Parts of a Submission

Title

State a full title and an abridged title for the manuscript.

Titles must be formatted in sentence case, meaning only the first word, proper nouns, and genus names should be capitalized. Please refrain from using specialized abbreviations when possible. For submissions related to clinical trials, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses, the subtitle must specify the study design.

Author List

Authorship Requirements

All authors must satisfy the authorship criteria outlined in the authorship policy. Contributors who do not meet these criteria may be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section. For further information, refer to the Acknowledgments guidelines.

The corresponding author must provide their ORCID iD during submission by entering it in their user profile within the submission system. Additional details regarding ORCID can be found in the relevant section.

Author Names and Affiliations

Author names should be entered on the title page of the manuscript and within the online submission system in the following order:

First name (or initials, if preferred)
Middle name (or initials, if applicable)
Last name (surname or family name)

Each author must be affiliated with an institution, which should include the department, university or organization, and its location (city, state/province, and country). Authors may also include a current address in the byline, clearly labeled as “current address.” At minimum, this should provide the current institution, city, and country.

If an author has multiple affiliations, all should be listed on the title page only. In the submission system, only the primary or preferred affiliation should be entered. Author affiliations will be displayed in the final article in the same order as they are listed in the submission.

Names will be published exactly as they appear in the manuscript; please verify all details to ensure accuracy.

Corresponding Author

The submitting author will be automatically assigned as the corresponding author in the submission system. This author serves as the primary contact for the journal and is the only one able to view or modify the manuscript while it is under editorial review.

The role of corresponding author can be transferred to another coauthor. However, this transfer will also grant the new corresponding author access to the manuscript. To assign a new corresponding author during the editorial consideration, please refer to the tutorial provided.

Only one corresponding author can be designated in the submission system; however, multiple corresponding authors can be acknowledged in the published article. The corresponding author noted on the title page will be listed as such in the published work. Each corresponding author must have their email address included on the title page.

Consortia and Group Authorship

If a manuscript is submitted on behalf of a consortium or group, its name should be included in the manuscript's byline, but not in the author list in the submission system. The full list of group members can be provided in the Acknowledgments or as a supporting information file.

PubMed will index only individual consortium or group authors whose names are included in the article byline, and those individuals must meet the authorship criteria.

Refer to the group authorship policy for more details.

Author Contributions

At minimum, please provide one contribution for each author in the submission system, utilizing the CRediT taxonomy to describe each contribution.

The contributions will be published alongside the final article and should accurately represent the authors' roles in the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this section, and all authors are expected to review, discuss, and agree upon their respective contributions beforehand.

UKWURU SCIENCE will notify all authors by email upon submission to ensure their awareness of the manuscript submission.

Cover Letter

A cover letter must be uploaded as a separate file in the online submission system, with a length limit of one page.

The cover letter should include:

A summary of the study's contribution to the scientific literature
Contextualization of the study in relation to previously published work
Specification of the article type (e.g., research article, systematic review, meta-analysis, clinical trial)
Description of any prior communications with Ukwuru Science regarding the submitted manuscript
Suggestions for appropriate Academic Editors to handle your manuscript (see the full list of Academic Editors)
Identification of any opposing reviewers

IMPORTANT: Requests to reduce or waive publication fees should not be included in the cover letter. This information must be submitted separately in the online system.

For information regarding publication fee assistance, refer to the relevant section.

Title Page

The title, authors, and affiliations should be compiled on a title page as the first page of the manuscript file.

Abstract

The Abstract follows the title page in the manuscript file and should also be entered in a separate field in the submission system.

The Abstract must:

Describe the main objectives of the study
Summarize how the study was conducted, including any model organisms, without delving into methodological details
Highlight the most significant results and their implications
Not exceed 300 words

The Abstract should not include:

Citations
Abbreviations, where possible

Introduction

The introduction should:

Provide background information that contextualizes the manuscript, allowing readers outside the field to comprehend its purpose and significance
Clearly define the problem addressed and its importance
Include a brief review of key literature
Mention any relevant controversies or disagreements within the field
Conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and whether that aim was achieved

Materials and Methods or Methodology

This section should contain enough detail for qualified investigators to replicate the study. Detailed information and protocols for new methods must be included. If established protocols are used, authors may cite the relevant articles but should provide sufficient detail to make the study understandable independently of these references.

