Online Submissions

Already have a Username/Password for Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease?
Go to Login

Need a Username/Password?
Go to Register

Registration and login are required to submit items online and to check the status of current submissions.

Author Guidelines

Preparing for submission Submitted manuscripts should follow the recommendations stated in Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

In his/her covering letter, the corresponding author should reveal whether the submitted article – or very similar work - has been previously published, or orally presented, or is under consideration elsewhere.

Plagiarism Detection Co-Action Publishing is a member of CrossCheck by CrossRef and iThenticate. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of content submitted before publication. iThenticate checks submissions against millions of published research papers, and billions of web content.

Co-Action Publishing uses iThenticate to screen all submissions for plagiarism before publication, but authors, researchers and freelancers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting http://research.ithenticate.com.

Language All articles should be written in English - British or American as long as consistency is observed. SI units should be used. Please subject the manuscript to professional language editing before submitting the final version if you are not a native speaker.

Conflict of interest and funding Authors are responsible for disclosing financial or other support from the industry or other conflicts of interest that might bias the interpretation of results.

Acknowledgements All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chairperson who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Statistic validity If complicated statistical data are provided, the authors may be requested to submit a statement issued by a certified statistician regarding the validity of methods used.

Ethics and consent When reporting experiments on patients or animals, please indicate whether the procedures followed were approved by your local ethics committee and/or in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf).

Publication fee The publication of an article in Microbial Ecology in Health & Disease incurs a publication charge of €800 excl. VAT (Europe), or $1100 (rest of the world) per article of up to 8 typeset pages (A4). For each additional typeset page a charge of €50/$69 is incurred. For members of SOMED the publication fee is €300, excl VAT (Europe), or $415 (rest of the world).

It is customary that the author’s institution covers the publication costs for articles resulting from research undertaken at the institution, or that money has been earmarked in the grant or stipend the author has received to be able to carry out the research. For a list of universities/institutes and funders willing to pay your publication fee, please see this list. Additional information on how to claim reimbursement/support for publication fees can be found here.

The total sum will be charged to the author(s) upon acceptance of his/her article. Publication fees may be waived for authors from developing countries suffering financial hardship. Please contact info@co-action.net.

Colour illustrations are free of charge just as supplemental material.

Open Access Key As a Co-Action Publishing author you are now able to manage your publication fee using Open Access Key (OAK).

Co-Action Publishing is one of the first publishers in the world to implement OAK, a unique new online payment platform designed to manage and consolidate author publication fees and connect authors to their universities, research funders or learned societies. To register and start using Open Access Key, please visit http://www.openaccesskey.com

Manuscript layout Wherever possible, the paper should follow the traditional layout: introduction (motivation, problem identification and a short literature survey), present investigation (background, materials, subjects and results), and conclusion. Begin each section, including figure and table legends, on separate sheets; insert running page numbers.

Figures Upon acceptance, please supply figures/graphics/images in at least 300 dpi. For further information, please see Guidelines.

Title page Organize the title page in the following way: 1) title of manuscript, 2) name of author(s), 3) name of department(s) and institution(s), and 4) name and full postal and email address of the corresponding author who also acts as 'Guarantor' for all parts of the paper. Please observe that the journal adheres to a 'double blind' review process and thus the identity of the authors should remain unknown until the paper is accepted; the submitted paper should not include author name, affiliation and corresponding author address.

The title should be informative and accurate and at the same time trigger the interest of the reader. A short running head will be derived from the title to appear on each page of the article.

Abstract Articles must include a structured abstract of 200-300 words. The abstract should provide sufficient information for a reader to be able to decide whether or not to proceed to the full text of the article. The abstract should be structured in the following way: Background, Objective, Design, Results, Conclusions. After the abstract, please give 5-10 key words; avoid using the same words as in the title.

Section headings Please do not number section headings. Use a maximum of three levels of headings made clear by orthographic indicators, i.e. capitals, italics, bold etc.

References References should follow the standard biomedical format. ARTICLES FAILING TO FOLLOW THIS STYLE WILL BE RETURNED TO THE AUTHORS FOR CORRECTION.

Number the references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text by Arabic numerals and in parentheses, e.g. (14).

Information from papers in manuscript but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as 'unpublished observation(s)' or 'personal communication'.

For a key of how to abbreviate journal names, please consult the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus.

