Focus and Scope
Bulgarian Cardiology is published online at its website and as a printed matter. The printed matter is issued four times per year in a volume of up to 80 pages per issue. Supplements of the same volume can be published in addition to it.
The journal publishes: original articles, reviews, clinical case reports, editorials, letters to Editor, the guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology, communications of the Bulgarian Society of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology, papers presented in their meetings, announcements for symposiums, congresses and the like. The first three types are a subject of peer review with standardized forms and the rest are submitted to an expert evaluation by the editorial board.
Copyright Notice
License and Copyright Agreement
In submitting the manuscript to any of Pensoft’s journals, authors certify that:
- They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- The work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review or thesis); it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; its publication has been approved by all author(s) and responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
- They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or where copyright is owned by someone else.
- They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:
Copyright
- Copyright on any article is retained by the author(s) or the author's employer. Regarding copyright transfers please see below.
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- Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are identified.
- The article and published supplementary material are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0):
Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)
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to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work
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Attribution. The original authors must be given credit.
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The full legal code of this license.
Copyright Transfers
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Authorship/Contributorship
Some journals are integrated with Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT), in order to recognise individual author input within a publication, thereby ensuring professional and ethical conduct, while avoiding authorship disputes, gift / ghost authorship and similar pressing issues in academic publishing.
During manuscript submission, the submitting author is strongly recommended to specify a contributor role for each of co-author, i.e. Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original draft, Writing - Review and Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding Acquisition (see more). For the journals that are not integrated with CRediT, the submitting author is encouraged to specify the roles as a free text. Once published the article will include the contributor role for all authors in the article metadata.
Desk Rejection
During the pre-review evaluation, Editors-in-Chief or Subject Editors check the manuscript and decide whether it enters peer review or is outright rejected. At this point, they may reject a manuscript prior to sending it out for peer review, specifying the reasons. The most common ones are non-conformity with the journal's focus, scope and policies and/or low scientific or linguistic quality.
In case the manuscript is suitable for the journal but has to be corrected technically or linguistically, it will be returned to the authors for improvement. The authors will not need to re-submit the manuscript but only to upload the corrected file(s) to their existing submission.
Peer Review
This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. This means that the names of reviewers are hidden from the authors (the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, but the reviewer knows the identity of the author). Notwithstanding that, the reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identities, if they wish to do so. Each article is reviewed by at least two independent experts, with a final decision on acceptance being made by the Subject Editor / Editor-in-Chief. Front-matter articles, such as editorials, correspondence, biographies, and similar articles, can be published after editorial evaluation only.
Please consider the Editor and Reviewer Guidelines in the About webpage of this journal for more details and stepwise instructions on the editorial and peer review process.
Indexing and Archiving
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
General
The publishing ethics and malpractice policies follow the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA), the NISO Recommended Practices for the Presentation and Identification of E-Journals (PIE-J), and, where relevant, the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from ICMJE.
Privacy statement
The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of each particular journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Open access
Pensoft and ARPHA-hosted journals adhere strictly to gold open access to accelerate the barrier-free dissemination of scientific knowledge. All published articles are made freely available to read, download, and distribute immediately upon publication, given that the original source and authors are cited (Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)).
Open data publishing and sharing
Pensoft and ARPHA encourage open data publication and sharing, in accordance with Panton’s Principles and FAIR Data Principles. For the domain of biodiversity-related publications Pensoft has specially developed extended Data Publishing Policies and Guidelines for Biodiversity Data. Specific data publishing guidelines are available on the journal website.
Data can be published in various ways, such as preservation in data repositories linked to the respective article or as data files or packages supplementary to the article. Datasets should be deposited in an appropriate, trusted repository and the associated identifier (URL or DOI) of the dataset(s) must be included in the data resources section of the article. Reference(s) to datasets should also be included in the reference list of the article with DOIs (where available). Where no discipline-specific data repository exists authors should deposit their datasets in a general repository such as, for example Zenodo or others.
Submission, peer review and editorial process
The peer review and editorial processes are facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. Pensoft journals’ websites display stepwise description of the editorial process and list all necessary instructions and links. These links are also included in the respective email notification.
General: Publication and authorship
- All submitted papers are subject to a rigorous peer review process by at least two international reviewers who are experts in the scientific field of the particular paper.
- The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language.
- A declaration of potential Conflicts of Interest is a mandatory step in the submission process. The declaration becomes part of the article metadata and is displayed in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
- The journals allow several rounds of review of a manuscript. The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and, in some cases, with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice among the Subject Editors and Reviewers.
- The possible decisions include: (1) Accept, (2) Minor revisions, (3) Major revisions, (4) Reject, but re-submission encouraged and (5) Reject.
- If Authors are encouraged to revise and re-submit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
- The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
- No research can be included in more than one publication.
- Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies are strongly recommended to limit the amount of papers co-authored by them. As a rule of thumb, research papers (co-)authored by Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies must not exceed 20% of the publications a year, with a clear task to drop this proportion below 15%. By adopting this practice, the journal is taking extra precaution to avoid endogeny and conflicts of interest, while ensuring the editorial decision-making process remains transparent and fair.
- Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.
Responsibility of Authors
- Authors are required to agree that their paper will be published in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license.
- Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
- Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
- Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
- Authors should submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English and formatted in accordance with the journal’s Author Guidelines.
- Authors must participate in the peer review process.
- Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
- All Authors mentioned are expected to have significantly contributed to the research.
- Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
- Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
- Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
- Authors should acknowledge all significant funders of the research pertaining to their article and list all relevant competing interests.
- Other sources of support for publications should also be clearly identified in the manuscript, usually in an acknowledgement (e.g. funding for the article processing charge; language editing or editorial assistance).
- The corresponding author should provide the declaration of any conflicts of interest on behalf of all authors. Conflicts of interest may be associated with employment, sources of funding, personal financial interests, membership of relevant organisations or others.
- Manuscripts in revision have to be revised and resubmitted within a reasonable time span. The authors are aware that manuscripts not revised within 100 days after the revision decision will be rejected and have, if desired by the authors, to be submitted afresh.