Supporting Reproducibility with Protocols

To support the reproducibility of your results, we encourage authors to make their protocols public. Various options are available:

Protocols Associated with Research Articles: Protocol documents may be uploaded as Supporting Information or linked from the Methods section. For laboratory protocols, we recommend using protocols.io. Include the DOI link in the Methods section in this format: http://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.[PROTOCOL DOI]. Protocols can remain private on the protocols.io platform until the article is published, at which point they will be published automatically.
Protocols Published Independently: UKWURU SCIENCE provides two avenues for publishing standalone protocol articles: Lab Protocols that describe reusable methodologies and Study Protocols that detail plans and proposals for research projects. Specific guidelines are in place for submitting Lab Protocols and Study Protocol manuscripts.

Results Discussion, Conclusions

These sections may be separate or combined (commonly titled “Results and Discussion” or “Discussion”). They may further be divided into subsections with concise subheadings as needed. There is no word limit for these sections, but clarity and conciseness in language are essential.

These sections should articulate the results of the experiments, their interpretation, and the conclusions drawn.

Authors should connect the results back to the initial hypothesis and provide a succinct explanation of the findings' implications, particularly regarding previous related studies and potential future research directions.

UKWURU SCIENCE editorial decisions are not based on perceived significance or impact; thus, authors should refrain from overstating their conclusions. For more information, refer to the UKWURU SCIENCE Criteria for Publication.

Acknowledgements

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be recognized in the Acknowledgments section, with a description of their contributions.

It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that anyone named in the Acknowledgments consents to their inclusion.

UKWURU SCIENCE journals publicly acknowledge the invaluable contributions of editors and reviewers each year. To ensure equitable recognition and avoid any appearance of bias, do not include editors or peer reviewers—named or unnamed—in the Acknowledgments.

Funding sources should not be mentioned in the Acknowledgments or elsewhere in the manuscript file; such information should only be provided in the financial disclosure section of the submission system.

References

You may cite any and all accessible works in the reference list. Acceptable sources include:

Published or accepted manuscripts
Manuscripts on preprint servers, provided they have a citable DOI or arXiv URL.

However, do not include the following sources in the reference list:

Unavailable and unpublished work, including manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted (e.g., “unpublished work,” “data not shown”). Instead, these data should be provided as supplementary material or deposited in a publicly accessible database.
Personal communications, which should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors but not included in the reference list.
Submitted research should not cite retracted research. Avoid referencing retracted articles unless discussing them is necessary for providing historical context for your submitted research. If it is essential to discuss retracted work, clearly state the article’s retracted status in both the article text and the reference list.

Ensure that your reference list contains full and current bibliographic details for every cited work at the time of your article’s submission (and publication, if accepted). If any cited work is corrected, retracted, or marked with an expression of concern before your article is published, and you believe it remains appropriate to cite it, include citations and full references for both the affected article and the post-publication notice. If you have any questions, please contact the journal office.

References should be listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order they appear in the text. In-text citations should be indicated by reference numbers in square brackets (e.g., “We utilized the techniques developed by our colleagues [19] to analyze the data”). UKWURU SCIENCE employs the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method, citing the first six authors followed by "et al."

Please refrain from including citations in the abstract.

Ensure that all sections of the manuscript are correctly ordered before finalizing the citations.

Formatting References

Due to the electronic linking of references to the papers they cite, proper formatting is essential. UKWURU SCIENCE follows the reference style outlined by American Psychological Association, also known as the “APA” style.

A reference management tool like EndNote offers a current style file to help with reference formatting. If you encounter difficulties with any reference management software, please reach out to the respective company’s technical support.

Journal name abbreviations should conform to those found in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases.

Supplementary Information

Authors are encouraged to submit essential supporting files and multimedia along with their manuscripts, with all files subject to peer review. The following guidelines should be adhered to for supporting information:

File Types and Size: Any file type can be submitted, but files must be smaller than 20 MB.
Naming Convention: Use item names that include an "SI" followed by a number, such as “SI1 Appendix,” “SI2 Table,” etc.
Publication: Supporting information files are published as submitted and are not copyedited.

Supporting Information Captions
At the end of the manuscript file, list captions for supporting information. Each caption should include:

The file number and name (e.g., S1 Text)
A one-line title (recommended)
An optional legend

Example Caption:
S1 Text. Title is strongly recommended. Legend is optional.

