Welcome to the authors' pages on Biometric Technology Today Journal

In these pages you'll find some useful information to help you get started:

  • Submission requirements
  • Open access
  • Copyright and licensing
  • Sharing and promoting your articles
  • Peer review
  • Contact information

Browse the information here, and don't hesitate to contact journal editors if you need further assistance.

Guidance for authors

Whether you're doing it for yourself, or have been asked to write by someone else, setting out can be a challenge. Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

Think about the reader – write clearly and concisely, make sure your references are accurate, and use figures/tables/diagrams to illustrate your main points.

  • Refer to the journal’s format and guidelines before starting to write
  • Use accessible language
  • Do give an opinion of the work you are discussing, but do not state opinions as facts. Make sure you substantiate your arguments
  • Do not cover too many points as this will confuse the reader
  • Proof read your article before submitting or ask someone else to do this for you
  • Check accuracy of references
  • Make your article attractive, e.g tables, figures, photographs
  • Persist —do not be put off if your article is rejected
  • Accept criticism constructively
  • Think of your reader and your editor

Submission requirements

In order to ensure the best possible outcome for your manuscript, please read your target journal's guidelines for authors before submission. This will ensure that:

  • Your article fits within the scope of the target journal
  • You have formatted your manuscript correctly
  • You know the submission process for the journal

Click the journal title below for information on the journal scope.

  • The 'Author guidelines' links provide detailed requirements for submission.
  • The 'Author Guidelines' links enable you to easily verify that your manuscript meets submission criteria before you submit.
  • The Submit here links take you to the journals' online submission portals.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact the relevant journal editor.

What is the article processing charge (APC) for Open Access in Biometric Technology Today?

The APC for Biometric Technology Today is €1500, and there is no charge for Non Open access. This covers publication under a CC BY licence. 

Please note: If you change your mind about publishing OA, an APC can only be refunded if the article has not yet been published. Once the article is published, no refund is possible.

Discounts and exemptions

Lead authors who are permanently resident in low Income country https://data.worldbank.org/income-level/low-income. qualify for significant discounts on APCs. These discounts are applied during payment processing.

Copyright and licensing

Copyright licenses specify who has what rights for publication, distribution and use of article content. MA Healthcare is legally required to receive a licence agreement before publication. Once your submission is complete, and before an article can be published in an MA Healthcare journal, you must sign a license agreement. You will receive by email details of the licenses and instructions for returning the signed licence to the journal office once your submission is complete.

For subscription articles

For subscription articles, please email editor@biometrictechnologytoday.com for more details.

For open access articles

For open access articles, you will sign an Open Access License to Publish Agreement (LTP). This includes a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC) that allows you to keep the copyright, and grants Biometric Technology Today  licence to publish the article. For LTP sample, please email editor@biometrictechnologytoday.com to get the documents.

Sharing your articles

So you've submitted your manuscript, it's been reviewed and edited, you've answered questions, checked proofs and finally, it's been published.

Now what?

As soon as the article is published, information about it is shared with all the major discovery services and search engines. If it's a particularly important article, the journal may send out a press release about it. It will start to appear in searches, and will eventually be read by hundreds or thousands of people.

This process can take time, but as the author you are well-placed to speed it up and promote your article to the people you want to read it, using social media.

Kudos

We have partnered with Kudos to provide authors with tools to enhance and share their work. Kudos is a powerful platform that allows researchers like you to showcase your ideas and discoveries to a diverse audience. On publication, you'll receive an email from Kudos inviting to register and claim your article. Once registered, you'll then be taken through a simple process to do two things: provide a simple (lay) summary of your article, and to share it using your existing social networks - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Here's how you can benefit from Kudos:

  • Claim your articles: Claim your articles on Kudos to take ownership of your research and connect it with a wider audience.
  • Create a plain language summary: Make your research accessible to a broader readership by creating a plain language summary. This helps break down complex findings and make them easily understandable to a non-specialist audience.
  • Share and amplify: Use Kudos’ tools to effortlessly share your articles on social media, websites, and more. By doing so, you'll significantly expand the reach of your research.
  • Boost visibility with Biometric Technology TodayShowcases: Your Kudos stories will be prominently featured on the newly developed Biometric Technology Today Showcases, providing additional exposure for your work.

Articles shared via Kudos can see up to a 30% increase in views, so it's worth taking a little time to do it.

Scholarly collaboration networks

Scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs), such as ResearchGate, can be a useful way to highlight your work to peer groups. Please bear in mind that unless your article is open access, it's not permitted to upload the final published article to SCNs. However, you're welcome to share the final accepted manuscript along with a link to the published article.

