About the Journal
Aim and Scope
The Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care aims to provide unrestricted access to timely research and other manuscripts applicable to rural health, nursing, education, practice, and policy.
The scope includes concerns and interventions related to rural populations involving nurses and other health care professionals. Articles include research, methods, program evaluations, practice, theoretical, opinion, and evidence-based reviews. Letters to the editor should be submitted under columns. Authors from all disciplines may submit relevant manuscripts. At least one author on each manuscript must be a member of the Rural Nurse Organization (RNO).
Peer Review Process
The OJRNHC operates on a double-blind peer review policy. Authors should blind their manuscripts prior to submission. Two reviewers are initially assigned to each manuscript. Reviewers score each article and make recommendations about declination, minor revisions, substantial revisions, or acceptance. Articles that receive conflicting reviewer opinions may be sent to a third reviewer who then provides a score and recommendation. All reviewer scores and comments are provided to the authors.
Publication Frequency
The Journal is published twice yearly in winter and late spring.
Policies
In-House Submission Policy
In-house submissions (manuscripts authored by editors or members of the editorial board) may be submitted for consideration but are not given priority over other manuscripts. To preserve impartiality, editors and editorial board members must exclude themselves as an editor for any manuscript authored by themselves or members of their own institution. Otherwise, they follow the same editorial process as all other manuscripts. The editorial decision is based on the reviewers' recommendations and alignment with the scope and standards of the journal.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care is committed to upholding the
best ethical practices in publication. We will correct or retract published work if necessary. Any form of plagiarism, unethical behavior, or malpractice is entirely unacceptable.
At OJRNHC, we firmly believe that our editors, authors, and reviewers are responsible for upholding the accepted ethical standards and guidelines. Our ethics and malpractice statement is firmly rooted in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles.
Author Responsibilities
● Authors of original research are expected to present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work.
● Authors should include sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.
● Authors should not publish manuscripts describing the same research in multiple
journals or primary publications.
● Authors should cite publications that have influenced the nature of the reported work.
● Authors should list as co-authors all those who have made significant contributions.
● Authors should disclose any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that
could influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of
financial support should be disclosed.
Editor Responsibilities
● Editors must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
● Editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and editor, as
appropriate.
● Editors should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.
● Editors should take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers containing research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication.
● Editors are expected to provide constructive feedback to the authors to enhance the quality of the articles.
Reviewer Responsibilities
● Reviewers assist in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial
communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.
● Reviewers who feel they need to be more qualified to review a manuscript or know its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse themselves from the review process.
● Reviewers should conduct reviews objectively. Personal criticism of the author is
inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
● Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents.
● Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not
cited. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
● Peer Reviewers should provide constructive and unbiased feedback
