Submissions

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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.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

The Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science is an international journal covering all aspects of laboratory animal science.

Please review our instructions below before submitting your manuscript. Papers are only accepted through the journal’s online manuscripts submission system.

The scope of the journal

  • topics related to the 3Rs; replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experiments
  • animal models and refinement thereof
  • topics related to the housing, care and use of laboratory animals
  • topics on biology, behaviour, pharmacology, anaesthesia, analgesia, and surgery of laboratory animals
  • manuscripts on reproducibility or non-reproducibility of animal experiments
  • studies with “negative” results that are important for prevention of unnecessary repetition of animal experiments
  • meta-analyses of animal studies
  • review papers

Other topics within the field of laboratory animal science will be considered.

The Journal will publish manuscripts in the following categories

  • Original scientific articles are complete descriptions of current original research findings and may be based on animal experiments, but may also be the results of epidemiological surveys, case studies, description of theories, etc. The results should not have been published elsewhere, and if this should exceptionally be the case (e.g. as an abstract) this information must be given in the enclosed letter.
  • Review articles accumulate the results of many different articles on a topic into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in a field relevant to laboratory animal science. Reviews may be entirely narrative or may provide quantitative summary estimates resulting from the application of meta-analytical methods.
  • Technical reports give details about one or several specific techniques developed by the author(s) without any scientific conclusions.
  • Letters are short descriptions of important current research findings for immediate publication.
  • Video papers are a recent addition to practice of scientific publications. They most often combine an online video demonstration of a new technique or protocol combined with a rigorous textual description.

Ethics policy and review
All procedures involving live animals must have been performed in accordance with national legislation, and the Directive 2010/63/EU or the Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals or the ETS No. 123.
Please indicate by which body the ethics review has been performed and indicate the registration number of any ethics permit.
All concerns regarding cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern are handled on case by cases bases by the Editorial board.

Style and format

  • The papers should be written in concise and clear English with single spacing and font Calibri 12. Please use continuous line numbers throughout the text. Papers should be divided into the following sections: Front page with title, subtitle, names and addresses of authors, and a detailed address for correspondence (including email address). Then a summary (stating what was achieved), introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (ending with any conclusions), acknowledgements (if any), and references.
  • References should be in the Harvard Reference style, for instructions see e.g.
  • Under the materials and methods section detailed information must be given concerning animals (species, stock/strain, source, genetic and microbiological status, age, or weight), their husbandry (microbiological protection, equipment, caging, bedding, temperature, humidity, lighting, ventilation, feeding), products used, and the experimental procedure. Commercial suppliers are given in brackets after the product followed by the city and country.
  • As a reference for the information that must be included when reporting animal experimental studies, see NC3Rs ARRIVE Guidelines (http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines).

Note: Failing to follow the style and format of the journal will delay the processing of your paper.

Submission, proof-correction, and reprints
Please use the journal’s online manuscripts submission system: https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/SJLAS/about/submissions

Manuscripts are submitted as OpenOffice, Microsoft Word (preferred), or RTF document.

Tables should be in the text as Word-tables. Illustrations, graphs and texts for illustrations should be submitted in a ready to print quality in JPG, TIFF, EPS or BMP version, under the ‘Supplementary files’ in the manuscript system. All figure legends should be in the text to show the correct placement for a figure.

Any correspondence, tracking of manuscripts etc. can be performed through the submission and peer review system. Please use the online system when inquiring about your manuscript.

After your manuscript has been reviewed and accepted for publication it will be sent to our linguistic editors. They may contact you directly.

For all papers, the printer proofs must be returned to the Editorial Office, with any comments, within 7 days after receipt. Currently we use Adobe Acrobat in the final review. You will receive an e-mail where you will be asked to review the attachment and make your comments using Comment & Mark-up tools.

Review process
All original scientific articles, reviews, reports, and letters are peer reviewed (single-blinded review) by at least two external referees.  Authors are encouraged to suggest Expert Referees but should not suggest those who are known to have any of the following conflicts of interest with the authors/manuscript:

  • Previous involvement with the manuscript, except as an independent reviewer for another journal
  • Collaboration with the author(s) on research within the past 3 years
  • Based in the same institution as the author(s)
  • In direct competition with the author(s), i.e. currently working on the same mechanism as the one presented in the paper under review
  • Personal conflict or close personal relationship or association with the authors
  • A financial interest in publishing the manuscript

It is not a conflict of interest for referees to have reviewed the manuscript for a different journal, but the Referee should declare this when accepting the invitation to review.
If in any doubt authors should declare any potential or perceived conflicts of interests (Author/Editor or Reviewer) during submission.

Conflict of interest
When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science follows the policies of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, http://www.icmje.org/).

All authors should fill the ICMJE form for Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest when submitting the manuscript for publication.

Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript.

Publication fee
Publication is free for submissions where at least the corresponding author is a Scand-LAS member. The author must have been a Scand-LAS member at least one year before gaining this benefit. 
Fee for non-Scand-LAS members is 250 € for an accepted manuscript. The fee must be paid before publication. There is no handling fee.

Privacy Statement

Any names and e-mails of authors and reviewers entered in the Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science submission and review system will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal, and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Information will only be used for communication necessary for the editorial process.

Data that will assist in developing the submission and publication platform used (the Open Journal System) may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the scientific content reported. Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for data subject rights that include: the right to be informed; the right of access; the right to rectification; the right to erasure; the right to restrict processing; the right to data portability; the right to object to processing; the rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of the public interest in the availability of the data, which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

Users registered in any capacity with the journal can edit their personal data and notification settings by clicking ‘View Profile’ in the upper right corner of the screen. To close an account, please contact info@sjlas.org

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