About the Journal

Aim and scope

The Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS) is an official, English publication of the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences (https://www.mnums.edu.mn). It was established in 2015 as a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that publishes high-quality papers in medicine, dentistry, public health, nursing, pharmacy, and traditional medicine.

CAJMS aims to provide evidence in the medical sciences that can serve society and have a positive impact on lives. It also seeks to promote basic, translational, and clinical research. CAJMS welcomes researchers and contributors from all countries. The journal includes editorials, review articles, original articles, brief communications, case reports, and book reviews.

Peer Review Process

Peer review is an essential process for enhancing the quality of CAJMS. For each submission, the editorial assistant initially screens the manuscript to ensure compliance with the journal’s basic publication requirements, including scientific reasoning, statistics, graphics, photos, and tables, as well as the manuscript’s significance. If the manuscript meets the requirements, the editorial assistant will select at least three reviewers, who are qualified experts in the field, and one expert biostatistician to perform the peer review.

CAJMS employs a double-blind peer review process in which both the author and reviewer remain unaware of each other’s identities. Consequently, the title page is uploaded separately from the manuscript in the submission system. They communicate through the website using dedicated software that provides anonymous contact. The peer review process typically takes 1 to 6 months; however, it may occasionally require a longer period. The duration of the peer review process depends on the quality of each paper.

Reviewers make decisions to revise, publish, or reject a manuscript based on their independent judgment. The authors are then informed whether the manuscript is "Accepted", "Accepted with minor revision", "Accepted with major revision”, or “Rejected". If two reviewers accept it, the Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor will oversee scientific editing. Whether to publish the article will be determined based on these decisions.

The process for handling cases that require corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern is discussed openly, with decisions made as a group by the editorial team during their meetings. When scientific misconduct is alleged, or there are concerns about the conduct or integrity of work in submitted or published papers, the CAJMS editorial team discusses and responds using the framework provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as described at https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.

Abstracting and indexing

The Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS) is indexed in the following databases 

• Google Scholar
• Dimensions
• DOAJ

Editorial Policy

The publication decision is based on the comments and recommendations of the reviewers, which are sent to the corresponding author for manuscript improvement after each review. The Editor is responsible for final decisions when there is disagreement among reviewers. The corresponding author is notified as soon as possible of the Editor’s decision. When the final revised manuscript is completely acceptable according to the CAJMS format and criteria, it is scheduled for publication in the next available issue.
Authors should revise the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. When submitting a revision, authors should provide detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments. A revised paper should be submitted within 90 days of the decision notice unless otherwise indicated. If a revision is not submitted within the deadline, the manuscript will be considered withdrawn.

Manuscripts accepted for publication are generally published in order of submission, depending on the category of the manuscript and the date of acceptance for publication.

Publication Ethics and malpractice statement

Publishing ethics of the CAJMS is based on those by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) code of conduct guidelines available at www.publicationethnics.org

It is important to lay down standards of expected ethical behavior by all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society-owned. This includes all parties treating each other with respect and dignity and without discrimination, harassment, bullying or retaliation.

Editor Responsibilities

The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published, and, moreover, is accountable for everything published in the journal. In making these decisions, the editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board as well as by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

• The editor may confer with other managing editors or reviewers when making publication decisions. The editor should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
• The editor should evaluate manuscripts for intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s). The editor will not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than the author(s), reviewers and potential reviewers, and in some instances the editorial board members, as appropriate.
• The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
• The editor will be guided by COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles when considering retracting, issuing expressions of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published in the journal.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
• The editor is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.
• The editor should seek so ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.
• Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.

Reviewer Responsibilities

• If the reviewer considers that there is any conflict of interest that may make compromise their review, they are required to make this known to the editorial office, and may be excused from performing the review. The reviewer may not be aware of this until they have accepted the invitation to review.
• Any invited reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the editor so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
• Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor.
• Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inacceptable. Reviewers should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.
• Reviewers are required to respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and "refrain from using information or ideas obtained during the peer review process for your own or another’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.
• Reviewers are asked to return their reviews by the requested date, and to inform the editorial office if there is likely to be a delay.

The role of journal editors
• CAJMS Editors assign reviewers for manuscripts from their fields, review papers, write editorials, and write book reviews. Papers are accepted for publication based on the majority vote of the reviewers.

Advertising policy
• We accept advertisement from pharmaceutical companies and other companies as long as they do not conflict with CAJMS ethical policies.