Responsibility of Reviewers
- The manuscripts will be reviewed by two or three experts in order to reach first decision as soon as possible. Reviewers do not need to sign their reports but are welcome to do so. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interests.
- Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as for the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, they should inform both Authors and Editor in the report.
- Reviewers are asked to check whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, how interesting it is and whether the quality of the writing is acceptable.
- In cases of strong disagreement between the reviews or between the Authors and Reviewers, the Editors can judge these according to their expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.
- Reviewers are also asked to indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant. These articles may be given greater prominence and greater external publicity, including press releases addressed to science journalists and mass media.
- During a second review round, the Reviewer may be asked by the Subject Editor to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript with regards to Reviewer’s recommendations submitted during the first review round.
- Reviewers are asked to be polite and constructive in their reports. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.
- Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the Editors and Authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.
- Further, Reviewers are asked to comment on originality, structure and previous research: (1) Is the paper sufficiently novel and does it contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny? Is the work rather confirmatory and repetitive? (2) Is the introduction clear and concise? Does it place the work into the context that is necessary for a reader to comprehend the aims, hypotheses tested, experimental design or methods? Are Material and Methods clearly described and sufficiently explained? Are reasons given when choosing one method over another one from a set of comparable methods? Are the results clearly but concisely described? Do they relate to the topic outlined in the introduction? Do they follow a logical sequence? Does the discussion place the paper in scientific context and go a step beyond the current scientific knowledge on the basis of the results? Are competing hypotheses or theories reasonably related to each other and properly discussed? Do conclusions seem reasonable? Is previous research adequately incorporated into the paper? Are references complete, necessary and accurate? Is there any sign that substantial parts of the paper were copies of other works?
- Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
- Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
- Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
- Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
- Reviewers should also call to the Editors’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Responsibility of Editors
- Editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the published papers and base their decisions solely on the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
- The Subject Editor takes the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and his/her name is listed as "Academic Editor" in the header of each article.
- The Subject Editors are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing.
- Editors are expected to spot small errors in orthography or stylistic during the editing process and correct them.
- Editors should always consider the needs of the Authors and the Readers when attempting to improve the publication.
- Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
- Editors should preserve the anonymity of Reviewers, unless the latter decide to disclose their identities.
- Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
- Editors should act if they suspect misconduct and make all reasonable attempts to obtain a resolution to the problem.
- Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
- Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between Authors, Reviewers and Board Members.
- Editors are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.
- Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.
Neutrality to geopolitical disputes
General
The strict policy of Pensoft and its journals is to stay neutral to any political or territorial dispute. Authors should depoliticize their studies by avoiding provoking remarks, disputable geopolitical statements and controversial map designations; disputable territories should be referred to as well-recognised and non-controversial geographical areas. Тhe journal reserves the right to mark such areas at least as disputable at or after publication, to publish editor's notes, or to reject/retract the paper.
Authors' affiliations
Pensoft does not take decisions regarding the actual affiliations of institutions. Authors are advised to provide their affiliation as indicated on the official internet site of their institution.
Editors
Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.
Human and animal rights
The ethical standards in medical and pharmacological studies are based on the Helsinki declaration (1964, amended in 1975, 1983, 1989, 1996, 2000 and 2013) of the World Medical Association and the Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals of the World Association of Medical Journals (WAME).
Authors of studies including experiments on humans or human tissues should declare in their cover letter a compliance with the ethical standards of the respective institutional or regional committee on human experimentation and attach committee’s statement and informed consent; for those researchers who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed and declared in the cover letter. Patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers should not be used, not in the text nor in any illustrative material, tables of databases, unless the author presents a written permission from each patient to use his or her personal data. Photos or videos of patients should be taken after a warning and agreement of the patient or of a legal authority acting on his or her behalf.
Animal experiments require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements and respective statements of compliance (or approvals of institutional ethical committees where such exists) should be included in the article text.
Informed consent
Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the identifiable personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.
The following statement should be included in the article text in one of the following ways:
- "Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study."
- "Informed consent was obtained from all individuals for whom identifying information is included in this article." (In case some patients’ data have been published in the article or supplementary materials to it).
Gender issues
We encourage the use of gender-neutral language, such as 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman' or 'chairwomen', as well as 'they' instead of 'she/he' and 'their' instead of 'him/her' (or consider restructuring the sentence).
Conflict of interest
During the editorial process, the following relationships between editors and authors are considered conflicts of interest: Colleagues currently working in the same research group or department, recent co-authors, and doctoral students for which the editor served as committee chair. During the submission process, the authors are kindly advised to identify possible conflicts of interest with the journal editors. After manuscripts are assigned to the handling editor, individual editors are required to inform the managing editor of any possible conflicts of interest with the authors. Journal submissions are also assigned to referees to minimize conflicts of interest. After manuscripts are assigned for review, referees are asked to inform the editor of any conflicts that may exist.
Appeals and open debate
We encourage academic debate and constructive criticism. Authors are always invited to respond to any editorial correspondence before publication. Authors are not allowed to neglect unfavorable comments about their work and choose not to respond to criticisms.
No Reviewer’s comment or published correspondence may contain a personal attack on any of the Authors. Criticism of the work is encouraged. Editors should edit (or reject) personal or offensive statements. Authors should submit their appeal on editorial decisions to the Editorial Office, addressed to the Editor-in-Chief or to the Managing Editor. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting Editorial Board Members and Editors with appeals.
Editors will mediate all discussions between Authors and Reviewers during the peer review process prior to publication. If agreement cannot be reached, Editors may consider inviting additional reviewers if appropriate.
The Editor-in-Chief will mediate all discussions between Authors and Subject Editors.
The journals encourage publication of open opinions, forum papers, corrigenda, critical comments on a published paper and Author’s response to criticism.
Misconduct
Research misconduct may include: (a) manipulating research materials, equipment or processes; (b) changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the article; c) plagiarism. Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. If misconduct is suspected, journal Editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines.
