New Opportunities for AJPE Authors

Abstract

The goal of the Editorial Team and Editorial Board is to advance the important role AJPE plays in providing a forum for communication of relevant information for pharmacy educators and all others interested in the advancement of pharmacy education. (1) Throughout the last year, we evaluated and revised our instructions to authors with a focus on assisting authors in their submission process. We combined this process with a revision of manuscript categories to accommodate the broad array of scholarly work being conducted in the academy. We know how important it is for our colleagues to have a peer-review forum to share their scholarship of teaching and learning and to provide commentary on current topics in the academy. We believe the updated instructions to the authors, as well as an author checklist, will provide the tools to guide new and previous authors in the manuscript submission process. In addition, more explicit requirements and expectations for authors can serve to enhance the initial review process for editors, provide better guidance for peer reviewers, and assist in the final preparation of manuscripts for publication. We also know the importance of the timely release of the peer reviewed results/findings of scholarly work for advancing the academy given the rapid and exciting changes in educating future pharmacists. Thus, we will be introducing ahead of print for manuscripts accepted for publication in AJPE (AJPEPAP). This process enables accepted publications to be published on AJPE's website prior to the final copyediting process. Papers released in this format will be assigned a unique digital object identifier (DOI) number that will enable others to locate this paper as well as the final paper once it is assigned to an issue. It is essential to remember that these manuscripts will not be the same as the final published paper in AJPE. The AJPEPAP manuscript will be removed following the posting of the final paper on the AJPE website. We will provide more details on this advancement in a future Commentary. The development of revised manuscript categories was based on the belief that the scholarship of teaching and learning should reflect the well-grounded foundations for the presentation of scholarly work. Updated categories for AJPE papers will include Reviews, Research, Briefs, Commentaries, and Letters to the Editor. Reviews are comprehensive, well-referenced descriptive papers on teaching or research topics directly related to entry-level and graduate or postgraduate education and training or skill development, as well as the history of pharmacy education. Reviews should be no longer than 25 double-spaced pages for all components and should be systematic, include all relevant data, and not influenced by opinions and biases of the authors. All Reviews are peer-reviewed. The papers related to new scholarly work are Research articles, Research Briefs, or Educational Briefs. Research articles describe experimental or observational investigations that used formal methods for data collection and reporting of results of studies directly related to pharmacy education. This category also includes novel methods for professional and graduate student instruction (lectures, laboratories, practice experiences, or courses), or informational manuscripts on programmatic and curriculum development (formerly the Instructional Design and Assessment category) and must be no longer than 25 double-spaced pages for all components. …