Green open access, institutional repositories and REF

Biometric Technology Today's policy on institutional repositories is as follows:

Biometric Technology Today welcome authors sharing, or depositing in an institutional repository, the final accepted manuscript of their paper, following a 6-month embargo from the date of publication. This is so-called 'green' open access. In such a case, the document should be accompanied by the following text, with the correct details of the published version of the article added:

“This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in [JournalTitle], copyright © Biometric Technology Today, after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see [journal link]."

Please note: Embargoed papers can still be included in REF (the UK's higher education research evaluation system). A paper can be added to an institutional repository as a 'closed deposit' within the mandated timeframe, and made publicly accessible at the end of the embargo.

Peer review

All research and clinical articles are double-blind peer reviewed; editorials, comment pieces, and other non-clinical or non-research-based articles are not peer reviewed. Any supplementary material submitted with the manuscripts are included in the peer review. Two reviewers are usually assigned to each manuscript, although this can vary. Peer reviewers can be located in the same country as the author or can be from anywhere in the world. Peer reviewers are selected based on their expertise rather than geographical location.

Editorial board members are asked to peer review manuscripts or external experts are found online or by searching the Editorial Manager database. The reviewers send their comments through the Editorial Manager system and the editor will collate them and send them to the author. Reviewers do not see comments from other reviewers unless they have specifically asked to see them.

After comments from the reviewer/s have been received, the editors will decide to accept, accept with minor revision, revise and resubmit or reject based on the reviewers’ recommendations. If there are conflicting reviews, editors will either invite a third reviewer or seek advice from their editor-in-chief.

If the manuscript has an accept with minor revision or revise and resubmit decision, the authors are then given up to 4 weeks to resubmit their manuscript. They must include responses to the comments made by the reviewers. When the manuscript is resubmitted, the editors will send it back out to the reviewers if there are lots of change. If there are not many changes, the editor can make a decision to accept it or send it back to the author for further clarification.

When a peer-reviewed article is published, the dates of submission and acceptance are included. Peer reviews or the details of who reviewed the manuscript are not included in the published article.

Articles written by members of the editorial board or consultant editor will be handled by another senior editor or member of the editorial board to maintain the integrity of the peer review process.

If manuscripts are rejected after peer review, peer review comments are shared with the authors.

Biometric Technology Today works with Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service to provide reviewers with an authenticated record of their reviews for use in professional and career development. 

Editorial and publishing policies

Biometric Technology Today is committed to ensuring that our editorial processes are of a high standard, from peer review, to in-house editing, production and publication. These editorial policies will be reviewed regularly and updated when necessary.

Overview of publication process

Manuscripts are submitted to our Editorial Manager system either by the authors or on behalf of the authors, proxied by the editors.

The manuscript is assigned to the journal’s editor after it has been submitted. iThenticate, a plagiarism checker, is used to make sure that the manuscript is not similar to any other submission. If the manuscript is suitable, the editor will then start the peer review process.

If the decision is to accept the manuscript, the authors will receive an acceptance email and the manuscript will be assigned to an issue.

As part of our commitment to the integrity of the scientific record, and as a continuation of the peer review process, Biometric Technology Today applies a final layer of scrutiny before the manuscript is published through in-house editing. The editorial team checks for inconsistencies, inaccuracies and ambiguities. Any final questions are then discussed with the author. This process helps to reduce errors that might require correction after publication and ensures that the manuscript can be fully understood by a wide international readership. The author receives pdfs to check throughout this process and approves the final version. The article is then sent for proofreading by another member of the editorial team. The author is sent a pdf of the final article for their own records.

Publications ethics statement

This section details what we expect from authors, and what authors can expect from our editors.

Responsibilities of authors, editors and peer reviewers

Authors

Authors must be aware of the existence of predatory journals and avoid submitting research to them for publication. Authors have a responsibility to evaluate the integrity, history, practices, and reputation of the journals to which they submit manuscripts. Guidance from various organizations is available to help identify the characteristics of reputable peer-review journals (http://www.wame.org/identifying-predatory-or-pseudo-journals and http://wame.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing). Seeking the assistance of scientific mentors, senior colleagues, and others with many years of scholarly publishing experience may also be helpful. Authors should avoid citing articles that have been published in predatory or pseudo-journals.

Editors

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

Editors therefore must not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Editors are not allowed to use AI when processing manuscripts; more information can be found in our AI Policy. Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings should be politely refused, and editors should do their best not to provide such confidential material should it be subpoenaed.

