About the Journal

Aim and Scope

Update Dental College Journal (UpDCJ) is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. It is published biannually in April and October each year by Update Dental College (UpDC). It publishes original articles based on laboratory work, fieldwork, clinical trials, and various other studies by scientific means related to disciplines of health and Biomedical science conducted in any Medical and Dental institutes in Bangladesh and other countries. It also accepts review articles, meta-analyses, case reports, short communications, and letters to the editor.

It maintains the criteria of the Journal Publishing Practices and Standards (JPPS) framework provides detailed assessment criteria for the quality of publishing practices. The journal follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJMJE) guidelines recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals.

Publication Frequency: 

The journal is published biannually in April and October.

Anti-plagiarism Policy:

Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others.  Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

All manuscripts submitted to The Update Dental College Journal will undergo plagiarism check with commercially available software. Based on the extent of plagiarism, authors may be asked to address any minor duplication or similarity with the previously published work. If plagiarism is detected after publication, the Journal will investigate. If plagiarism is established, the journal will notify the authors’ institution and funding bodies and will retract the plagiarised article. 

To report plagiarism, contact the journal office 

Email: updcj@hotmail.com, updcjournal@gmail.com)

Multiple, duplicate, redundant, or concurrent submission/publication

Papers that fundamentally describe the same study should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. As a result, authors should not submit an article that has previously been published in another journal for consideration. Submission of a manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is unethical and unacceptable publishing behavior.

Specific types of papers (such as clinical recommendations or guidelines) may be published in more than one journal if certain requirements are satisfied. The authors and editors of the relevant journals must consent to secondary publishing, which must have the same data and interpretation as the initial paper. In the secondary publication, the primary reference must be cited.

Open Access & Copyright Policy: 

UpDCJ is an Open Access Journal (Libre Open Access): This kind of Open Access has no price barriers and removes at least some of the permission barriers depending on user rights, through following licensing, and copyright ownership.

licensing, and copyright: 

Articles in Update Dental College Journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY-4.0. This license permits 

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the following license terms.

Ownership Rights: Authors retain all copyright.

Originality: The authors assure that this submission is an original work and that neither this work nor one with substantially similar content has been published elsewhere in whole or in part (except in abstract form), that it has only been submitted for this publication, and that it will not be submitted elsewhere pending written notice of acceptance or rejection by this journal (Please express explicitly if you have the plan to publish any more article based on partial data of this work).

Declaration of authorship: The undersigned certifies that all authors have participated sufficiently in the conception and design of this work and the analysis of the data (when applicable), as well as the writing of the manuscript to take public responsibility for it. The undersigned believe the manuscript represents valid work and have reviewed the final version of the manuscript and approved it for publication.

Data availability: The undersigned attests that they shall produce the data upon which the manuscript is based for evaluation by the Editors of their assignees should it be requested.

Disclaimer: The undersigned assures that the manuscript contains no libelous or unlawful statements and does not infringe on the rights of others. If excerpts (text or artwork) from copyrighted works are included, written permission will be secured by the authors and proper credit will be shown in the manuscript.

 

Publication Fee: 

The author will not be charged in the form of submission charges, article processing charges, page charges, or not any color pages publication charges. The publisher (Update Dental College) will cover all expenses. 

 

Peer Review :

Update Dental College Journal (UpDCJ) is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal in Bangladesh.

Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.

We guide our Reviewers therefore should keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential. Reviewers are prohibited from publicly discussing authors’ work and must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy copies of manuscripts after submitting their reviews.

Reviewers are expected to respond promptly to requests to review and to submit reviews within the time agreed. Reviewers’ comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.

Reviewers should declare their conflicts of interest and refuse themselves from the peer-review process if a conflict exists.

Stepwise Peer Review Process of UpDCJ:

1. Submission of Manuscript via  https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/UpDCJ/login as an Author. 
2. Editorial Review if Article is as per UpDCJ Instructions else manuscript is returned to the author for a technical correction.
3. Editorial Review- 5-7 Days (If sent for Revised should be submitted again as the time given as per instructions UpDCJ)
4. External Peer Review- 30 Days (If sent for Revised should be submitted again as the time given as per instructions UpDCJ)

• Publication on acceptance shall depend on the manuscript's date of acceptance and category (original research, review, case reports, etc.)
• The author can track the entire process through their log in the dashboard, and in case of queries, they can email the editor through their login page of the journal software ( editor query)
• Any query to the editor shall be responded to by email in 5 -7 working days

 Selection of the Reviewers

Reviewer selection is a critical and important part of the publication process. The choice of selection is based on several factors, including a) expertise, b) reputation, c) capability of giving recommendations, d) giving enough time to review and e) our own previous experience of a reviewer's characteristics.

