HoDs as Mentors

In order that the in-house staff and faculty develop their capacity for high quality research, capacity-building workshop series is being conducted within the institution. This journal will also follow all the good practices of peer review and publication ethics so that they can grow professionally in scholarly thinking required in research and the art of scholarly writing to compete with external submissions when the journal becomes indexed.

Towards the above goal, for collective leadership in capacity-building, the Heads of Departments in BCMCH have an important role to play as mentors of the staff and faculty under them. They are encouraged to collaboratively engage their faculty to identify gaps in knowledge in their respective fields, use the opportunities and data available to frame the Research Questions, shortlist those that have potential for publication (your discipline peers must VALUE the findings as adding to the field and also as helping in improving patient care outcomes / health of the community), facilitate inter-departmental collaboration if needed and help them prepare study protocol, identify faculty and assign them with specific researchable topics, form teams with members having complementary abilities & skills and extend a helping hand in implementation, analysis and scholarly writing of the manuscripts.

HoDs and Professors as Peer Reviewers

It is likely that in the processes of internal peer review that will be followed till the journal becomes Indexed (when external peer review will be required) , the HoDs and other Professors would be invited to do peer review. In order to become familiar with Standard of practice as peer reviewer, it is good opportunity to do internal peer review using accepted standards and guidelines. For detailed guidelines you may visit the special page for Peer Reviewer (click here)

Guide to Scholarly Writing of Research findings for publication

A. SCHOLARSHIP in health profession

Scholarship in Health Professions Education and of the professionals is a tangible product like a book or a journal article that fulfills the following "P"s (Source: Consensus Report of the American Association of Medical Colleges - AAMC ):

1. The Product is a result of activity or work that requires a high level of expertise
2. The Process - the activity or work is conducted in a Scholarly manner (Glassick et al, 1997) with

1) Clear Goals (and important to the field)

2) Adequate Preparation (incorporates up to date knowledge and consultation)

3) Appropriate methodology ( research methods used appropriate to goal)

4) Results significant – (beyond local context and adds consequentially to the field)

5) Effective communication (with clarity and integrity, forum appropriate to target audience)

6) Reflective critique (critical evaluation of own work)

3. The Three Ps:

1. Peer Reviewed (process, product or results valued by those outside the local context)
2. Publicly disseminated (appropriately & effectively documented, archived, retrievable for others to use & build on)
3. Platform or Product that can be built upon (replicable in new context, starting point for others to add new knowledge)

B. SCHOLARLY WRITING

We the health care professionals, when we communicate our research work, we must follow the scholarly process described by Glassick et al and listed above under "The Process". We need to be aware and conscious of this process when we write our manuscript and make it acceptable to the international scholars for it to be published.

Since journal reviewers use these criteria (AAMC: Review Criteria for Research Manuscripts - accessible here) it makes sense to become familiar with them and use them as a checklist to review our manuscripts before submission to a journal's editorial process. This resource also gives an overview of the review process as a standard practice and also guides the editors & reviewers about selection & qualities of reviewers, publication decision , manuscript revision & final editing.

Hence, it is recommended that you download this resource and get a thorough understanding of the process so that you are better prepared to write and submit as well as re-submit after receiving reviewer/ editors comments.

The end result is a manuscript that communicates well to your peers outside your local context and thereby serve the purpose of publication - extending the field of your professional disciple leading to improved health outcomes.

Checklist - Review criteria for research manuscripts

This is given (to download, click here) so that it serves as a self-review tool for your manuscript to give you a chance to improve it prior to submission. It is also of help for you to understand the comments you would receive from the editors and peer reviewers.

The areas that the checklist covers is listed below:

• The Problem Statement and Research Question
• Review of literature - comprehensive , up to date and relevant; identification of gaps in knowledge
• Relevance of work done matches the interest of the audience of the journal
• Research design - appropriate to objectives of the study ; methods described in sufficient details for replication by others
• Instrumentation, data collection & quality control -sufficiently described or referenced;
• Population & sample; addressing possible biases - population & sampling defined in sufficient detail; samples appropriate to research purpose/question
• Data analysis and statistics - described in detail, conform to design, hypothesis; use of appropriate statistical tests; effect size & functional significance besides statistical significance
• Presentation of results - in alignment with methods and study question, statistics reported appropriately & correctly
• Discussion & conclusions & Interpretation- conclusions clearly stated ; emerge from the study (design, methods & results); study limitations discussed; findings in context of others; alternative interpretation
• Title, authors & abstract - Title clear & representative of content; Abstract has essential details; conclusions justified; information given in abstract is also available in text
• Presentation & documentation - easy to follow and well organised
• Scientific conduct - work of others attributed; plagiarism ; acknowledgements; disclosure of conflict of interest; Ethics approval