association's index of journal articles. The Journal and the majority of individual articles (we are working to complete the process) are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Open J-gate, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, JournalSeek, HINARI, Intute Medicine including Dentistry, Applied Social Sciences Indexing and Abstracting (ASSIA), ProQuest Summon, SCIMago, SCOPUS.

The 2010 unofficial impact calculation for Medical Education Online is 0.879

Material in MEO is also further distributed by EBSCO, one of the world's largest content aggregators and research database providers.

Commercial reprints and advertising

If you wish to purchase reprints for commerical distribution, arrange for a supplement, or e-advertise on the Medical Education Online website, please contact:

Caroline Sutton, Sales & Marketing Director
Email: caroline.sutton@co-action.net
Tel (SkypeIn): +46 18 495 11 26
Tel (cell): +47 90 69 05 06