Editors must also make clear that reviewers should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidential. Reviewers are not allowed to use AI. Reviewers and editorial staff members must not publicly discuss the authors’ work, and reviewers must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should delete electronic copies after submitting their reviews.

When a manuscript is rejected, it is marked as so on our peer review system and archived.

When a manuscript is published, the word document and subsequent files are saved and archived on a secure server.

Editors should publish manuscripts in a timely manner and any delays should be communicated with the authors. If a journal has no intention of proceeding with a manuscript, editors should reject the manuscript as soon as possible to allow authors to submit to a different journal. If editors cannot find peer reviewers in a timely manner, authors are asked if they wish to withdraw their manuscript so they can submit elsewhere, or if they would prefer the editors to keep searching for reviewers.

Peer reviewers

Peer reviewers’ comments are provided to the authors only. When a peer reviewer requests to see comments on the same manuscript by another reviewer, it is up to the individual editor whether to provide the comments or not.

Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged, but editors should notify authors or reviewers if they intend to do so and confidentiality must otherwise be honoured.

Definitions of authors and contributors

Biometric Technology Today require authors to adhere to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors definitions of authors and contributors, which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed

  • Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  • Provide approval for publication of the content
  • Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors who do not meet these criteria, but nonetheless provided important contributions to the final manuscript, should be included in the acknowledgement section. It is the author's responsibility to get written approval by persons named in the acknowledgment section.

Author contribution statement

As of May 2024, author contribution statements are required on research articles and are published at the end of the article. An author name can appear multiple times, and each author name must appear at least once. For single authors, use the following wording: All elements of the study and subsequent write-up were carried out by the author [add in author initials in brackets].

Corresponding and first authors

On request, more than one corresponding author can be included on a paper, although there must only ever be one first author. Corresponding authors are responsible for submitting the manuscript, responding to queries from the editorial team and providing final approval of the manuscript before it is published.

Multiple submissions

Multiple submissions of different manuscripts to the same Biometric Technology Today are allowed; however, if they are accepted, efforts will be made not to include these papers in the same issue where feasible.

Plagiarism and duplication

All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism and duplication before they are sent for peer review, and only original content is published. Manuscripts where plagiarism or duplication is shown to have occurred will not be considered for publication. In accordance with COPE guidelines, it is expected that ‘original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations’. This condition also applies to an author’s own work.

Publishers and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no case shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations. If the article has been found to contain plagiarised work, the article will be retracted and labelled as such on the website.

Authors are asked on submission if they have submitted their work elsewhere. If it is found that an author has already had their work accepted elsewhere before it has been peer reviewed at Biometric Technology Today, their paper will be withdrawn immediately.

Allegations of research, publication and review misconduct

All editors are expected to take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, image or citation manipulation and data falsification or fabrication, among others. Any concerns by peer reviewers will be investigated by the editors. Any concerns by the editors will be investigated by their manager.

Post publication discussion and concerns will be published through letters to the editor. In the event that a journal’s editor is made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations. Editors can be contacted using the details shown on each journal’s contact page.

Institutions will be informed if misconduct by their researchers is suspected, with the relevant evidence sent to them, and editors will respond to institutions’ questions about misconduct allegations.

If reviewers have been found to have manipulated their review, their comments will not be passed on to the author and a note made on the Editorial Manager system. Reviewers should always be independent of the authors, and not know them in any personal or professional capacity. Reviewers who are suspected to be known to the author will not be contacted or the request will be terminated if they have already been invited to review.

Corrections and retractions

Authors are provided several opportunities to check their article before publishing, so significant changes to published articles are not permitted; however, minor grammatical issues, spelling mistakes and changes to author names can be changed post publication in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations for Corrections, Retractions, Republications and Version Control.

Retractions will be considered by journal editors in cases of evidence of unreliable data or findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication and unethical research. All retraction notices explain why the article was retracted.

Complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher

Complaints against the journal

Any complaint made against the journal should be directed to the editor. If the editor is unable to resolve the complaint, it will be escalated to their manager. If the complainant remains dissatisfied, the complaint will be escalated to the editorial director.

Complaints against editorial board members

Any complaint made against an editorial board should be directed to the editor. If the editor is unable to resolve the complaint, it will be discussed with the editor-in-chief and the editorial director.

Complaints against the publisher

Any complaint made against the publisher should be directed to the editor, who will raise it with the editorial director and the publishing director.

Conflicts of interest

The corresponding author is required to declare upon submission whether they or their co-authors have any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, that might compromise the perception of the authors as impartial, or would embarrass the journal if they were to come to light after publication and had not been declared. Such financial interests might include commercial or other sources of funding for the author(s) or associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition.