In-text Citations
While it's recommended to cite supporting information in the manuscript text, it's not mandatory. If citations are made, they need not follow a numerical order.

Figure and Tables

Figures

Figures must be included immediately after the paragraph of first mention.
Cite figures in ascending numeric order when they first appear in the text.

Figure Captions

Insert figure captions immediately following the paragraph where the figure is first cited.
Captions must include:
- A figure label (e.g., "Fig 1")
- A concise descriptive title
- An optional legend

Tables

Cite tables in ascending numeric order at first appearance.
Place tables directly after the paragraph in which they are first cited.
Tables require:
- A label (e.g., “Table 1”)
- A brief descriptive title above the table
- Legends, footnotes, and additional text below the table.

Reporting

Statistical Reporting

Manuscripts must report statistical methods in sufficient detail to allow replication of the analysis. Include a section on statistical analysis in the methods section that covers:

Software package name and version
Technical details for reproducing the analysis
Repository identifier for any code used
Reporting guidelines for statistical results, including details on data treatment and statistical tests employed

Data Reporting

All data underlying the findings should be deposited in a suitable public repository unless included as supporting information. Accession numbers and identifiers should be provided in the Data Availability Statement.

Repositories may be either subject-specific (where these exist) and accept specific types of structured data, or generalist repositories that accept multiple data types. We recommend that authors select repositories appropriate to their field. Repositories may be subject-specific (e.g., GenBank for sequences and PDB for structures), general, or institutional, as long as DOIs or accession numbers are provided and the data are at least as open as CC BY. Authors are encouraged to select repositories that meet accepted criteria as trustworthy digital repositories, such as criteria of the Centre for Research Libraries or Data Seal of Approval. Large, international databases are more likely to persist than small, local ones.

See our list of recommended repositories.

To support data sharing and author compliance of the UKWURU SCIENCE data policy, we have integrated our submission process with a select set of data repositories. The list is neither representative nor exhaustive of the suitable repositories available to authors. Current repository integration partners include Dryad and FlowRepository. Please contact info@ukwuruscience.com to make recommendations for further partnerships.

Instructions for UKWURU SCIENCE submissions with data deposited in an integration partner repository:

Deposit data in the integrated repository of choice.
Once deposition is final and complete, the repository will provide you with a dataset DOI (provisional) and private URL for reviewers to gain access to the data.
Enter the given data DOI into the full Data Availability Statement, which is requested in the Additional Information section of the Ukwuru Science submission form. Then provide the URL passcode in the Attach Files section.

If you have any questions, please email us.

Accession Numbers

All appropriate data sets, images, and information should be deposited in an appropriate public repository. See our list of recommended repositories.

Accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate) should be provided in the Data Availability Statement. Accession numbers or a citation to the DOI should also be provided when the data set is mentioned within the manuscript.

In some cases authors may not be able to obtain accession numbers of DOIs until the manuscript is accepted; in these cases, the authors must provide these numbers at acceptance. In all other cases, these numbers must be provided at full submission.

Identifiers

As much as possible, please provide accession numbers or identifiers for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database, for example:

Identifiers should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use.

Striking Image

You may upload a "Striking Image" derived from a figure or supporting information file. It should be high-resolution and eye-catching, ideally avoiding added details like text or scale bars.

The striking image must be derived from a figure or supporting information file from the submission, i.e., a cropped portion of an image or the entire image. Striking images should ideally be high resolution, eye-catching, single panel images, and should ideally avoid containing added details such as text, scale bars, and arrows.

If no striking image is uploaded, we will designate a figure from the submission as the striking image.

Striking images should not contain potentially identifying images of people.

Additional Information Requested at Submission

Financial Disclosure Statement

This information should describe sources of funding that have supported the work. It is important to gather these details prior to submission because your financial disclosure statement cannot be changed after initial submission without journal approval. If your manuscript is published, your statement will appear in the Funding section of the article.

Enter this statement in the Financial Disclosure section of the submission form. Do not include it in your manuscript file.

The statement should include:

Specific grant numbers
Initials of authors who received each award
Full names of commercial companies that funded the study or authors
Initials of authors who received salary or other funding from commercial companies
URLs to sponsors’ websites

Also state whether any sponsors or funders (other than the named authors) played any role in:

Study design
Data collection and analysis
Decision to publish
Preparation of the manuscript

If they had no role in the research, include this sentence: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

If the study was unfunded, include this sentence as the Financial Disclosure statement: “The author(s) received no specific funding for this work."