General and ethical guidelines to the reviewer for Review manuscript:

1. When you receive an invitation to peer review, you should be sent a copy of the manuscript – this will help you determine whether you wish to do the review. You should try to respond to every peer review invitation you receive.
2. If you feel the paper is outside your area of expertise or you are unable to devote the necessary time, please let the editorial office know as soon as possible so that they can invite an alternative reviewer.
3. If you intend to decline the invitation, you could consider nominating a colleague for the editor to contact directly.
4. The reviewer usually gets 1-2 weeks’ time for the review.
5. We guide our respected reviewers to send the review comments as in track change mood in Microsoft document. So that the review comments become specific and easy to understand. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7tmsWN6uH0)

Usually, as a minimum, UpDCJ asks reviewers to check the following:

1. The article’s premise is well-founded
2. The hypotheses are properly addressed
   The conclusions are supported by the data
3. Subjectively assess whether the article is suitable for publication or not.
4. Detailed edits are always appreciated, it make our job easier.
5. Try to avoid pithy comments like, "This is an inferior manuscript. Reject" or, “Great work. Publish”, with no further explanation.
6. The reviewer should adequately explain or support their judgment. Even a positive one-liner such as, "Nice article, should be published as is…………………………………………….
7. Research can be a small world. This means many reviewers will know the author, either because their name is revealed (through a single-blind or open peer review) or out of familiarity with their work. You can certainly give a fair assessment of an article that is written by a friend or competitor, but:

• If there’s a significant conflict of interest you should reveal this to the editor
• If the conflict of interest causes a large positive or negative bias, then it is better to decline the review request
• Avoid personal judgment and criticism at all times – judge the article. This is more likely to be well received by the author and lead to better work by them.
• Every editor will appreciate honesty about conflicts of interest, even if they then have to look for a replacement reviewer.

As a reviewer, you have a duty of confidentiality to the journal.

Remember that the editor is there to ensure a smooth peer review, so don't be shy about asking the editor to help supply missing information, such as a reference you cannot locate. The editor will normally request the items from the author, who will generally want to respond quickly. The author may also expand their Supporting Information file as a result, which in turn improves the article.

Timing for review:

Update Dental College Journal (UpDCJ) is committed to giving rapid editorial decisions and publications. To achieve the goal, an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. Therefore, we request the reviewers to respond promptly within 3 days to agree to do the review process. If a reviewer does not agree/respond to review a manuscript, then we request another reviewer. Once a reviewer agrees to review, the maximum allocated time period of review is 2 weeks. A soft reminder email is sent to the reviewer when the allocated time is over. This process performs well.

Editorial Decision The Chief editor takes the final decision based on the reviewers' comments. The decision may be any one of the following:

1. a) Accept for Publication, with or without any minor editorial revision
2. b) Inform the corresponding author to revise the Manuscript to address the specific concerns before a final decision is reached. Submission of the revised manuscript does not ensure the acceptance
3. c) Reject, but inform the corresponding author that further write-up might justify a Resubmission
4. d) Decline Submission, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance, or major technical and/or interpretational problems

Confidential

Editor, editorial board members, authors, and reviewers keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Even the identities of the reviewer are not disclosed to the corresponding author. In addition, reviewers maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript.

Article Preservation Policy of BanglaJOL PKP Server & UpDCJ: 

All the articles will remain stored in the BanglaJOL database if the journal is no longer published. UpDC Journal committee working for further digital article preservation via CLOCKSS and PubMed Central. The printed copy will be distributed to each author after publication. All The printed copy has been preserved by the UpDCJ Office. The author could ask for an extra print copy to the journal office. 

Advertising policy: 

Only one advertisement is available in our printed copy according to the BM&DC Journal advertising guideline. We welcome healthcare companies especially products related to dentistry. 

 Publisher

Update Dental College