gms | German Medical Science

GMS Zeitschrift für Audiologie — Audiological Acoustics

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Audiologie (DGA)

ISSN 2628-9083

Information for authors

Authors’ Guidelines

1. General Information

GMS Zeitschrift für Audiologie – Audiological Acoustics is an open access e-journal, which publishes papers on audiology and neurootology as well as from specialist fields related to audiology. Such fields include phoniatry and pedaudiology, anatomy and physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology, molecular biology and genetics, occupational health and epidemiology as well as biology, psychology, education theory, phonetics, speech therapy and communication studies, signal recognition theory, psychophysiology, physics, acoustics (especially psychoacoustics and electroacoustics), electrical engineering and hearing-aid acoustics.

We publish research and review articles as well as technical notes, case reports, and short reports that goes through a peer review procedure before publication. After open access publication, the manuscripts are printed in the Zeitschrift für Audiologie (Median Verlag, Heidelberg) with reference to the first publication. The authors’ guidelines principally follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

GMS Zeitschrift für Audiologie – Audiological Acoustics does not charge any article processing fee (APCs) nor submission charges to its authors if they are registered members of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Audiologie (DGA). The processing fee for non-members at the time of article publication is 300 EUR. All authors may upload their submission into the Manuscript Operating System (MOPS) of German Medical Science (GMS). This option is available via “Login & Submit” on the GMS website (https://www.egms.de).

No liability shall be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts. Recourse to legal action is excluded for all procedures concerning the submission and publication of manuscripts.

2. Publication Requirements

The submitted manuscripts or substantial parts of them should not have been previously published or submitted for publication somewhere else. The abbreviated version of the contents for presentation at a meeting is not regarded as a publication.

2.1 Authorship and Copyright

All authors insure that they have furnished a substantial contribution to the article and that they are in agreement with form and contents of the manuscript. The author conducting the negotiations confirms in the Author’s Contract that he or she holds the copyrights on the works as well as on the text and illustrations attached therein. If material (e.g. illustrations or tables) is used from other sources, the author must submit a written statement from the holder of the copyrights indicating agreement with publication in GMS Zeitschrift für Audiologie – Audiological Acoustics. The exact source is to be cited in the text or in the corresponding legend or caption.

In cases of publication, the author grants GMS Zeitschrift für Audiologie – Audiological Acoustics the right to store the work in databases for an unlimited period of time, to distribute and to reproduce the article in electronic form. All remaining usage rights of the author are not restricted. However, all further publications must include a reference to the original publication (originally published in: GMS Z Audiol 2005;3:Doc...). In addition, the author grants Median Verlag (Heidelberg) the right to publish the article in Zeitschrift für Audiologie including a reference to the original publication.

2.2 Conflict of Interests, Funding

Financial or other support of institutes or companies, as well as promotion funds, is to be stated in the acknowledgments or conflict of interests section. All financial or other connections, which the author has to a company, whose products or competition products play an important role in represented facts of the matter, should be described and enclosed in the cover letter. This notification is handled confidentially and only when the manuscript is accepted for publication it will be published together with the manuscript after due consultation with the author.

An important aspect of scientific publication is the indication of funding support. You must ensure that the full, correct details of your funder(s) and any relevant grant numbers are included. A funding statement may be worded as follows: 'This work was supported by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]'.

2.3 Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy

When using records of patients it must be guaranteed that the person is not identifiable on the basis of the portrayal. Otherwise, the author must seek explicit consent from the person concerned (or their representative) that he or she agrees with the publication in the present form. The existence of such a consent is to be confirmed by the author in writing.

2.4 Informed Consent

Studies on persons must comply with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki. All manuscripts on clinical research performed in humans or with materials obtained from humans must include a section declaring that the research project has been approved by an institutional review board or ethics committee and that patients or probands have granted informed consent prior to inclusion. The responsible ethics committee and the file number is to be stated.

2.5 Ethical Treatment of Animals

All manuscripts on animal research must report procedures by which ethical treatment of animals has been guaranteed.

3 Manuscript Preparation
3.1 In General

The manuscripts can be submitted in German and/or English. English language is strongly recommended. For German language, a justification is necessary. The manuscripts include an additional abstract and a title in the other language. A bilingual publication (English/German) of the full text is also possible. The manuscripts may include tables, diagrams and pictures, as well as sound or video sequences. The proposed maximum size of the manuscripts should not exceed 30.000 characters including spaces. In addition, a total number of five tables, figures or formulas is proposed. Extensions of these limits should be discussed with the editor in chief prior submission.

3.1.1 Title Page

On the first page of the manuscript the English and German title of the article is stated, followed by the surnames and first names of all authors, and the facilities where they are active. Then give separately the name, mail and email address of the author conducting the correspondence.