Policy on Disclosure of Funding Sources

Competing Interests

This information should not be in your manuscript file; you will provide it via our submission system.

All potential competing interests must be declared in full. If the submission is related to any patents, patent applications, or products in development or for market, these details, including patent numbers and titles, must be disclosed in full.

Read competing Interests Policy for Ukwuru Science

Manuscripts Disputing Published Work

For manuscripts that dispute previously published work, it is Ukwuru Science's policy to invite a signed review from the disputed author during the peer review process. This procedure aims to ensure a thorough, transparent, and productive review.

If the disputed author decides to submit a review, it must be returned promptly and include a full declaration of all competing interests. The Academic Editor will consider such reviews in light of the disclosed competing interests.

Authors submitting manuscripts that dispute previous work should explain the relationship between the manuscripts in their cover letter and confirm their acceptance of the conditions of this review policy before the manuscript can be considered further.

Related Manuscripts

Upon submission, authors must confirm that the manuscript or any related manuscript is not currently under consideration or accepted elsewhere. If related work has been submitted to Ukwuru Science or any other publication, authors must include a copy with the submitted article. Reviewers will be asked to comment on any overlap between related submissions.

We strongly discourage the unnecessary division of related work into separate manuscripts, and we will not consider manuscripts that are divided into "parts." Each submission to Ukwuru Science must be written as an independent unit and should not rely on any work that has not already been accepted for publication. If related manuscripts are submitted to Ukwuru Science, authors may be advised to combine them into a single manuscript at the discretion of the editor.

Policy on Ethical Publishing Practice

Preprint

Ukwuru Science encourages authors to post preprints to accelerate the dissemination of research. Posting a manuscript on a preprint server does not impact the consideration of the manuscript at any Ukwuru Science journal.

Authors posting preprints on bioRxiv or medRxiv can choose to concurrently submit their manuscripts to relevant Ukwuru Science journals through the direct transfer service.

Authors submitting manuscripts in the life and health sciences to Ukwuru Science may choose to have us forward their submission to bioRxiv or medRxiv, depending on the scope of the paper, for consideration for posting as a preprint.

Read our Preprint policy

Guidelines for Specific Study Types

The design, reporting, and analyses of studies are evaluated based on the applicable research and methodological standards recognized by the community. Below are the guidelines for specific study types.

Registered Reports

The submission and formatting requirements for Registered Report Protocols and Registered Reports are similar to those for standard submissions and may vary according to your study type. For example, if your Registered Report Protocol pertains to a Clinical Trial or a Systematic Review, please adhere to the relevant guidelines.

For Registered Report Protocols:

Methodological Detail: Provide sufficient methodological detail to ensure the study can be reproduced and replicated.
Data Availability: Confirm that data will be made available upon completion of the study in accordance with the Ukwuru Science Data Policy.
Ethical Considerations: Include details about ethical approval or waivers, if applicable.
Preliminary Data: Preliminary or pilot data may be included only if necessary to support the feasibility of the study or as proof of principle.
Protocol-Specific Guidelines: For meta-analyses or Clinical Trials, adhere to the reporting guidelines specific to the protocol, such as PRISMA-P or SPIRIT, respectively.
Formatting Guidance: For further assistance on the format and presentation of a protocol, refer to the sample template available on the Open Science Framework. Templates specific to disciplines and study types are also accessible.

Data collection, modification, or processing specifically for your study, as well as participant recruitment, should only commence after your Registered Report Protocol has been accepted for publication.

For Registered Report Research Articles:

Reporting Results: Report the results of all planned analyses, and if applicable, detail and justify any deviations from the protocol.
Exploratory Analyses: The manuscript may also include exploratory, unplanned analyses.

Human subjects research

All research involving human participants must have been approved by the authors’ Institutional Review Board (IRB) or by equivalent ethics committee(s), and must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors should be able to submit, upon request, a statement from the IRB or ethics committee indicating approval of the research. We reserve the right to reject work that we believe has not been conducted to a high ethical standard, even when formal approval has been obtained.

Subjects must have been properly instructed and have indicated that they consent to participate by signing the appropriate informed consent paperwork. Authors may be asked to submit a blank, sample copy of a subject consent form. If consent was verbal instead of written, or if consent could not be obtained, the authors must explain the reason in the manuscript, and the use of verbal consent or the lack of consent must have been approved by the IRB or ethics committee.

