In the past years, the eJIFCC has become increasingly visible among laboratory specialists worldwide. This, on the one hand resulted in the increase of the number of downloads of papers published since the eJIFCC is a platinum open access forum and on the other hand, it resulted in a considerable increase in the number of submissions. We detailed the progress in the advancement of the scientometric parameters of the journal in a review in the eJIFCC in Issue 4 of 2021. In order to cope with the increase in submissions we decided to advance our manuscript handling process, and recently subscribed for the Editorial Manager (EM) manuscript handling system. As most people are aware, Editorial Manager is a long-established and one of the best-known editorial submission and manuscript processing program that belongs to the Aries systems and was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in North Andover, MA. It is a very popular manuscript handling system that manages all kind of scientific journals, which is more than 1000, for details see: https://www.ariessys.com/journals-list/.
The introduction of the Editorial Manager system will have profound effects in at least two areas. As a trial period, from January 1 to February 28, 2023, we request all contributing authors to submit their manuscripts both via the traditional email submission system as well as by uploading their submission on the Editorial Manager system as detailed below. Starting March 1, 2023, only submissions via the Editorial Manager system will be allowed.
INFORMATION: FOR CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Each author has to register for the program. For the registration there are two possible ways: with an ORCID ID, or with an email address.
To finalize the registration, a few questions will be asked that will be necessary for later communication and work-flow handling. The following questions can be expected during the end of the registration: workplace, contact details (email address, phone number), professional qualifications and availability lists.
You will receive a system message about the successful registration.
If you encounter any problems, or registration fails, log in to the site or if you would like to initiate the deletion of your account, you will be able to communicate it to us on the following e-mail address: ejifcc.editorialoffice@ifcc.org.
INFORMATION: FOR EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Each Editorial Board member also has to register for the program. For the registration there will be two possibilities: with an ORCID ID, or with an e-mail address. To finalize the registration, a few questions that will be asked that will be necessary for further communication and work. The following questions can be expected during the end of the registration: workplace, contact details (e-mail address, phone number), professional qualifications and availability lists.
Everyone will receive a system message about the successful registration.
If you have any problems with the registration, with the log in or if you would like to initiate the deletion of your account, you will be able to communicate it to us on the following e-mail address: ejifcc.editorialoffice@ifcc.org.
After a plagiarism check (with the iThenticate software) and a general technical check by the Editoral Office, manuscripts will be forwarded for evaluation to Reviewers. An email message will inform you that an article has been added to your account for a review. After logging into the program, you will be able to download it and do the evaluation.
After logging into the EM, you can start under the Main page item via the following steps:
1. On the main menu, click on the Submissions with required Reviewers complete menu
2. Click on the Submit Editors’s decisions and comments
3. In the upper part of the page, you can see the participants and the status of the review of the manuscript or if any previous decisions were made previously (major or minor revision).
4. By scrolling down, you will see two boxes: confidential comments to the Editor appear and Comments to Author in which you can enter your opinion about the manuscript as a Reviewer. In this part you can also see the other’s comments below.
5. The manuscript must be scored in the next menu item.
6. Choose from the Editor decision phrases menu.
After completing each menu item, you will see a summary section based on the completed evaluation. There will be an option to still edit here. If you find it appropriate, please press the proceed button.
7. In the last menu, you can modify the letter you want to send to the Editor-in-Chief about your decision and add an attachment if you want to.
We sincerely hope that both the Authors as well as our Reviewers will benefit from this advancement, and are looking forward to receive any comments.