How to guest edit a theme issue – JMIR Publications

JMIR reaches tens of thousands of readers interested in information and communication technologies in health, and is therefore the preeminent knowledge translation venue in this area.

We are happy to support, produce and co-edit JMIR Theme Issues (also called e-collection) as major knowledge translation activities in important and emerging areas of ehealth, with leaders in the respective fields as guest editors.

We are always looking for guest editors who wish to compile a theme issue on a special topic (for example: electronic publishing, telemedicine, quality of health information, patient education, decision-support, Internet in psychiatry, theory in ehealth, mobile technologies, Web 2.0, ...).

This may also be particularly interesting for workshop and conference organizers putting together a grant-funded event (e.g. with invited experts) on an eHealth-related topic. JMIR is an excellent dissemination vehicle of ehealth-related workshop results. (see also I am chairing/organizing/am involved in a conference/workshop. How can I work with JMIR Publications).

Theme issues may also be used as a knowledge dissemination vehicle for results from large collaborative grant-funded projects.

Theme issues may contain for example state-of-the-art papers from selected/invited experts, research results from a large grant proposal (e.g. a series of connected studies), or simply articles submitted in response to a specific open call for papers.

Theme issues are e-collections which may in fact span papers published across a range of journals, although usually there is one main target journal for each theme issue.

The task of the guest editor(s) is generally

to solicit manuscripts from colleagues/experts concerning the selected topic,
to select peer-reviewers for incoming manuscripts,
to make decisions (together with the editorial board) on article revisions and acceptance,
to write an editorial for the theme issue
(optional, for sponsored theme issues): To secure funding to sponsor the APFs (Article Processing Fees) for published papers (usually in the $10-25k range). If the guest editor has a network of colleagues who have indicated that they can carry the APF themselves, then author-funded (non-sponsored) theme issues are also possible.

We can offer a 20% discount on the APF for guest-edited theme issues, thus for a sister journal the APF would be only $1200 instead of $1500 etc.

Funding through grants or other sources is usually required and should be budgeted for in grant proposals. In the past, funding agencies such as NIH/NCI, CIHR, or private foundations have successfully been approached by the Guest Editor(s) to secure the funds.

Granting agencies also expect a portion of the budget devoted to knowledge dissemination and knowledge translation, and JMIR theme issues can be proposed to facilitate dissemination of research results (due to the Open Access policy, results reach a broader audience beyond the research community). We suggest that principal investigators of any larger team grant proposals related to health and information/communication technology to budget for a theme issue (or at least a series of JMIR papers). Letters of support and quotes from JMIR are available on request (please contact the editor-in-chief). Another possible funding venue are workshop funding programs. Again, that granting agencies such as NIH or CIHR usually expect to see some sort of knowledge dissemination activities in workshop proposals, and have in the past funded the JMIR APFs.

The editor of JMIR is happy to support and actively help with any knowledge translation component in grant proposals incorporating some of the ideas listed above (as well as novel ideas e.g. multimedia, podcasting etc., cobranded with JMIR).

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