A declaration of conflict of interest should be included with the manuscript on submission. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, this should be stated. If your manuscript is published, this information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.

Referees are similarly requested to decline to review a manuscript if they have a potential or declared conflict. If an editor has a conflict of interest, the manuscript will be processed by their manager. If the journal or publisher has a conflict of interest, this will be clearly stated at the end of the article.

Ethical considerations in research

Informed consent

Informed consent is required for relevant articles (including, but not exclusive to, research, case reports, images in medicine, analysis of secondary data). Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions or photographs unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication - a consent-to-publication form is available for get, please email editor@biometrictechnologytoday.com to get the form . Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should identify Individuals who provide writing assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance.

Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

Ethical approval

On submission, authors will be asked to confirm that their research procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as amended in 2013.

All research articles must have ethical approval, and must include the name of the approving committee and the reference number within the manuscript. Where exemption from ethics approval has been granted by an appropriate body, this should be specified and the reason for exemption should be provided.

When reporting experiments on animals, authors must indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Compliance with these policies will be monitored through regular audits and reviews of research publications, with appropriate actions taken in cases of non-compliance.

These policies will be reviewed periodically to ensure its effectiveness and relevance, with revisions made as necessary to address emerging issues or concerns.

Funding acknowledgement

All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement statement included in the manuscript in the form of a sentence under a separate heading entitled ‘Funding’ directly after the Acknowledgements (if applicable) and Conflicts of interest headings, and before any Notes and your References. The funding agency should be written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets, see following example (the text in bold is mandatory, unless specified otherwise by the journal):

This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxx].

Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Thus:

This work was supported by the Trust [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number zzzz]; and the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number aaaa].

In some cases, research is not funded by a specific project grant, but rather from the block grant and other resources available to a university, college or other research institution. Where no specific funding has been provided for the research we ask that corresponding authors use the following sentence:

No funding has been received for this work.

Important note: If you have any concerns that the provision of this information may compromise your anonymity dependent on the peer review policy of this journal outlined above, you can withhold this information until you submit your final accepted manuscript.

AI policy

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools use machine learning, deep learning, logical reasoning, knowledge representation, planning or navigation, natural-language processing, perception and emergent intelligence to produce content.

Transparency regarding the use of AI in manuscripts

The Biometric Technology Today follow the relevant COPE guidelines and require authors to be transparent regarding the use of AI in their manuscript.

Authors must include the details of AI use in the Methods section if they are submitting research, or in a separate section at the end of the manuscript if it is any other content type. Authors must disclose:

  • The name of the AI tool that was used
  • The reason why this AI tool was used
  • What the AI tool was used for.

Author responsibility

AI tools should not be used to replace researcher tasks, such as producing scientific insights, analysing and interpreting data, or drawing scientific conclusions. Authors should carefully review any AI output to avoid any incorrect, incomplete or biased content. Authors are responsible for any content produced by AI in their work, ensuring that it is accurate, there is suitable source attribution and it has not been plagiarised.

Authorship

Authors must not include AI tools as an author or co-author. An AI tool will not be recognised as an author as it cannot be accountable for the content produced.

Peer review

Peer reviewers must declare if they have used AI tools to improve the language of their report. However, they must not upload the manuscript into an AI tool.

Editorial responsibilities

To maintain author confidentiality, data privacy and proprietary rights, editors will not upload a submitted manuscript, or any related communications, into an AI tool.

This policy will be reviewed and updated as necessary.

Preprints policy

Articles that have been published on preprint servers will not be considered for publication.

Policy on abuse and bullying in relation to the editorial process

We are committed to supporting all individuals’ right to dignity and safety in their work, and we do not tolerate abusive treatment or bullying of our staff, or any other parties involved in any aspect of the editorial process, including editors, editorial board members, authors, journal editorial staff, or others. Additionally, we may choose not to engage in a publishing transaction or relationship where we determine that doing so would compromise these values.

Biometric Technology Today will not tolerate conduct, speech, or behaviour that is offensive, intimidating, malicious, or insulting or makes someone feel distressed, demeaned, humiliated, vulnerable, or threatened. We recognise this can take place in any setting and be conducted through any form, including electronic communication, and may be based on a single incident.

We expect all parties involved in the authorship, review, editorial, and publishing processes – including, but not limited to all activities related to researching, writing, and submitting a paper through publication – will uphold and act consistently with these principles in their interactions with others. We reserve the right to refrain from engaging with, or discontinue any engagement with, any party whom we determine has been abusive or bullying of others in this context. We may additionally take further action as we deem appropriate under the circumstances.