About Journal of Foot and Ankle Research

What is Journal of Foot and Ankle Research?

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research the official journal of the Australasian Podiatry Council and the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists (UK), is an open access, peer reviewed, online journal that encompasses all aspects of policy, organisation, delivery and clinical practice related to the assessment, diagnosis, prevention and management of foot and ankle disorders.

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research covers a wide range of clinical subject areas, including diabetology, paediatrics, sports medicine, gerontology and geriatrics, foot surgery, physical therapy, dermatology, wound management, radiology, biomechanics and bioengineering, orthotics and prosthetics, as well the broad areas of epidemiology, policy, organisation and delivery of services related to foot and ankle care. The journal encourages submission from all health professionals who manage lower limb conditions, including podiatrists, nurses, physical therapists and physiotherapists, orthopaedists, manual therapists, medical specialists and general medical practitioners, as well as health service researchers concerned with foot and ankle care.

Content overview

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders that have been invited by the Editorial Board
• Letters to the Editor: can take three forms: a substantial re-analysis of a previously published article, or a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard research' but that may be relevant to readers.
• Methodology articles: presentations of a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.
• Case Reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction.
• Study protocol: describes proposed or ongoing research, providing a detailed account of the hypothesis, rationale, and methodology of the study.

Peer review policy

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research operates an open peer review process on all manuscripts approved via initial screening by the Editors-in-Chief. Manuscripts that do not fall within the scope of the journal or are of an unacceptably low standard of presentation will not be sent for peer review. Open peer review works on two levels: the authors receive signed reports and, if the manuscript is published, the same reports are available to the readers as well as the manuscript's pre-publication history. The final decision is made on a minimum of two peer reviews. In cases where there is strong disagreement either among peer reviewers or between the authors and peer reviewers, advice will be sought from a member of the journal's Editorial Board. The journal allows a maximum of two revisions per manuscript. The final decision on any manuscript lies with the Editors-in-Chief, to whom any appeals against rejection should be addressed.

Edited by Hylton Menz and Michael Potter, Journal of Foot and Ankle Research is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Journal of Foot and Ankle Research

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central.

Articles in Journal of Foot and Ankle Research should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

J Foot Ankle Res 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Journal of Foot and Ankle Research does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Journal of Foot and Ankle Research, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Journal of Foot and Ankle Research using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research is published  by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Journal of Foot and Ankle Research will be available.

Journal of Foot and Ankle Research is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.