 

Proprietary Rights Notice for Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS) Online

1. The person using Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS) Online may use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of content from this journal for non-commercial purposes

 

1. ANY USE of the open access version of this Journal in whole or in part must include the customary bibliographic citation, including author and publisher attribution, date, article title, Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS), and the URL, and the URL https://www.mongoliajol.info/index.php/CAJMS/ and MUST include a copy of the copyright notice. If an original work is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated

 

1. For any commercial use of material from the open access version of the journal, permission MUST be obtained from Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences (CAJMS). Email: cajms@mnums.edu.mn

 

1. Commercial use is defined as being ANY kind of re-use for the commercial gain of the user, their employing institution and/or any other third party. Examples of commercial use include:
   • re-use by a non-author/third party/other publisher of parts of or all of an article or articles in another publication (journal or book) to be sold for commercial purposes
   
   
   • the proactive supply of multiple print or electronic copies of items taken from the Journal to third parties on a systematic basis for marketing purposes
   
   
   • re-use by an author of parts of or all of an article in other publications from commercial organizations

Publication Fees

Since CAJMS is an open-access journal, we require a publication fee to be paid by the authors to help offset the costs of open-access publication. Submission of an article is free, however, if an article is chosen for publication, authors must pay  ＄250 USD to publish their paper in CAJMS. This fee is much lower than many open-access journals whose fees are typically thousands of dollars.

English Editing

Authors have two options regarding English editing: (1) authors may have a native English speaker check their work before their article submission and then upon their article submission, they must submit a receipt to CAJMS as proof of the English check, or (2) authors may have the CAJMS English Editor edit their article for a fee of 100,000 MNT upon acceptance of the article to CAJMS.

Subscription

CAJMS is printed two times every year. Individuals may subscribe to CAJMS for 30,000 MNT (~＄15 USD) per year to receive printed versions of each issue for that year. Institutions may subscribe to CAJMS for 50,000 MNT (~＄25 USD) per year to receive printed versions of each issue for that year. Additionally, printed issues may be purchased on a per-issue basis for 15,000 MNT (~＄7.5 USD) each. Those who individually subscribe to CAJMS or belong to an institute which subscribes to CAJMS will receive a 20% discount on their publication fees.

Payment Instructions

Payment of fees should be sent to:
Bank Name: Khan Bank
Bank Account Number: 5031899583
Bank Account Name: Central Asian Journal of Medical Sciences

Conflict of Interest

Journal submissions are assigned to reviewer in an effort to minimize potential conflicts of interest. The following relationships between reviewer and authors are considered conflicts and are avoided: Current colleagues, recent colleagues, recent co-authors, and doctoral students for which reviewer serves or has served as committee chair. After papers are assigned, individual reviewer are required to inform the managing editor of any conflicts not included in the list above. In the event a reviewer fails to satisfy all of the conflict screens, a reviewer who is least conflicted will be assigned to the manuscript. In addition, co-editors who are least conflicted are assigned for all paper submissions by sitting editors. Journal submissions are also assigned to reviewer to minimize conflicts of interest. After papers are assigned, referees are asked to inform the reviewer of any conflicts that may exist.

Human subjects

All clinical investigations must have been conducted according to Declaration of Helsinki principles. All human studies must have been approved by the appropriate institutional review board(s), and a specific declaration of such approval must be made in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section, including a statement indicating that written informed consent was received from participants prior to inclusion in the study. Participants should be identified by number, not by name. Manuscripts without declaration of ethical approval for experiments will not be reviewed. For manuscripts that include patient photographs, a separate statement must be included, in the Study Approval section of Methods that written informed consent was provided for pictures appearing in the manuscript.

Animals

Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines found at https://tinyurl.com/y86eurqk for reporting on animal studies. For animal models, the precise genotype, strain, source, number of backcrosses, sex, and age of animals studied must be provided in the manuscript. All animal studies must have been approved by the appropriate institutional review board(s), and a specific declaration of such approval must be made in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section.

Cell lines

Authors must describe the source of all cell lines utilized. Authors are also encouraged to include information regarding authentication of cell lines and testing for mycoplasma contamination.

Antibodies

A description of all antibodies used is included in Methods, providing the source and catalog/clone number for commercial antibodies or a description/reference to a description of the generation of custom antibodies.

Publishing standards

CAJMS is committed to following the standards created by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for everyone involved in the publication process including authors, journal editors, reviewers, and the publisher (http://www.icmje.org/). These standards involve publication ethics, authorship, the author's responsibilities, the peer review process, as well as the responsibilities of the editors. Of major importance is the protection of research participants, the patient's right to privacy, the requirement for informed consent, the necessity of registration for clinical trials, the respect of animal rights, as well as following our guidelines for reporting depending on the study design. Any potential conflict of interest involving the authors, reviewers, or editors must be declared to the Editor and CAJMS working group who provide ethical oversight so that it may be mitigated and to ensure that our readers have full transparency regarding any financial or other conflicts of interest related to the article. As part of the review process, all articles are screened to detect plagiarism, including manipulation of figures and images.