Editorial Process

1.Manuscript Submission

2.Pre-Check and Peer Review

3.Author Revision and Resubmissions

4.Editor Decision

5.Editorial Independence

1. Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts must be submitted via our online editorial system (HSF online editorial system / eCM ScholarOne online system). Please note that, if an author submits a conference proceeding to Forum Multimedia Publishing, it needs to contain at least 30% new material with the consent of the original publisher, and all manuscripts submitted to Forum Multimedia Publishing, except for conference proceedings, must be original and should not have been published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Additionally, Forum Multimedia Publishing requires that all papers must be written in clear English. All submissions (except the editorial, letters) will be subject to double-anonymized peer review. For more criteria, please see the journal’s Instructions for Authors page.

2. Pre-Check and Peer Review

Each manuscript will be preliminarily quality-checked by the Editor-in-Chief or another Editorial Board/Guest Editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. All manuscripts' pre-checked decisions will be made by the Editor-in-Chief or another Editorial Board/Guest Editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief, who has no conflict of interest with the authors. Then, the manuscripts will be sent for peer review, where the reviewers will fully assess the scientific soundness and appropriateness of all methods, analyses, and interpretations of the manuscript. 

3. Author Revision and Resubmissions

If minor or major revisions are recommended, journal editors usually ask authors to revise their paper before submitting it to reviewers. Whether or not an article is sent to reviewers after minor revisions depends on whether or not the reviewers ask to check the revised version. Manuscripts with major revisions will be sent back to reviewers again. Typically, a maximum of two rounds of major revisions are allowed per manuscript. Subsequent required revisions will be approved by the Editor-in-Chief or another Editorial Board/Guest Editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief.

When resubmitting a revised manuscript, authors will fully respond to all reviewer comments and rebut them line by line in a separate document. Authors should also list and comment on any changes made to the original manuscript. In order to expedite the processing of revised manuscripts, please be as specific as possible in your response to reviewers. Revised manuscripts should document changes by using the Track Changes mode in MS Word or by highlighting changes in bold and red. It is the author's responsibility to make changes as visible as possible and easily identifiable to reviewers.

4. Editor Decision

Whether the manuscript will be accepted or not depends on the revisions made to it. Authors are required to provide a point-by-point response or a rebuttal if they are unable to make changes to some of the reviewer's comments. The final decision regarding acceptance or rejection will be made by the Editor-in-Chief based on the peer review or by another Editorial Board/Guest Editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief (who has no conflict of interest with the authors).

Acceptance: In this stage, the authors will receive a proof invitation to check the manuscript again.  Then the accepted manuscript will be sent to our production team to conversion, this stage may include language editing, copy editing, and conversion to XML. The digital object identifier (DOI) number will be assigned for each published article.

Rejected: This decision would occur if the Editorial Board Member (Editor-in-Chief or by another Editorial Board/Guest Editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief) feels your work would not be suitable for publication in this current form even after revision. If authors have strong evidence that the decision on your paper was influenced by scientific misunderstanding or reviewer bias, you can send an email to our Editorial Office through Info@forummmpub.com.

5. Editorial Independence

Editorial independence dictates that a decision to accept, revise, or reject a manuscript is based on the scientific merit of the article but not any other relations, for example, pressure from the publisher to the journal editor. This means that Editor is independent in their decision and will not be under the pressure of any influential body or organization.

Our editorial policy is consistent with the principles of editorial independence presented by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).