Author Guidelines

1. Scope and review process

Pharmacy Education provides a forum for the communication of relevant information for pharmacy educators and all others interested in the advancement of the wider scope of pharmacy education. To be considered for publication, manuscripts must align with the Focus and Scope of the journal.

To ensure that only accurate and substantive articles are included, all manuscripts undergo a Peer Review process and editorial approval prior to acceptance. Submission of a paper to Pharmacy Education will be taken to imply that it represents original work not previously published, that it is not being considered elsewhere for publication, and that, if accepted for publication, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the consent of the editors and publisher. It will also be assumed that the author has obtained all necessary permissions to include in the paper such items as quotations, figures, tables, results of government-sponsored research, etc.

2. Publication ethics

The journal takes publishing ethical concerns extremely seriously and follows the guidelines and best practice recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Hence, every manuscript is screened for plagiarism using specialised software.

Therefore, authors are required to follow ethical guidelines on authorship attribution, conflicts of interest, adherence to moral principles when using experimental animals and human subjects, financial support disclosures, and involvement in the peer review procedure.

Plagiarism, duplicate submissions, excessive and irrelevant self-citations, and instances of inaccurate or fraudulent data will also be grounds for rejection.

In addition to refraining from coercive citations, editors and reviewers are expected to uphold ethical norms related to conflicts of interest, the confidentiality of the reviewed papers, objective assessment of the work, and the maintenance of reviewers' anonymity until approval. Editors are responsible for accepting or rejecting papers.

Plagiarism. Authors are responsible for accurately citing and acknowledging all ideas of others (published or unpublished material, whether in handwritten, printed, or electronic form) presented in their paper. Manuscripts shown with plagiarism or duplication will not be considered for publication in the journal.

Duplicate submissions. Pharmacy Education will only consider manuscripts not previously published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, either in whole or in part.

Ethical citation and academic integrity. The authors should adopt relevant citations to support their writing. Citing own work is sometimes necessary to avoid self-plagiarism or reflect the continuum of a long-term project. However, excessive self-citation aiming to raise the scores of authors by promoting their work lies under data manipulation and undermines academic integrity. Excessive self-citation consists of using biased references (geographical, school-of-thought, agreement for mutual citation between a group of authors) that do not represent the state of knowledge in the field at the time of writing.

Data/image manipulation. PEJ supports open science and open data and requires authors to make public all data pertinent to the conclusions of the manuscript. It opposes the manipulation of data (fabrication and falsification) and figures/images (altered partly or cropped). Authors should seek permission to use images and should cite the original work in the legend.

Coercive citation. This practice occurs when an editor or reviewer forces an author to add citations irrelevant to an article before it is accepted for publication, with the purpose of raising their score or that of the journal. Authors are encouraged to report such practices to the Journal Editor.

3. Authorship, contributions, and ethics

Authors seeking publication take responsibility and accountability for their work and listed authors should therefore fulfil ALL of the following four criteria:

1. Substantially contributed to the conception/design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data gathered;
2. Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published;
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

It is the collective responsibility of the authors to ensure that all named authors meet all four criteria. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged as ‘Contributors’. In cases where conflict arises with regard to who should qualify for authorship, the institution(s) where the work was performed should be asked to investigate.  

Corresponding Author (CA): The CA takes on the responsibility of primary contact for communication with the Journal during the Submission Process, including the Peer Review and the publication process. The CA should be available to respond to editorial queries in a timely way and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and to cooperate with any requests from the Journal about the paper. The Journal Editors will liaise primarily with the CA but will send copies of all correspondence to all listed authors. 

Contributors: Authors who meet less than the required four criteria above for authorship can be acknowledged as ‘Contributors’.  Authors are encouraged to specify the contributions made by named Contributors. 

Removal/Addition of Author: If authors request the removal or addition of an author after manuscript submission or publication, an explanation and signed statement from all listed authors should be forwarded to the Journal Editors. An explanation and signed statement from the author to be removed or added are also requested. 

Ethics Approval and Informed Consent. The authors should ensure that research involving human subjects has been carried out in accordance with The Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the appropriate research or ethics review committee, or that it has been determined to be exempt from such review. 

4. Methodological checklists of manuscript categories

All manuscripts should follow methodological checklists according to their type:

• Observational studies: The STROBE checklist.
• Qualitative studies: The NICE Methodology checklist.
• Case-control and cohort studies: The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale.
• Experimental studies: CONSORT Transparent Reporting of Trials.
• Scale Development and Validation: Best Practices for Developing and Validating Scales for Health, Social, and Behavioral Research: A Primer.
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA checklist
• Clinical practice guidelines: The AGREE reporting checklist
• Case Report: The CARE Statement Checklist
• Economic evaluations of health interventions: The CHEERS checklist.
• Clinical trial protocol: The SPIRIT checklist.
• Diagnostic Accuracy Studies: The STARD guidelines checklist.

5. Manuscript organisation

All papers must be submitted in UK/British English and should be formatted double-spaced, with margins of 2.5 cm. The text must be in 12-point Calibri font. The submission file should be in Microsoft Word format.

Manuscripts should be divided into Title page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Figures, and Tables.