All efforts should be made to protect patient privacy and anonymity. Identifying information, including photos, should not be included in the manuscript unless the information is crucial and the individual has provided written consent by completing the Consent Form for Publication in a UKWURU SCIENCE Journal (PDF). Download additional translations of the form here. More information about patient privacy, anonymity, and informed consent can be found in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Privacy and Confidentiality guidelines.

Manuscripts should conform to the following reporting guidelines:

Studies of diagnostic accuracy: STARD
Observational studies: STROBE
Microarray experiments: MIAME
Other types of health-related research: Consult the EQUATOR web site for appropriate reporting guidelines

Methods sections of papers on research using human subjects or samples must include ethics statements that specify:

The name of the approving institutional review board or equivalent committee(s). If approval was not obtained, the authors must provide a detailed statement explaining why it was not needed
Whether informed consent was written or oral. If informed consent was oral, it must be stated in the manuscript:
- Why written consent could not be obtained
- That the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved use of oral consent
- How oral consent was documented

For studies involving humans categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, authors should:

Explicitly describe their methods of categorizing human populations
Define categories in as much detail as the study protocol allows
Justify their choices of definitions and categories, including for example whether any rules of human categorization were required by their funding agency
Explain whether (and if so, how) they controlled for confounding variables such as socioeconomic status, nutrition, environmental exposures, or similar factors in their analysis

In addition, outmoded terms and potentially stigmatizing labels should be changed to more current, acceptable terminology. Examples: “Caucasian” should be changed to “white” or “of [Western] European descent” (as appropriate); “cancer victims” should be changed to “patients with cancer.”

For papers that include identifying, or potentially identifying, information, authors must download the Consent Form for Publication in a UKWURU SCIENCE Journal, which the individual, parent, or guardian must sign once they have read the paper and been informed about the terms of UKWURU SCIENCE open-access license. The signed consent form should not be submitted with the manuscript, but authors should securely file it in the individual's case notes and the methods section of the manuscript should explicitly state that consent authorization for publication is on file, using wording like:

The individual in this manuscript has given written informed consent (as outlined in UKWURU SCIENCE consent form) to publish these case details.

For more information about UKWURU SCIENCE policies regarding human subjects research, see the Publication Criteria and Editorial Policies.

Manuscripts describing observational clinical studies are subject to all policies regarding human research and community standards for reporting observational research as outlined by the STROBE statement. Furthermore, authors submitting work of this nature should pay special attention to the following requirements:

If the submitted manuscript is very similar to previous work, authors must provide a sound scientific rationale for the submitted work and clearly reference and discuss the existing literature.
The sampling strategy and eligibility criteria of enrolled subjects should be described in sufficient detail.
Sample size calculations should be justified with relevant inputs defined.
Independent and dependent variables considered for statistical analysis should be clearly defined and justified.
The validity and reliability testing of self-developed data collection tools should be reported.
Conclusions should be appropriate for the study design, with indications on how the study results will contribute to the base of academic knowledge.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials are subject to all policies regarding human research. UKWURU SCIENCE follows the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition of a clinical trial:

A clinical trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes [...] Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc.

All clinical trials must be registered in one of the publicly-accessible registries approved by the WHO or ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). Authors must provide the trial registration number. Prior disclosure of results on a clinical trial registry site will not affect consideration for publication. We reserve the right to inform authors' institutions or ethics committees, and to reject the manuscript, if we become aware of unregistered trials.

UKWURU SCIENCE supports prospective trial registration (i.e. before participant recruitment has begun) as recommended by the ICMJE's clinical trial registration policy. Where trials were not publicly registered before participant recruitment began, authors must:

Register all related clinical trials and confirm they have done so in the Methods section
Explain in the Methods the reason for failing to register before participant recruitment

Clinical trials must be reported according to the relevant reporting guidelines, i.e. CONSORT for randomized controlled trials, TREND for non-randomized trials, and other specialized guidelines as appropriate. The intervention should be described according to the requirements of the TIDieR checklist and guide. Submissions must also include the study protocol as supporting information, which will be published with the manuscript if accepted.