Plagiarism and duplicate publication policy
A special case of misconduct is plagiarism, which is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit. Plagiarism is considered theft of intellectual property and manuscripts submitted to this journal which contain substantial unattributed textual copying from other papers will be immediately rejected. Editors are advised to check manuscripts for plagiarism via the iThenticate service by clicking on the "ïThenticate report" button. Journal providing a peer review in languages other than English (for example, Russian) may use other plagiarism checking services (for example, Antiplagiat).
Instances, when authors re-use large parts of their publications without providing a clear reference to the original source, are considered duplication of work. Slightly changed published works submitted in multiple journals is not acceptable practice either. In cases of plagiarism in an already published paper or duplicate publication, an announcement will be made on the journal publication page and a procedure of retraction will be triggered.
Responses to possible misconduct
All allegations of misconduct must be referred to the Editor-In-Chief. Upon the thorough examination, the Editor-In-Chief and deputy editors should conclude if the case concerns a possibility of misconduct. All allegations should be kept confidential and references to the matter in writing should be kept anonymous, whenever possible.
Should a comment on potential misconduct be submitted by the Reviewers or Editors, an explanation will be sought from the Authors. If it is satisfactory and the issue is the result of either a mistake or misunderstanding, the matter can be easily resolved. If not, the manuscript will be rejected or retracted and the Editors may impose a ban on that individual's publication in the journals for a certain period of time. In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made in both journals explaining the situation.
When allegations concern authors, the peer review and publication process for their submission will be halted until completion of the aforementioned process. The investigation will be carried out even if the authors withdraw the manuscript, and implementation of the responses below will be considered.
When allegations concern reviewers or editors, they will be replaced in the review process during the ongoing investigation of the matter. Editors or reviewers who are found to have engaged in scientific misconduct should be removed from further association with the journal, and this fact reported to their institution.
Retraction policies
Article retraction
According to the COPE Retraction Guidelines followed by this Journal, an article can be retracted because of the following reasons:
- Unreliable findings based on clear evidence of a misconduct (e.g. fraudulent use of the data) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).
- Redundant publication, e.g., findings that have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification.
- Plagiarism or other kind of unethical research.
Retraction procedure
- Retraction should happen after a careful consideration by the Journal editors of allegations coming from the editors, authors, or readers.
- The HTML version of the retracted article is removed (except for the article metadata) and on its place a retraction note is issued.
- The PDF of the retracted article is left on the website but clearly watermarked with the note "Retracted" on each page.
- In some rare cases (e.g., for legal reasons or health risk) the retracted article can be replaced with a new corrected version containing apparent link to the retracted original version and a retraction note with a history of the document.
Expression of concern
In other cases, the Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern, if evidence is available for:
- Inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors.
- Unreliable findings that are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case.
- A belief that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive.
- An investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.
Errata and Corrigenda
Pensoft journals largely follow the ICMJE guidelines for corrections and errata.
Errata
Admissible and insignificant errors in a published article that do not affect the article content or scientific integrity (e.g. typographic errors, broken links, wrong page numbers in the article headers etc.) can be corrected through publishing of an erratum. This happens through replacing the original PDF with the corrected one together with a correction notice on the Erratum Tab of the HTML version of the paper, detailing the errors and the changes implemented in the original PDF. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication to the corrected version of the erratum article. The original PDF will also be archived and made accessible via a link in the same Erratum Tab.
Authors are also encouraged to post comments and indicate typographical errors on their articles to the Comments tab of the HTML version of the article.
Corrigenda
Corrigenda should be published in cases when significant errors are discovered in a published article. Usually, such errors affect the scientific integrity of the paper and could vary in scale. Reasons for publishing corrigenda may include changes in authorship, unintentional mistakes in published research findings and protocols, errors in labelling of tables and figures or others. In taxonomic journals, corrigenda are often needed in cases where the errors affect nomenclatural acts. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and bear their own DOI. Examples of published corrigenda are available here.
The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.
Terms of Use
This document describes the Terms of Use of the services provided by the Bulgarian Cardiology journal, hereinafter referred to as "the Journal" or "this Journal". All Users agree to these Terms of Use when signing up to this Journal. Signed Journal Users will be hereinafter referred to as "User" or "Users".
The publication services to the Journal are provided by Pensoft Publishers Ltd., through its publishing platform ARPHA, hereinafter referred to as "the Provider".
The Provider reserves the right to update the Terms of Use occasionally. Users will be notified via posting on the site and/or by email. If using the services of the Journal after such notice, the User will be deemed to have accepted the proposed modifications. If the User disagrees with the modifications, he/she should stop using the Journal services. Users are advised to periodically check the Terms of Use for updates or revisions. Violation of any of the terms will result in the termination of the User's account. The Provider is not responsible for any content posted by the User in the Journal.
Account Terms
- For registration in this Journal or any of the services or tools hosted on it, Users must provide their full legal name, a valid email address, postal address, affiliation (if any), and any other information requested.
- Accounts created via this journal automatically sign in the User to the ARPHA Platform.
- Users are responsible for maintaining the security of their account and password. The Journal cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from failure to comply with this security obligation.
- Users are solely responsible for the content posted via the Journal services (including, but not limited to data, text, files, information, usernames, images, graphics, photos, profiles, audio and video clips, sounds, applications, links and other content) and all activities that occur under their account.
- Users may not use the service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose. Users must not, in the use of the service, violate any laws within their jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright or trademark laws).
- Users can change or pseudonomyse their personal data, or deactivate their accounts at any time through the functionality available in the User’s personal profile. Deactivation or pseudonomysation will not affect the appearance of personal data in association with an already published work of which the User is author, co-author, editor, or reviewer.
- Users can report to the Journal uses of their personal data, that they might consider not corresponding to the current Terms of Use.
- The User’s personal data is processed by the Journal on the legal basis corresponding to Article 6, paragraph 1, letters a, b, c and f. of the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter referred to as GDPR) and will be used for the purpose of Journal’s services in accordance with the present Terms and Use, as well as in those cases expressly stated by the legislation.