Journals

1. Kara D, Luppens SB, Cate JM. Differences between single- and dual-species biofilms of Streptococcus mutans and Veillonella parvula in growth, acidogenicity and susceptibility to chlorhexidine. Eur J Oral Sci. 2006; 114: 58-63.
2. Hailman E, Vasselon T, Kelley M, Busse LA, Hu MC, Lichtenstein HS et al. Stimulation of macrophages and neutrophils by complexes of lipopolysaccharide and soluble CD14. J Immunol. 1996; 156: 4384-90.
3. Wall S. GLOBAL HEALTH ACTION—fuelling a hands-on approach to global health challenges. Global Health Action. 2008; 1. 2008. DOI: 10.3402/gha.v1i0.1822

Books

1. Ludwig JA, Reynolds JF. Statistical ecology. A primer on methods and computing. New York: Wiley; 1988.
2. Brown AM, Stubbs DW, editors. Medical physiology. New York: Wiley; 1983.
3. Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, editors. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press; 1976. p. 165-78.

Website

1. UN Development Programme. Millennium Development Goals, Goal 4: reduce child mortality. http://www.undp.org/mdg/goal4.shtml (cited Oct 20, 2008).

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. I am authorized by all co-authors to submit this paper. The paper has not been submitted, in its current version, to any other journal.
2. The article contains nothing obscene, indecent, objectionable or libelous.

3. I/we have strictly followed the guidelines provided and made sure that:

   - references are in in accordance with journal style
   - URLs to online references are provided and ready to click (e.g. www.microbecolhealthdis.net)
   - all references mentioned in the References list are cited in the text, and vice versa
   - tables and figures are referred to in the text
   - abbreviations in tables and figures are explained in the table notes and figure captions
   - manuscript has been spell-checked and grammar-checked
   - the text has not been justified; a ragged right-hand margin has been used
   - a double hyphen (--) has been used to indicate a dash in text
   - TAB has been used when indenting paragraphs or separating columns in tables
   - 'italics' or single quotes have been used for emphasis (avoid using underlines!)
   - the same elements have been keyed in exactly the same way throughout the manuscript.

4. I/we will not upload any tables, figures and legends separately. To facilitate the review process, I/we will provide a complete manuscript file - thus all tables, figures, legends and supplementary material (if applicable) are placed at the end of the manuscript following the references. Only the cover letter is supplied separately, during step four of the submission process.

Copyright Notice

Authors contributing to Microbial Ecology in Health & Disease agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.

Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to Co-Action Publishing. However, authors are required to transfer copyrights associated with commercial use to the Journal. Revenues from commercial sales are used to keep down the publication fees. Moreover, a portion of the profits generated from commercial sales is placed in a fund to cover publication fees for researchers from developing nations and, in some cases, for young researchers.

Privacy Statement

Co-Action Publishing Privacy Policy

Website Visitors
Like most website operators, Co-Action Publishing collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Co-Action Publishing’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Co-Action Publishing’s visitors use its website. From time to time, Co-Action Publishing may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

Co-Action Publishing also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. However, Co-Action Publishing does not use such information to identify its visitors, and does not disclose such information, other than under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information, as described below.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information
Certain visitors to Co-Action Publishing’s websites interact with Co-Action Publishing in ways that require Co-Action Publishing to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Co-Action Publishing gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask authors who are to pay a publication fee at www.co-action.net to provide certain details. Those who engage in transactions with Co-Action Publishing – by paying publication fees, for example – are asked to provide additional information, including as necessary the personal and financial information required to process those transactions. In each case, Co-Action Publishing collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with Co-Action Publishing. Co-Action Publishing does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics
Co-Action Publishing may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, Co-Action Publishing may monitor the most popular parts of the website. Co-Action Publishing may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, Co-Action Publishing does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information
Co-Action Publishing discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on Co-Action Publishing’s behalf or to provide services available at Co-Action Publishing’s websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using Co-Action Publishing’s websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them.

Co-Action Publishing will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, Co-Action Publishing discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when Co-Action Publishing believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Co-Action Publishing, third parties or the public at large.

If you are a registered user of a Co-Action Publishing website and have supplied your email address, Co-Action Publishing may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with Co-Action Publishing’s products and services.

Cookies
A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Co-Action Publishing uses cookies to help Co-Action Publishing identify and track visitors, their usage of Co-Action Publishing website, and their website access preferences. Co-Action Publishing visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using Co-Action Publishing’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Co-Action Publishing’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, Co-Action Publishing may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in Co-Action Publishing’s sole discretion. Co-Action Publishing encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Thanks to Automattic and OwnTerms.