3.1.2 Abstract and Key Words

All contributions are to be preceded by an English and a German abstract. The summary is to be drawn up in such a way that it represents a condensed extract of the work. The abstract should not exceed 6.300 characters including spaces. The author should indicate adequate keywords which, as far as possible, are taken from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). With original papers and case descriptions you should also indicate the trade names and names of the producer of the drugs applied and medical devices, as well as the chemical substances and their CAS number in order to make this information indexable in appropriate databases. Further structural recommendations are given with the individual article types.

3.1.3 Information on the structure of the manuscript

The main sections of the submission should be clearly separated by short subheadings. The following structure is recommended: Introduction; materials and method or case histories, if applicable; results; discussion; conclusions (optional); bibliography; tables with titles; graphics with captions; appendices if applicable.

3.1.4 Orthography and grammar

The spelling, grammar, and medical terminology used for work submitted in German should be based on the following works of reference: “Der Große Duden” (all volumes), “Der Medizin-Duden” and “Das Klinische Wörterbuch” (Pschyrembel). The relevant works of reference for basic English usage are “Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary” or “The Oxford English Dictionary”. English medical terminology should be taken from “Stedman’s Medical Dictionary” or “Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary”. Authors submitting texts or parts of texts not written in their mother tongue are urged to have these pre-edited by a linguistically competent native speaker of the language in question. Manuscripts are subject to editing and the publisher reserves the right to change and shorten texts after consultation with the author(s).

3.1.5 Literature References

The literature cited in the text must be listed at the end of the article according to the Vancouver Style of References also used in Medline (see detailed examples in the sample references of National Library of Medicine). References should be numbered in the order in which they are listed in the reference list. The reference list may be sorted in the order in which references are first mentioned in the text or, alternatively, in alphabetical order by first authors’ names. In both cases, references in the reference list should be preceded by consecutive numbers. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in square brackets. Please do not use footnotes!

Some Examples:

Standard journal article (DOI is omitted if not available):
[1] Seeber B, Baumann U, Fastl H. Localization ability with bimodal hearing aids and bilateral cochlear implants. J Acoust Soc Am. 2004;116:1698–1709. DOI: 10.1121/1.1776192

Listing of the first 6 authors. Further authors are abbreviated by et al. Example:
[1] Helms J, Müller J, Schön F, Arnold W, Janssen T, Ramsden R, et al. Evaluation of Performance with the COMBI 40 Cochlear Implant in Adults: A Multicentric Clinical Study. ORL J Otorhinolaryngol Relat Spec. 1997 Jan-Feb;59(1):23-35. DOI: 10.1159/000276901

Monograph:
[2] Kießling J, Kollmeier B, Baumann U. Versorgung mit Hörgeräten und Hörimplantaten. 3. Aufl. Stuttgart: Thieme; 2017.

Chapter/Contribution in a monograph:
[3] Döring W, Hamacher V. Neue Sprachverständlichkeitsmessungen in der Klinik: Aachener Logatomtest und Dreinsilber im Störschall. In: Kollmeier B, Hg. Moderne Verfahren der Sprachaudiometrie, Heidelberg: Median-Verlag; 1992. p. 137-168.

Conference contribution with abstract/proceeding on the Internet:
[4] Kroth M, Gabrielpillai J, Leinung M, Syed A, Baumann U, Stöver T, Diensthuber M. Methoden zur kontinuierlichen Verbesserung der Lehre für Medizinstudenten im Fach Hals-Nasen-Ohrenheilkunde. In: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie, ed. Abstracts der 88sten Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie; 2017. DOI: 10.3205/17hno076.

[4] Wagner L, Hönig E, Fröhlich L, Rahne T. Objektive Evaluierung der optimalen Anziehungskraft von Implantatmagneten im Labor und am Patienten. In: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Audiologie, ed. Abstracts der 21sten Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Audiologie; 2018. Available from: https://www.dga-ev.com/fileadmin/dga2018/site/data/final/0035.pdf

CD-ROM:
[5] Anderson SC, Poulsen KB. Anderson's electronic atlas of hematology [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2002.

Journal article on the Internet:
[6] Eysenbach G. SARS and population health technology. J Med Internet Res. 2003;5(2):e14. Available from: http://www.jmir.org/2003/2/e14/

Homepage/Website:
[7] Cancer-Pain.org [homepage on the Internet]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 2002 May 16; cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.cancer-pain.org/

Dissertation:
[8] Müller C. Perzeptive Analyse und Weiterentwicklung eines Reimtestverfahrens für die Sprachaudiometrie [Dissertation]. Göttingen: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; 1992.

Standards:
[9] DIN EN 60645-2 Audiometer Teil 2: Geräte für die Sprachaudiometrie. Beuth Verlag, Berlin; 1997.

Further detailed sample references under http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html.