- User’s consent to use the information the Journal has collected about the User corresponds to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
- The ‘legitimate interest’ of the Journal to engage with the User and enable him/her to participate in Journal’s activities and use Journal’s services correspond to Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR.
Services and Prices
The Provider reserves the right to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the services provided by the Journal. Plans and prices are subject to change upon 30 days notice from the Provider. Such notice may be provided at any time by posting the changes to the relevant service website.
Ownership
The Authors retain full ownership to their content published in the Journal. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material provided by any User in this Journal. However, by setting pages to be viewed publicly (Open Access), the User agrees to allow others to view and download the relevant content. In addition, Open Access articles might be used by the Provider, or any other third party, for data mining purposes. Authors are solely responsible for the content submitted to the journal and must confirm [during the submission process] that the content does not contain any materials subject to copyright violation including, but not limited to, text, data, multimedia, images, graphics, photos, audio and video clips. This requirement holds for both the article text and any supplementary material associated with the article.
The Provider reserves the rights in its sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that is available via the Website.
Copyrighted Materials
Unless stated otherwise, the Journal website may contain some copyrighted material (for example, logos and other proprietary information, including, without limitation, text, software, photos, video, graphics, music and sound - "Copyrighted Material"). The User may not copy, modify, alter, publish, transmit, distribute, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works or, in any way, exploit any of the Copyrighted Material, in whole or in part, without written permission from the copyright owner. Users will be solely liable for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights or any other harm resulting from such a submission.
Exceptions from this rule are e-chapters or e-articles published under Open Access (see below), which are normally published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Public Domain license (CC0).
Open Access Materials
This Journal is a supporter of open science. Open access to content is clearly marked, with text and/or the open access logo, on all materials published under this model. Unless otherwise stated, open access content is published in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC-BY). This particular licence allows the copying, displaying and distribution of the content at no charge, provided that the author and source are credited.
Privacy Statement
- Users agree to submit their personal data to this Journal, hosted on the ARPHA Platform provided by Pensoft.
- The Journal collects personal information from Users (e.g., name, postal and email addresses, affiliation) only for the purpose of its services.
- All personal data will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the website and will not be made available for any other purpose or to third parties.
- In the case of co-authorship of a work published through the Journal services, each of the co-authors states that they agree that their personal data be collected, stored and used by the Journal.
- In the case of co-authorship, each of the co-authors agrees that their personal data publicly available in the form of a co-authorship of a published work, can be distributed to external indexing services and aggregators for the purpose of the widest possible distribution of the work they co-author.
- When one of the co-authors is not registered in the Journal, it is presumed that the corresponding author who is registered has requested and obtained his/her consent that his/her personal data will be collected, stored and used by the Journal.
- The registered co-author undertakes to provide an e-mail address of the unregistered author, to whom the Journal will send a message in order to give the unregistered co-author’s explicit consent for the processing of his/her personal data by the Journal.
- The Journal is not responsible if the provided e-mail of the unregistered co-author is inaccurate or invalid. In such cases, it is assumed that the processing of the personal data of the unregistered co-author is done on a legal basis and with a given consent.
- The Journal undertakes to collect, store and use the provided personal data of third parties (including but not limited to unregistered co-authors) solely for the purposes of the website, as well as in those cases expressly stated by the legislation.
- Users can receive emails from Journal and its hosting platform ARPHA, provided by Pensoft, about activities they have given their consent for. Examples of such activities are:
- Email notifications to authors, reviewers and editors who are engaged with authoring, reviewing or editing a manuscript submitted to the Journal.
- Email alerts sent via email subscription service, which can happen only if the User has willingly subscribed for such a service. Unsubscription from the service can happen through a one-click link provided in each email alert notification.
- Information emails on important changes in the system or in its Terms of Use which are sent via Mailchimp are provided with "Unsubscribe" function.
- Registered users can be invited to provide a peer review on manuscripts submitted to the Journal. In such cases, the users can decline the review invitation through a link available on the journal’s website.
- Each provided peer review can be registered with external services (such as Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service, formerly Publons). The reviewer will be notified if such registration is going to occur and can decline the registration process.
- In case the Journal starts using personal data for purposes other than those specified in the Terms of Use, the Journal undertakes to immediately inform the person and request his/her consent.
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Main Text
Manuscripts that do not conform to the Guidelines are rejected immediately without peer-review. Peer-review and consideration for publication is possible only after appropriate correction and resubmission in the on-line Editorial system.
The manuscript must be written in Bulgarian and English, or in English only.
A manuscript that is written only in English must mandatorily comprise the title, authors’ names, authors’ affiliation, the correspondence address, the abstract, and the key words translated in Bulgarian (for manuscripts by non-Bulgarian authors the translation will be done by the Editorial office).
Manuscripts are submitted through the journal website (journal.bgcardio.org), where they are uploaded to the editorial web platform for subsequent peer review (for detailed instructions see Submission guidelines below or follow the link https://arphahub.com/manual#Submitamanuscriptauthor). Please, pay particular attention to completing the metadata in Bulgarian and English correctly. MS Word files, tables and figures are uploaded to the web platform for peer review, pagination and linguistic review (see below the requirements for tables and figures).
Original scientific articles include mandatorily the following separate sections: Introduction, including the study aim, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. Subsection "Limitations of the study" is added at the end of the Discussion, if necessary. Also, Acknowledgement (to persons and authorities contributing in an intellectual manner or providing a technical, material, financial support, etc.) can be added. Reviews typically include Introduction, thematic subheadings and Conclusions. Clinical Case Reports consist of Introduction, Clinical Case Description, Discussion and Conclusions. The Short Communication genres follow approximately the structure of an original article. Editorial Comments present a scientifically justified statement on a published paper, with a volume of not more than 2 standard pages, with figures, tables and a short reference list. Letters to Editor discuss a scientific issue, which is unsolved at the time, or consider other papers in a critical manner. The types of articles not subject to peer review include short unstructured abstract.
