Article Submission

The editorial board of the NBEJMS is seeking papers, which will be refereed. We encourage the authors to submit a Word format (Figures in tiff/jpg format) electronic version of the manuscript in a free format to the Editors-in-Chief of the NBEMS, (E-mail: acad[at]natboard[dot]edu[dot]in). Submitted manuscripts must be written in English and contain the name and affiliation of each author followed by a leading abstract and keywords. The authors must include a "cover letter" presenting their manuscript and mentioning: "We confirm that this manuscript has been read and approved by all named authors. In addition, we declare that the manuscript is original and it is not being published or submitted for publication elsewhere".

We request the authors to prepare the graphical abstract for the article categories: Original Articles, Reviews etc. You can refer the published articles from the website (https://natboard.edu.in/ejournal/index) for the above categories for further information.

JOURNAL POLICIES

Authorship
An ‘author’ is someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a study. In accordance with ICMJE guidelines (www.icmje.org), authorship credit requires all the following conditions to be met.

1. Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and,
3. Final approval of the version to be published.

All authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. All authors must sign an undertaking accepting responsibility for the submitted manuscript. Authors are required to state their exact contribution to the study; the Journal may print this information. The order of authorship should be decided by all the authors. The journal strongly discourages alterations in the sequence or deletion/addition of authors at any time after submission of the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or statistical or writing assistance. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest exists when a financial or personal relationship of the author may inappropriately influence his or her actions. Conflicts may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. Some examples of financial conflicts of interest include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and non-monetary support. Conflicts, or their absence, must be stated in writing by all authors at the time of submission of the article. The Journal may use information disclosed in conflict of interest and financial interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions. Sources of full or partial funding or other support for the research must be declared. For more information please see www.icmje.org .

Protection of human subjects and animals in research

All studies conducted on human subjects or animals should be approved by the ethics committee or the institutional review board of the institution where the study was performed. When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed (see ICMR guidelines: icmr.nic.in/ethics_SOP.pdf and icmr.nic.in/animal_ethics.htm).

Patient confidentiality

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, should not be revealed in written descriptions and photographs. If it is not possible to ensure anonymity, written, informed consent should be obtained from the patient and submitted to the Journal. Identifying details should be omitted if these are not essential but patient data should not be altered to attain anonymity.

Copyright

Authors must agree in writing to transfer to the Journal the copyright for all material submitted, in case of its publication by the Journal.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. This applies to all forms of documents, published (print or electronic) or unpublished. Authors should make sure that their manuscripts are free from plagiarized material. Providing a reference to the material quoted verbatim from previously published material does not absolve the user of plagiarism. Detection of plagiarism would lead to rejection of the manuscript and debar the publication of any material from the concerned authors for at least three years. The Journal may also send this information to the head of the institution where the authors work with a request for an inquiry in the matter. The Journal may also publish such correspondence in its pages to inform its readers of scientific misconduct.

Dual submission and duplicate publication

The Journal strongly disapproves of ‘Dual submission’, i.e. the submission of the same article simultaneously to different journals for consideration for publication. The authors must give an undertaking (see ‘Author’s declaration’ below) stating that the manuscript has not been submitted to another journal for consideration for publication nor has a substantial part of it been published previously. They should disclose details of any similar or closely-related paper(s) previously published, in press or those currently under review at another Journal. Previous publication of an abstract in the proceedings of meetings (print or electronic) does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but this information must be provided at the time of submission. In case the manuscript has already been published elsewhere in any form, details of such publication (including a copy of the submitted/published manuscript) and the reason for submission in the present form must be stated at the time of submission in the covering letter. If dual submission or duplicate publication is found to have occurred, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors barred from future submissions. The Journal may also send this information to the head of the institution where the authors work with a request for an inquiry in the matter. The Journal may also publish such correspondence in its pages to inform its readers of scientific misconduct and such papers may be retracted.