Authors of manuscripts describing the results of clinical trials must adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines appropriate to their trial design, available on the CONSORT Statement web site. Before the paper can enter peer review, authors must:

The name of the registry and the registration number must be included in the Abstract.
Provide a copy of the trial protocol as approved by the ethics committee and a completed CONSORT checklist as supporting information (which will be published alongside the paper, if accepted). This should be named S1 CONSORT Checklist.
Include the CONSORT flow diagram as the manuscript's “Fig 1”

Any deviation from the trial protocol must be explained in the paper. Authors must explicitly discuss informed consent in their paper, and we reserve the right to ask for a copy of the patient consent form.

The name of the registry and the registry number must be provided in the Abstract. If the trial is registered in more than one location, please provide all relevant registry names and numbers.

Lab Protocols

Lab Protocols consist of two interlinked components: a step-by-step protocol hosted on protocols.io, and a peer-reviewed article in UKWURU SCIENCE that contextualises the protocol.

protocols.io is a secure platform for developing and sharing reproducible methods. It enables scientists to make, exchange, improve, and discuss protocols for specific experimental procedures. The platform provides specialized tools for communicating technical details, including reagents, measurements, and formulae.

The UKWURU SCIENCE article component must comply with the general UKWURU SCIENCE submission guidelines (detailed above) and criteria for publication. In addition, the UKWURU SCIENCE article component should:

Describe the value that the protocol adds to the published literature. Lab Protocols describing routine methods or extensions and modifications of routine methods that add little value to the published literature will not be considered for publication.
Provide evidence that the protocol works, by either:
- Linking, in the Introduction section, to at least one supporting peer-reviewed publication in which the protocol was applied to generate data.
  or
- Providing validation or benchmarking data, which demonstrates that the underlying method achieves its intended purpose.
Provide the step-by-step protocol as a supporting information (S1) file.

Download a Lab Protocol article template

We encourage you to post your protocol to the protocols.io platform before submitting your manuscript to UKWURU SCIENCE. Posting your protocol prior to submission is not considered prior publication by UKWURU SCIENCE and will not affect your eligibility to publish a Lab Protocol.

Authors submitting a Lab Protocol can also use protocols.io’s protocol entry service at no cost: the team at protocols.io will enter your protocol for you and format it in a way that takes advantage of the platform’s features. You will have an opportunity to review and make further changes before your protocol is shared with anyone else.

If you would like to use protocols.io's protocol entry service in connection with a Lab Protocol submission, please contact Ukwuru Scienceone@Ukwuru Science.org to request the customer code.

If you prefer to submit your manuscript to UKWURU SCIENCE before posting your protocol to protocols.io, then you must still provide your step-by-step protocol as a supporting information (S1) file in a format of your choosing. You will be expected to replace this file with a protocols.io PDF later in the editorial process.

Study Protocols

Study Protocols describe plans for conducting research projects and consist of a single article on UKWURU SCIENCE.

Study Protocols must comply with the UKWURU SCIENCE general submission guidelines (detailed above in this article) and any guidelines specific to the related research study type. In addition, the protocol must:

Relate to a research study that has not yet generated results.
Be submitted before recruitment of participants or collection of data for the study is complete.
Meet the same standards for ethics of experimentation and research integrity as the research study. If it involves human or animal subjects, cell lines or field sampling, or has potential biosafety implications, prior approval from the relevant ethics body must be obtained prior to submission. Please contact us if you have a valid reason for not obtaining approval.

Additional prerequisites apply for these study types:

Clinical trials:
- The trial must be registered prior to submission of your protocol in one of the publicly accessible registries approved by the WHO or ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors).
- The name of the registry and the trial or study registration number must be included in the Abstract.
- A copy of the protocol that was approved by the ethics committee must be submitted as a supplementary information file. Please provide an additional English translation if the original document is not in English. Please note that the protocol will be published with the manuscript if accepted.
- A SPIRIT schedule of enrollment, interventions, and assessments must be included as the manuscript’s Figure 1, and a completed SPIRIT checklist must be uploaded as Supporting Information file S1.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses:
- A completed PRISMA-P checklist must be provided as a supporting information (SI) file. See PRISMA-P Explanation and Elaboration for more information on completing your checklist.