Type of publication |
Word count in the main text |
Word count in the abstract |
Number of references |
Original article |
2500-5000 |
200-300 |
30 |
Review |
3000-6000 |
100-200 |
50 |
Clinical case report |
1000-3000 |
100-200 |
10 |
Short communication, reference paper, recension |
500-1000 |
- |
5 |
A manuscript in Bulgarian and English is structured in a single MS Word file as follows (Bulgarian version comes first, followed by the English version): title page including manuscript title, authors’ names, short title (up to 80 symbols), affiliation of the authors, name and address of the corresponding author. The abstract starts on a new page and is followed by 3 to 8 key words. The title page and the abstract page with the key words are then repeated in English language. The main text starts on a new page, in a running style within the entire page width (do not use columns). The headings of the sections are in bold, the subheadings (if present) – in bold italic. The legends to the figures follow the main text, starting on a new page. The English version of the manuscript follows, structured in the same way – title page, abstract and keywords on a new page (as already described above), main text, and legends to the figures. The reference list is at the end of the English version, and starts on a new page. All pages are numbered consecutively. Page margins are set to 20 or 25 mm on all sides. It is preferable to use font Times New Roman, Arial, Tahoma or Calibri, 11 or 12 points, and line spacing 1.5 or double.
Manuscripts in English only are structured in an identical manner as described above, starting with the title page. The guidelines for numbering the pages, page margins, font and line spacing are as already described above.
Specific abbreviations used in the text are introduced in round brackets with the first appearance of the entire designation.
Measurement units should follow the SI system.
Illustrative Material
Illustrative material (tables, figures, images) is positioned at the corresponding places within the text of the manuscript file with captions and legends, or at the end of the manuscript (see Submission guidelines below or follow the link https://journal.bgcardio.org/about#OrganizingYourSubmission). Captions of figures must not be inserted in the images. Images with a good quality (at least 300 dpi) and an appropriate file format (.jpg, .tif, .png) are required. It is desirable that the figures have width of 84 mm or 178 mm (corresponding to 1 or 2 columns of the printed page) and height up to 230 mm (i.e., the maximum dimensions of the figure are up to 178x230 mm). Tables must be presented in an editable format rather than images. A manuscript may include supplementary files with images or video clips associated with its contents, which must be delivered in a volume of not more than 20 МВ (the patient identification data must be obliterated).
For illustrations taken from international sources the source must be cited following the legend of the illustration as well as in the manuscript bibliographic reference.
Citations and References
The reference list is arranged following the order of quotation of corresponding source within the text. Each source should be written on a new line with Arabic numbering. In cases of not more than three authors, their surnames followed by their initials (without periods) are written. In the cases of more than three authors, "et al." is written after the name of the third author. The sources in Cyrillic are quoted according to the English language abstract or metadata.
Citing Bulgarian sources is highly recommended.
References to bibliographic sources within text are designated by their numeric symbol in square brackets []. References are presented in the following manner:
Articles: Author(s). The article title. – The journal title (abbreviated under the Index Мedicus), year, volume, issue, pages (from–to), DOI (if available). Example: Lee JM, Choi KH, Koo BK, et al. Prognosis of deferred non-culprit lesions according to fractional flow reserve in patients with acute coronary syndrome. EuroIntervention. 2017;13(9):e1112-e1119. doi: 10.4244/EIJ-D-17-00110.
Papers of an edited book: Author(s). Title. – In: The edited book title. Edition number, editors. Place of publication (city), publishing house, year of publication, pages (from–to), and DOI (if available). Example: Kern MJ. Control of myocardial blood flow. – In: Kern MJ (Ed.), SCAI Interventional Cardiology Board Review. Wolters Kluwer/ Lippincott Williams & Wikins 2013.12-23.
Books: Author(s). Title. Place of publication (city), publishing house, year of publication, pages (from–to), and DOI (if available). Example: A. Kundurdzhiev. Cardiorenal Syndrome. Sofia. Excelsior OOD (Press). 2019:74-82.
Website: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/bulgaria/ (last access on DD.MM.YYYY).
Upon the submission of a paper, a Declaration of Consent must be filled and signed by all members of the writing team. The signed Declaration of Consent is scanned and uploaded in the Editorial system under the heading Cover Letter upon submission of the manuscript.
Following the acceptance to publication, authors fill a Declaration of Potential Conflict of Interests.
The corresponding author declares that the material has not been published previously, except in the form of an abstract for a scientific event, and has not been submitted to another journal. Authors assume the responsibility for the contents of their publications. Presented papers and the studies described in them should comply with the established ethical standards on performance of the clinical and/or experimental studies on human subjects (the Helsinki Declaration) and experimental animals. Patients must not be referred by their names, initials and other personal data; images, by which patients can be identified, must not be presented. The strict observance of copyright is required.
Submission Procedure
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Registration and login are required to submit items online and to check the status of current submissions.
Submission of manuscripts to this journal is possible only through the online submission module. We kindly request authors to consult the Focus and Scope section prior to submission. In order to submit a manuscript to the journal, authors are required to register with the journal and/or to login. Once logged in, you will find the online submission system either by clicking the "Submit manuscript" button.
The manuscript submission process is separated into the following steps:
- Step 1: Specifying the manuscript type and completing the submission checklist
- Step 2: All articles are published free of charge
- Step 3: Typing in the author(s) names and affiliation, title, abstract, keywords, and other metadata
- Step 4: Assigning classifications categories for your manuscript using hierarchical classification trees
- Step 5: Completing the submission metadata by adding details about any supporting agencies, conflict of interest, ethical statement, comments to the editors
- Step 6: Agreeing with the journal's Data Publishing Policy and specifying the availability of the data underpinning your article
- Step 7: Uploading the submission file and the additional files (see below for details on how to prepare it)
- Step 8: Confirming the automatically generated pdf review version of the article, and the metadata (or revising them, if needed)
- Step 9: Uploading supplementary files (see below for details) and associated metadata
- Step 10: Suggesting reviewers, final verification of the submitted files and confirmation
Stepwise guidance on new manuscript submission, with screenshots of the interface embedded, is available online in this section of the User Manual.