3.1.6 Authors’ Biography

Please include a short and up-to-date biography (career and field of work) and a portrait-style photograph of yourself (300 dpi, 12 x 15 cm) when you submit your paper. The biography of the authors is published only in the printed version.

3.2 Article Types

Research articles
deal with current problems, with adequate empirical or experimental methodology. It should be evident from the papers that they make a substantial contribution in clarifying the formulated problem. They are to be subdivided into: Abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

Review articles
are to show the state of research in detail, summarize and clarify open research questions. Review articles should include abstract and introduction, furthermore, they may be subdivided section wise according to the requirements of the topic. Meta-analyses or structured overviews are welcome.

Technical notes
describe an application or the solution of a technical problem from an audiologist’s workaday life.

Case reports
A Case Report is a retrospective account of an unusual and instructive course of illness or treatment and/or an innovative solution of an individual problem.

Rapid publications/short reports/letters to the editor
contain comments or announcements and communications with news character and are principally welcome as a central element in the discussion of research results. They go through a peer review like the other articles.

3.3 Technical Requirements
3.3.1 Typography and Technical Terms
  • Do not use block style or hyphenation when drawing up your manuscripts. Line breaks are only to be inserted in paragraphs.
  • To intend a paragraph, use a tab stop or the indent function instead of spaces
  • Literature references are to be numbered in the text as described in 3.1.5 and and listed at the end of the document as text, under no circumstances by means of the automatic footnote function.
  • The GMS publication system does not allow for comments in the form of footnotes and endnotes. Textual explanations have to be integrated into the continuous text (in brackets, in italics, etc.).
  • All illustrations and tables are to be provided with legends and numbered consecutively. They are to be placed on an extra paper. Please indicate clearly in the manuscript where figures and/or tables are to be inserted.
  • The basic units of the International System for Measures and Weights (SI) and the units derived from them are to be used for all units of measurement. For the indication of blood pressure values the unit “mmHg” is permissible, for the indication of temperatures the unit °C. When using other units in illustrations and tables the conversion factors are to be indicated in the legend.
  • The nomenclature of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) resp. the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) is to be used for the designation of chemical substances. The additional indication of the register number of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) is recommended.
  • Generally, the generic name is to be used when mentioning drugs.
  • If certain commercial products were used in the research, then these trade names and the names of the producer should be quoted in the method part. In addition, this data will be indexable via the recording in special data fields (s. 3.1.2). The spelling in the “Red List” applies.
  • Abbreviations without solutions should be only used, if they are generally common (DNA, WHO). All remaining abbreviations are to be identified when first used. If necessary, an abbreviation list should be added.
3.3.2 Text Formats

Acceptable text formats are MS-Word (*.doc, *.docx) and Rich Text Format (*.rtf). Each author has the possibility to submit new papers into the Manuscript Operating System (MOPS) of GMS.

3.3.3 Graphic Formats

The following graphic formats may be used: the formats TIFF and BMP (loss-free bitmap-formats); GIF and PNG (bitmap-formats compressed) for charts, JPG (compressable bitmap-format) for photos. The graphics should be integrated in the text, if possible, and additionally be provided as separate files with clear file names. The upload of your files takes place in the Manuscript Operating System (MOPS).

3.3.4 Research Data/Primary Data (Supplementary Material)

We expect our authors to submit relevant underlying data in addition to the manuscripts for peer review and publication. This complies with demands of funding organizations like Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and European Research Council in terms of “Good scientific practice”. By co-operation with the Dryad repository, German Medical Science offers an easy way to achieve that. Dryad is both an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed scientific and medical literature, and a membership organization, governed by journals, publishers, scientific societies, and other stakeholders. Benefits of publishing research data/primary data include:

For authors:

  • Citeability: via persistent identifiers (DOI)
  • Long-term archiving
  • Independent quality assurance through peer review
  • Legal security: Like the article, data are published under a Creative Commons licence. Dryad is using the Creative Commons Zero.
  • Special advantage: The German National Library of Medicine currently takes over the costs for a data upload related to GMS manuscripts.

For the scientific community:

  • Subsequent use: enables further interpretation of data, utilization for follow-up research projects, creation of interconnections between data sets, data/text mining
  • Transparency: through traceability and reproducibility (if applicable) of research results
  • Efficiency: through limitation of work and financial expenses

Please submit a descriptive caption together with your data. Use of platform-independent file formats is required, such as:

  • For additional documentation (e.g. detailed case reports): PDF
  • For image data: GIF, TIFF, PNG, JPG
  • For audio-visual material: MPG
  • For text or tabular data: TXT, CSV

If you have further questions about the data submission, please send an e-mail to help@datadryad.org.

Contact

For general questions concerning the manuscript submission, please address the GMS Editorial Office.