Concept
GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal is the e-journal of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF). Developed in cooperation with the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) and the ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences it offers open access to medical articles that are high-ranking and quality reviewed. GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal offers all scientists from the field of medicine the possibility to publish their research results online.
This purely electronically published journal is oriented towards all professional doers from all fields of medical science, research and supply. Their concern is to distribute high-quality research results of the medical science worldwide. All the articles published in GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal are available throughout the world online for anyone interested immediately, permanently and free of charge (see Open Access Charta of German Medical Science).
GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal guarantees a quality assurance process that is efficient and effective because of extensive and stringent peer reviews: Under the responsibility of the 151 expert associations with their 150,000 members, incorporated in the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies, all submitted manuscripts are subject to an extensive and quick peer review process.
GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal does not require the author to transfer all his rights. The author, as originator of the scientific accomplishment, still disposes over all the rights on his work. He may publish them on the homepage of the institute, make as many copies as he wants, forward his manuscript to colleagues - as he wishes. The only condition is that GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal is correctly cited as the first publisher.
Since GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal is designed for publications that are to find international recognition, the primary publication language is English. Please refer to our Author's Guidelines for important details on the conception and layout of the article.
Peer Review Process for GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal
The review process aims to ensure that only high-quality scientific and innovative manuscripts will be published, which provide new and interesting information to the readers. The process is based on a form of peer review, whereby the submitted manuscript is assessed by experts, who are well versed in the relevant field. The experts remain anonymous towards the author, but also towards each other.
Numerous experts support GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal as reviewers. They are members of the editorial board or the scientific committee or work as head of department in medical hospitals. Normally two experts are asked to give their opinion about the submitted manuscript. The period for preparing the review is 21 working days. The experts are reminded if they do not adhere to the set time limit.
For the review there is an online form available for detailed criticism and modification requests for the manuscript. The author receives these comments in an anonymous form. The review closes with a classification of the work into one out of four categories:
- Accepted in the present form
- Revision necessary
- Rejected, resubmission possible
- Rejected
If the assessments of both reviewers lead to a result which indicates the first or second category, the procedure follows the results, as long as the assigned editor or the editor-in-chief do not have any fundamental reservations. The work will be accepted for publishing, when the expectations of the reviewers or the editors are fulfilled.
If the manuscript is rejected unanimously by the reviewers, the authors regain their works with the detailed comments of the reviewers, in order to make transparent, why the manuscript was rejected. The assigned editor or the editor-in-chief reserve the right to modify the procedure.
In case of substantially differing reviews, i.e. if only one of the experts speaks for the acceptance, then a third review will be obtained. Taking the editor’s opinion into account a decision is made. This decision normally represents the majority of the three reviewers. It can occur that the expert who voted for rejection will be overruled. In that case this reviewer receives the favorable reviews of his two colleagues in an anonymous form including an accompanying letter, which state precisely why the work was accepted for publication despite his rejection. This is crucial to not create the impression of ignoring the founded critique of one of the experts. Besides GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal offers to write an invited comment, which will be published with the work. Also in case of non-controversial manuscripts invited comments are very valuable, in order to evaluate new methods and stimulate the scientific discussion.
The overall goal of all efforts is to make the review of scientific submissions for GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal as transparent as possible and as critical as necessary.
For the authors:
Experience has shown that besides orthographical mistakes two points are frequently criticized: On the one hand it is lacking or inadequate reference to already existing research works or established theories and on the other hand deficiencies in presenting statistical data. In cases of doubt the assistance of a statistician is recommended before submitting the work.
Generally delays are often caused by submitted manuscripts, which do not comply with the formal requirements of GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal, because e.g. tables or the abstract are missing. A strict compliance with the authors’ guidelines is strongly recommended.
Editorial Board of GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal
- Dr. Manfred Gogol
- Geriatrie -
- Editor-in-chief - - Prof. Dr. A. Encke
- Chirurgie -
formerly University Hospital Frankfurt, Department of General and Vascular Surgery, Frankfurt/Main, Germany - Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gaebel
- Psychiatrie -
Düsseldorf University Hospital, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Düsseldorf, Germany - Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Jöckel
- Medizinische Informatik -
- Biometrie und Epidemiologie -
Essen University Hospital, Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry und Epidemiology, Essen, Germany
Scientific Committee of GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal
see: Scientific Committee
Abstracting/Indexing
GMS German Medical Science – an Interdisciplinary Journal is covered by the following abstracting/indexing services:
- BASE
- BfArM
- DOAJ
- EBSCO Academic Search
- Embase
- JournalSeek
- MEDLINE
- LIVIVO
- PubMed Central
- SCImago
- Scopus
- Socolar