Organizing Your Submission
Before starting your submission please make sure that your manuscript is formatted in accordance with the Author Guidelines.
Before attempting an online submission, please consider preparing the following file types:
1. Submission file
Review version of the manuscript: a TEXT (MS WORD) file in either DOC, DOCX, RTF or ODT format. The total file size must be no larger than 80 MB. The system allows two options for the submission file upload:
-
it could contain all figures embedded at their respective places within the manuscript:
-
Advantage: The review version of the manuscript will be more convenient for reading and understanding by the reviewers and editors. Likewise, if you opt to post your manuscript on ARPHA Preprints and this is allowed by the current journal’s policies, it will be better organised for the readers.
-
Drawback: Additional effort is needed to place and number the figures within the text.
-
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it could contain the article text only, while the figures are added separately in the allowed formats (see below), so that the system can add them automatically to the PDF version that will be sent for review. The authors have the option to check and replace, if needed, the PDF review version generated at the first submission step:
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Advantage: No additional effort is needed for placing and numbering the figures within the text.
-
Drawback: All figures will be placed at the end of the manuscript and the review version will be less convenient for reading and understanding by the reviewers and editors. The same concerns your preprint if you decide to post it on ARPHA Preprints and this is allowed by the current journal’s policies.
-
2. Additional files
High-resolution figures must be submitted during the same submission process as the additional files (Step 7) in one of the accepted file formats (see below). These may be compressed in order to reduce bandwidth during upload:
- Figures (each figure as an individual file in one of the following image file formats: EPS, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, not larger than 20 MB each)
- Equations (each equation as an individual file in one of the above-mentioned image file formats)
Please note that the maximum file size that may be uploaded through our online submission system is 20 MB.
3. Supplementary files (appendices)
Large datasets or multimedia files, usually published as appendices in conventional print journals, should be uploaded as supplementary files complete with the associated metadata on the online submission form. Supplementary files should have their own legends.
Most file formats are accepted. Text-only appendices must be in DOC, DOCX, RTF, or ODF formats.
Should you have any technical problems in submitting a manuscript to this journal, please contact the Editorial Office at journals@pensoft.net.
We encourage authors to send an inquiry to the respective Subject Editor prior to submitting a manuscript. The purpose of the presubmission inquiry is to solicit rapid initial feedback on the suitability of the manuscript for publication in this journal. Pre-submission inquiries may also be sent to the Editorial Office at journal@bgcardio.org.
How to Access a Manuscript
Manuscripts can be accessed after login
- Login is possible after registration at the journal's website. Our Editorial Office will register all first-time editors and reviewers. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.
Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
Note: Please remember that you may have registered with two or more different email addresses, that is why you may have more than one valid account at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, hence one password associated with it, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. We highly recommend that, in case the user has two or more different accounts, to merge these through user's profile.
Note: Users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login). If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.
There are two ways to access a manuscript
After login, please go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. This way, you will be able to see all manuscripts you are responsible for as Author or Reviewer or Subject Editor.
Note: The manuscripts are grouped by categories, e.g., In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts assigned to you.
Click on the active manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system. The link will lead you directly to the manuscript.
General Responsibilities of Editors
Subject, or Associate, editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the papers. They take the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and their names are listed as Academic Editor in the header of each published article.
The editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system informs the Subject Editor about any change in the status of a manuscript from submission to publication.
The online editorial system is designed to save time and effort for Subject Editors in checking the status of the manuscripts. There is no need for editors to visit the journal’s website to keep track on the manuscript they are responsible for. The online system will inform the Subject Editor when an invited reviewer has accepted or declined to review. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions what action is needed at each stage, as well as a link to the respective manuscript (accessible by clicking on the link in the email notification or after login – see How to Access a Manuscript).
Subject Editors are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to good practices in clear and concise academic writing. It is the author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English. The Subject Editor should not hesitate to recommend either Reject, or Reject, but resubmission encouraged PRIOR to the peer-review process, in cases when a manuscript does not conform to the author guidelines/journal’s style, or is outside the scope of the journal, or is scientifically poor, or is written in poor English, or there is obvious plagiarism. Such a recommendation should be justified (see Note under point 1 below how to reject a manuscript prior to peer review).
Editors are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.
It often happens that even carefully written manuscripts may contain small errors in orthography or stylistics. We shall be thankful if editors spot such errors during the reading process and correct them.
Stepwise Description of the Editorial Process
- Once a manuscript is submitted, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) briefly checks if the manuscript conforms with the journal's Focus, Scope, Policies and style requirements and decides whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review, or rejected immediately, or returned to the author for improvement and re-submission.
Note: There are two ways to reject/return a manuscript prior to review process:
- Through the buttons Reject or Return to the author for correction in the Editorial tab. Please note, however, that the buttons will be made active only after a justification for the rejection or return is provided in the text field.
- Through an email to the Editorial office explaining the reason for rejection or return. The manuscript will be then rejected/returned through the online editorial system and the respective notification email will be sent from the Editorial Office. - At this stage, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) can also check the manuscript for plagiarism via the iThenticate service by clicking on the "ïTehnticate report" button. Journals providing a peer review in languages other than English (for example Russian) may use other plagiarsim checking services (for example Antiplagiat).
- When a manuscript is suitable, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) assigns it to the Subject Editor responsible for the respective topic (e.g., science branch or taxon). The Subject Editor receives a notification email on the assignment.
Note: The link to the respective manuscript is available in the editorial assignment email and all consequent reminder emails. The manuscript is accessible by clicking on the link in the email notifications, or via the user's dashboard after login. Please see How to Access a Manuscript above in case you have any difficulties. - The assigned Subject Editor next reads the manuscript to decide whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review, or rejected immediately, or returned to the author for improvement and re-submission. Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or linguistically or grammatically poor English language.