All pages should be numbered sequentially within the manuscript.

All manuscripts are blinded and should include the following (in this order): (1) Title page, (2) Abstract and Keywords, (3) Main Body (with all author names and identifying information removed for peer review), (4) References, (5) Figures and Tables, and (6) Appendices (if available).

The title page and appendices must be submitted as separate files.

5.1. Title page

The title page must be submitted as a separate file and should include the following:

• Type of manuscript (Research Article, Programme Description, etc.)
• Full article title that should include MeSH terms
• Abbreviated title (up to 50 characters)
• Each author’s complete name and institutional affiliation(s).
• Corresponding author (name, full postal address, phone/fax, e-mail).
• ORCiD IDs of all authors.
• Grants and/or funding information. Authors should disclose any funds or grants received.
• Acknowledgement
• Conflict of interest statement. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should state that there are none.
• Ethics Approval and Informed Consent (should be also included in the Methods section). A statement of ethics approval is required and should include the name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s), the number/ID of the approval(s), and a statement that participants gave informed consent before taking part.

5.2. Abstract and keywords

Abstracts should be structured (Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion), 150-200 words for full-length articles, and include MeSH terms. For short reports and narrative reviews, abstracts should not exceed 150 words and can be narrative (unstructured).

Three to six keywords separated by commas should be listed alphabetically below the abstract.

5.3. Text

The text should be written in the third person and be scholarly, readable, clear, and concise. Standard nomenclature should be used. Unfamiliar terms and acronyms should be defined in the first instance. Manuscripts that were prepared for oral presentation must be rewritten for print. Excessively long introductions or discussion sections should be avoided in research papers. All manuscripts should be structured according to their type (see 5)

Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be defined when they first occur in the abstract, the text, and table and figure legends. Once an abbreviation has been introduced in the main body of the text, it should be used throughout.

Text Headings: Headings should be set over to the left-hand margin and the text should begin on the next line.

Footnotes should be indicated in the text by the following symbols: * (asterisk or star), † (dagger), ‡ (double dagger), ¶ (paragraph mark), § (section mark), || (parallels), # (number sign). Numerals should not be used for footnote call-outs as they may be mistaken for bibliographic reference call-outs or exponents. Each footnote should be typed at the bottom of the typescript page on which its text call-out appears. Footnotes within a table should be indicated by the same symbols listed above. Reinitialise symbol sequence within tables. Footnotes to a table should be typed directly beneath the table.

5.4. References

Only papers that have been published or are in press may be cited; abstracts, unpublished data, and personal communications should not be included in the reference list but may be included in the text.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to quote personal communications and unpublished data from the cited author.

Reference style should conform to the guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) Manual, seventh edition.

References should be limited to publications within the last 5 years, whenever possible.

In-Text Citations. Citations in the text should be written as follows:

• One author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication (Spencer, 2021);
• Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication (Spencer & Jordan, 2021);
• More than two authors: first author’s name followed by 'et al.' in italics and the year of publication (Spencer et al., 2022).

References should be arranged alphabetically and then sorted chronologically. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication in the in-text citation: (Spencer et al., 2021a) and (Spencer et al., 2021b).

References should include a DOI in the hyperlink format, when available: https://doi.org/10.1080/14622299050011431, not DOI: 10.1080/14622299050011431

Bibliography. References should be alphabetised at the end of the manuscript text in the following formats:

• Book: Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.
• Book chapter: Dillard, J. P. (2020). Currents in the study of persuasion. In M. B. Oliver, A. A. Raney, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 115–129). Routledge.
• Journal article: Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
• Website/online published source: Peirce College. (2019). Who are adult learners (online). Available at: https://www.peirce.edu/degrees-programs/additional-resources/adult-learners/who-are-adult-learners
• Report from a global or national organisation: International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). (2021). FIP digital health in pharmacy education: Developing a digitally enabled pharmaceutical workforce. The Hague: International Pharmaceutical Federation. https://www.fip.org/file/4958  
•  

5.5. Figures and Tables

Figures and Tables (up to 8 in total) should not be inserted into the text but provided on separate pages within the file.

Figures: All figures and charts should be numbered with consecutive Arabic numbers (e.g., Figure 1), have descriptive captions, be mentioned in the text, and be of publishable quality. An approximate position for insertion should be indicated. All figures should have a caption to make interpretation possible without reference to the text. Captions should include keys to symbols. All figures should be in black/white/greyscale unless an essential colour is required.

Tables: Tables should be consecutively numbered with Roman numerals (e.g., Table I, Table II, etc.). An approximate position for insertion should be indicated. Each table should have a caption describing its contents. Footnotes to tables should be typed beneath them. Use symbols to refer to them.

5.6. Appendices

Appendices should be lettered to distinguish them from numbered tables and figures and should include a descriptive title for each (e.g., “Appendix A: Sharks’ representative questions to student presenters”). Appendices should be referred to in the main text.

6. Managing proofs

Once a manuscript has been approved for publication, a galley proof is prepared for authors to check. The galley will include proofs of illustrations, tables, figures, and appendices. Authors are given this opportunity to check for minor essential corrections and edits and not for general revision or alteration.