Peer Review

All articles submitted to the Journal are peer-reviewed. The process may differ depending upon the category to which the manuscript belongs. Most of the articles are assessed by two reviewers. Peer reviewers are experts in their chosen field who provide the Journal a written assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of manuscripts, with the aim of identifying the most appropriate and best material for the Journal. Authors may suggest the names and addresses of three experts each from India and abroad who, in the authors’ opinion, are best qualified to review the paper. Suggested reviewers should not be recent collaborators or co-authors (within the past 3 years), nor should they have provided substantial advice or critique of the submitted manuscript. Authors may also provide the names of reviewers they wish to be excluded, giving reasons for such a request. The Journal reserves the right to decide on the choice of reviewers. All reviewers are expected to inform the Journal about any conflict of interest while reviewing articles. Also, the journal uses the reviewers from their own database (internal). The final decision of Accept/Reject/Revise would be taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:

• The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
• The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
• A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
• Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
• Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
• No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

• Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
• Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
• Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
• Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
• Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

• If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article

- an expression of concern may be placed with the article

- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

• The author’s institution may be informed
• A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Suggesting / excluding reviewers

Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

• Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
• Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
• Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their peer review policies (i.e. single or double blind peer review) as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

Pre-publication proofs and offprints

Proofs of articles, prior to their publication, are provided to authors. These will be sent electronically (email). The authors may make only the necessary minor corrections at this stage and should answer any queries marked for their attention. The proofs should be returned, after corrections and answering all queries, within 2 days electronically to acad@natboard.edu.in. A delay in returning proofs may lead to a delay in publication..

Rejection

Based on the comments of reviewers and in conformity with the policies of the Journal, manuscripts found unsuitable for publication will be rejected. The corresponding author will be informed of the rejection, and comments of the reviewers, if relevant, will be provided. The manuscript will not be returned.

Appeal process

In case the authors so desire, a rejected manuscript can be resubmitted for fresh consideration. The authors must provide reasons for their disagreement with the reviewers’ comments and justify the need for a reconsideration. The Journal may use its discretion to decide whether or not to submit the manuscript for a fresh review.

Address manuscripts to

National Board of Examinations

Medical Enclave, Ansari Nagar, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, Ring Road, New Delhi, Delhi 110029
e-mail: acad[at]natboard[dot]edu[dot]in

Authors’ Declaration

We, the authors of the manuscript titled ___________________________________________ , hereby submit it for consideration for publication as a ___________________________________________(category) in The National Medical Journal of India. We agree to the following:

1. This manuscript is our original work and is free from plagiarism.
2. His manuscript or a substantial part of it has not been submitted to any other journal for publication. It has also not been published previously.
3. The data in this study have not been used for any other manuscript published by us.
4. Each of us individually takes full responsibility for the design and conduct of the study, had full access to the data and controlled the decision to publish the study.
5. We agree to the order of authorship as stated on the title page of the manuscript.
6. Each of us has seen the final version of the manuscript submitted for publication and has approved of it.
7. All conflicts of interest are stated in writing.
8. In the event of publication of this manuscript by The National Medical Journal of India, the copyright to this work shall stand transferred to the Journal.

Author	Name	Signature
First	_________________________	_________________________
Second	_________________________	_________________________
Third	_________________________	_________________________
Fourth	_________________________	_________________________
Fifth	_________________________	_________________________

Publication/Processing Fee

Article Processing Charge

The National Medical Journal of India does not charge the authors or authors’ institutions for the submission, processing and/or publications of manuscripts.

Copyright and Open Access Statement

All of the content published in the National Board of Examination Journal of Medical Sciences is protected under the International copyright law, defined by Creative Commons and International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The journal retains the commercial rights of the published content and publisher executes the commercial rights on behalf of the journal. The journal also grants to all readers and users a free, irrevocable, global, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute and display the content publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable and non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the copyrights under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Public License.

Open Access Publication and Creative Commons Licensing

National Board of Examination Journal of Medical Sciences is an open-access journal, and manuscripts published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0), which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. Compliance with Funder-Mandated Open Access Policies. An author whose work is funded by an organization that mandates the use of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License is able to meet that requirement through the available open-access license for approved funders.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. For any Questions or Difficulties please contact us acad[at]natboard[dot]edu[dot]in .