Note: There are two ways to reject a manuscript prior to review process:
- Through the buttons Reject or Reject, but resubmission encouraged in the Editorial tab. Please note, however, that the buttons become active only after a justification for the rejection is provided in the text field.
- Through an email to the Editorial office explaining the reason for rejection. The manuscript will be then rejected/returned through the online editorial system and the respective notification email will be sent from the Editorial Office. - In case the manuscript is acceptable for peer review, the Subject Editor has to invite reviewers by clicking on the Invite reviewers link. The Subject Editor can select from a list of reviewers, starting with the ones suggested by the authors during the submission process, and followed by the reviewers who are already listed in the database, or add new reviewers.
- Once reviewers are chosen, the Subject Editor has to click the Invite reviewers green button at the end of the page which will generate email templates with review invitations. It is highly recommended that the Subject Editor adds some personal words above the standard email text of the review invitation.
- In case a reviewer is absent from our users' data base, the Subject Editor can add his/her name and email through the Add new reviewer link, which will appear once the search field reveal no results. It is possible that the needed reviewer has already been registered in the Pensoft database either as customer or author/reviewer of another journal. If this is the case, then his/her name, affiliation and other metadata will automatically appear once the e-mail field is populated in the Create user online form.
- The Subject Editor receives a notification email when the Reviewer agrees or declines to review. The Subject Editor takes care to appoint additional reviewers in case some of the invited reviewers decline.
- Once all Reviewers submit their reviews, the Subject Editor receives an email notification, inviting him/her to consider Reviewers' opinions, read through the manuscript and take a decision through the Proceed button.
Note: Editorial comments can be added in the online editorial form; comments and corrections are expected to be added also in the manuscript file (either on the PDF version or in the text file), that should be uploaded during finalization of the editorial decision process. - At this stage, the editor should take a decision either to (1) accept the manuscript, (2) reject it, (3) recommend Major or Minor Revisions or reject it, or open a second review round. In case the manuscript is not rejected, but recommended for Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Acceptance, the author is expected to submit a revised version within a certain period of time (and the Subject Editor will be notified by email about that).
Note 1: Authors must submit revised versions as a text file using Track Changes/Comments tools of Word so that the Subject Editor can see their corrections/additions. Authors must reply to the essential critiques and comments of reviewers separately through the online editorial system.
Note 2: During the second, or next, review round, the Subject Editor may decide to ask reviewers to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript. He/she may also make a decision based on the author’s responses and the revised version of the manuscript without asking additional Reviewers' support. - After acceptance, the manuscript will go to proofreading and layout. The Subject Editor will be notified by email when the final proof is uploaded on the journal’s website. The Subject Editor is expected to look at the proofs and notify the Editorial Office through email in case the proofs need improvement.
- The Subject Editor may always access information on the manuscripts which have been edited by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Subject Editor on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that were assigned.
Editors’ and Reviewers’ Workload Stats
While selecting a Reviewer or a Subject Editor to assign to a manuscript, Editors can access the current and past workload for the person they are considering.
By clicking on the user’s name, an Editor sees how many editorial or review tasks the person is currently assigned with, as well as a record of the user’s previous performance across all ARPHA-hosted journals (i.e. number of accepted and declined editorial and review assignments, as well as the titles of the corresponding journals).
The feature is meant to facilitate and expedite the editorial process by discouraging assignment of tasks to overburdened or inactive users.
Find how to Manage Subject editor assignments and Invite Reviewers in the ARPHA Manual.
Review Quality Rating
Subject Editors should evaluate each review submitted to a manuscript they are handling by using a 5-star rating system. The average score is visible for Subject editors who consider the user as a Reviewer. The feature is meant to expedite the editorial process by aiding Subject Editors in the selection of the most suitable reviewers.
Find how to Rate a peer review in the ARPHA Manual.
Guidelines for Reviewers
Pensoft journals support the open science approach in the peer review and publication process. We encourage our reviewers to open their identity to the authors and consider supporting the peer review oaths, which tend to be short declarations that reviewers make at the start of their written comments, typically dictating the terms by which they will conduct their reviews (see Aleksic et al. 2015, doi: 10.12688/f1000research.5686.2 for more details):
Principles of the open peer-review oath
- Principle 1: I will sign my name to my review
- Principle 2: I will review with integrity
- Principle 3: I will treat the review as a discourse with you; in particular, I will provide constructive criticism
- Principle 4: I will be an ambassador for the practice of open science
How to Access a Manuscript
Manuscripts can be accessed after login
- Login is possible after registration at the journal's website. Our Editorial Office will register all first-time editors and reviewers. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.
Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
Note: Please remember that you may have registered with two or more different email addresses, that is why you may have more than one valid account at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, hence one password associated with it, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. We highly recommend that, in case the user has two or more different accounts, to merge these through user's profile.
Note: Users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login). If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.
There are two ways to access a manuscript
After login, please go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. This way, you will be able to see all manuscripts you are responsible for as Author or Reviewer or Subject Editor.
Note: The manuscripts are grouped by categories, e.g., In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts assigned to you.
Click on the active manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system. The link will lead you directly to the manuscript.
General Responsibilities of Reviewers
This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. The reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identity, if they wish so. The peer review and editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system sends the Reviewer a review request, initiated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office. The online system will also inform about delays in the reviewing and will confirm a successful review submission. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions about the actions needed at each stage along with the link to the respective manuscript (accessible only after login – see section How to Access a Manuscript).
Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, we shall be grateful for them to inform both the Author and the Subject Editor in the report. It is the Author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English. Deadline for completion of a review must not exceed 2 weeks.
It often happens that even carefully written manuscripts may contain small errors in orthography or stylistics. We shall be thankful if Reviewers spot such errors during the reading process and correct them.
The manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or three experts with the aim of reaching a first decision as soon as possible. Reviewers do not need to sign their reports, but are welcome to do so. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interest.
Reviewers are asked whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, how interesting it is and whether the quality of the writing is acceptable. Where possible, the final decision is made on the basis of the peer reviews. In cases of strong disagreement between the reports or between the authors and peer reviewers, the editor can assess these according to his/her expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.
The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and/or, in some journals, with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice from the Subject Editors or the Editorial Board.
Reviewers are also asked to indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant. These articles may be given greater prominence and greater external publicity, including press releases addressed to science journalists and mass media.
During a second review round, reviewers may be asked to evaluate the revised version against their recommendations submitted during the first review round.
Reviewers are kindly asked to be polite and constructive in their reports. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.
Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the editor and the authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.
Furthermore, reviewers are also asked to comment on originality, structure and previous research:
Originality: Is the paper sufficiently novel and does it contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny? Is the work rather confirmatory and repetitive?
Structure: Is the introduction clear and concise? Does it place the work into the context that is necessary for a reader to comprehend aims, hypotheses tested, experimental design or methods? Are Material and Methods clearly described and sufficiently explained? Are reasons given when choosing one method over another one from a set of comparable methods? Are the results clearly, but concisely described? Do they relate to the topic outlined in the introduction? Do they follow a logical sequence? Does the discussion place the paper in scientific context and go a step beyond the current scientific knowledge on the basis of the results? Are competing hypotheses or theories reasonably related to each other and properly discussed? Do the conclusions seem reasonable?
Previous research: Is previous research adequately incorporated into the paper? Are references complete, necessary and accurate? Is there any sign that substantial parts of the paper are copies of other works?
Stepwise Description of the Peer Review Process
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This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. Notwithstanding with that, the Reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identities, if they wish to do so.
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The Reviewer receives a review request generated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office and is expected to either agree to provide a review, or decline, through pressing the Will do the review or Unable to do the review link in the online editorial system. In case the Reviewer agrees to review the manuscript, he/she should submit the review within a certain time frame, which may vary in the different journals.
Note: The link to the respective manuscript is available in the review request email and all consequent reminder emails. The manuscript is accessible by clicking on the link in the email notification, or after login. Please look at the section How to Access a Manuscript above in case you have any difficulties. -
The review should be submitted through the Proceed button. The review should consist of:
- a simple online questionnaire to be answered by ticking either Yes, No, or N/A;
- comments addressed to the Author and the Subject Editor in the online form;
- associated files (corrected/commented manuscript file, review submitted in a separate text file, etc.), if any.
Note: Reviewers can insert corrections and comments in the manuscript review version (PDF) and/or in the manuscript text file (usually Microsoft Word, rarely Open Office file). When working in the PDF, please use either the Text Edits or the Sticky Notes tools (available through the menu Tools -> Comments & Markup of the Acrobat Reader). When editing in Microsoft Word please use the Track Changes / Comments tools.
Note: Associated files should be submitted at the end of the review process by clicking on the Browse button, then selecting the respective file on your computer, and then pressing the Upload button. A Reviewer may upload as many files to support his/her review as needed.
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The Reviewer may decide to stay anonymous or open his/her identity by ticking the Show my name to the author(s) box at the bottom of the reviewer’s form. Please be aware that your identity might be revealed in the comments or in Track Changes corrections of the Microsoft Word or PDF file you correct. Therefore, please make sure that you delete your name and initials in the Options section of your Word or PDF processor if you want to remain anonymous.
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In addition to the above, by checking a box at the bottom of the submission form, reviewers may opt for making their contribution public in the event that the article is accepted and published. The reviewer's name, affiliation and email address will be displayed next to those of the Academic editor (or Subject editor) on the article webpage.
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The review process is completed by selecting a recommendation from five options: (1) Reject; (2) Reject, but resubmission encouraged; (3) Major Revision; (4) Minor Revision; (5) Accept. The system will ask for one more confirmation of the selected recommendation before submission. The submitted review cannot be changed after submission.
Note: Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or grammatically poor English language.
Note: It is also possible for review and associated files (e.g., a corrected manuscript file) to be sent as attached files to the email of the Editorial Office. We strongly recommend avoiding this option, and instead uploading reviews through the online editorial management system. -
Once a Reviewer submits a review of a manuscript, he/she receives an acknowledgement email from the journal.
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The submission of the review is also automatically reported to Clarivate - Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service (formerly Publons). Reviewers are asked to confirm whether they want their reviews to be recorded on Clarivate.
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When all Reviewers have submitted their reviews, the Subject Editor makes a decision to either accept, reject or request further minor/major revision.
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After the Subject Editor's decision, the manuscript is sent back to the author for comments and further revision. The Author needs to submit a revised version in due time.
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Reviewers are notified via email when the revised version of a manuscript that they have reviewed is submitted by the Author. They receive a link to the revised version along with the editorial decision and all reviews of the manuscript. Reviewers are also provided with a feedback form should they have any comments on the revised version.
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When an article is published, all Reviewers who have provided a review for the respective manuscript receive an email acknowledgment. In the email, there is a link to view/download the published article.
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The Reviewer may always access information on the manuscripts that are being / have been reviewed by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Reviewer on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that have been assigned to you.
Web Services
OAI-PMH - oai_dc: https://journal.bgcardio.org/oai.php?verb=ListRecords&set=bgcardio&metadataPrefix=oai_dc
OAI-PMH - mods: https://journal.bgcardio.org/oai.php?verb=ListRecords&set=bgcardio&metadataPrefix=mods
RSS for metadata: https://journal.bgcardio.org/rss.php
Journal Info
Journal Name | Bulgarian Cardiology |
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Journal URL | https://journal.bgcardio.org/ |
ISSN (online) | 2683-1015 |
ISSN (print) | 1310-7488 |
Content Provider | ARPHA |
Publisher | Bulgarian Society of Cardiology |
Journal Owner | Bulgarian Society of Cardiology |
Owner URL | https://bgcardio.org/en/bulgarian-society-cardiology |
Start Year | 1995 |
Review Type | single-blind |
Publication Frequency | quarterly |
APC | No publication charges |
License | Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) |