Study Protocols must also comply with general UKWURU SCIENCE criteria for publication and in addition you should:

include the word “Protocol” in your Title.
include a detailed description of the planned study in the Materials and Methods section.This should provide sufficient methodological detail for the protocol to be reproducible and replicable. Your description should cover all relevant and applicable facts and hypothesis, including:
- the aim, design, and settling
- the sample size calculation
- how data saturation will be determined (for qualitative studies)
- the characteristics of participants e.g., inclusion and exclusion criteria, sample selection criteria, variables to be measured, randomization and blinding criteria (where applicable), and how informed consent will be obtained
- how materials will be selected and used e.g., where and how they will be sourced, the processes, interventions, or comparisons to be used, the outcomes to be measured, and when and how they will be measured
- the data management plan
- safety considerations
- the type of data and statistical analyses to be used
- the status and timeline of the study, including whether participant recruitment or data collection has begun
- where and when the data will be made available. See our Data Availability policy for more.
include an analysis of preliminary or pilot data, only if it is necessary to support the feasibility of the study or as a proof of principle. This is optional.
we encourage authors you to register with OSF and provide the your registration number in the Materials and Methods section. This is optional.
optionally add any other SI files, figures or tables that elaborate or authenticate the protocol: e.g., any reporting checklists applicable to your study type.

Read the supporting information guidelines for more details about adding SI files.

Study Protocols are subject to the same editorial and peer review process as all other articles, and are eligible for both signed and published peer review.

You can expedite the review process by providing:

proof of external funding. This is typically your funding approval letter and a list of the names and credentials of the funders who conducted the external peer review of the protocol. Include an English translation if needed.
proof of ethics approval (if required). This is typically the approval or waiver letter from the relevant ethics body and a copy of the protocol approved by this body.

The proof of external funding and approval or waiver letter are used for internal purposes and do not form part of the published Study Protocol.
Expedited review is conducted by an internal Staff Editor only and bypasses the external review process.

If the Study Protocol describes a replication study or involves re-analysis of published work, we will invite the author of the initial or replicated study to provide a signed review.

We encourage you to share your Study Protocol with other researchers, either before or after submission. You can publish it on your website or protocols.io, or submit it for posting on medRxiv or another preprint server.

Animal Research

Animal research

All research involving vertebrates or cephalopods must have approval from the authors' Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent ethics committee(s), and must have been conducted according to applicable national and international guidelines. Approval must be received prior to beginning research.

Manuscripts reporting animal research must state in the Methods section:

The full name of the relevant ethics committee that approved the work, and the associated permit number(s).
Where ethical approval is not required, the manuscript should include a clear statement of this and the reason why. Provide any relevant regulations under which the study is exempt from the requirement for approval.
Relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate animal suffering.

Example ethics statement

This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the University of Minnesota (Protocol Number: 27-2956). All surgery was performed under sodium pentobarbital anesthesia, and all efforts were made to minimize suffering.

Authors should always state the organism(s) studied in the Abstract. Where the study may be confused as pertaining to clinical research, authors should also state the animal model in the title.

To maximize reproducibility and potential for re-use of data, we encourage authors to follow the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines for all submissions describing laboratory-based animal research and to upload a completed ARRIVE Guidelines Checklist to be published as supporting information.

Non-human primates

Manuscripts describing research involving non-human primates must report details of husbandry and animal welfare in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall report, The use of non-human primates in research, including:

Information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment.
Steps taken to minimize suffering, including use of anesthesia and method of sacrifice, if appropriate.

Random source animals

Manuscripts describing studies that use random source (e.g. Class B dealer-sourced in the USA), shelter, or stray animals will be subject to additional scrutiny and may be rejected if sufficient ethical and scientific justification for the study design is lacking.

Unacceptable euthanasia methods and anesthetic agents

Manuscripts reporting use of a euthanasia method(s) classified as unacceptable by the American Veterinary Medical Association or use of an anesthesia method(s) that is widely prohibited (e.g., chloral hydrate, ether, chloroform) must include at the time of initial submission, scientific justification for use in the specific study design, as well as confirmation of approval for specific use from their animal research ethics committee. These manuscripts may be subject to additional ethics considerations prior to publication.

Humane endpoints

Manuscripts reporting studies in which death of a regulated animal (vertebrate, cephalopod) is a likely outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, must comprehensively report details of study design, rationale for the approach, and methodology, including consideration of humane endpoints. This applies to research that involves, for instance, assessment of survival, toxicity, longevity, terminal disease, or high rates of incidental mortality.

Definition of a humane endpoint

A humane endpoint is a predefined experimental endpoint at which animals are euthanized when they display early markers associated with death or poor prognosis of quality of life, or specific signs of severe suffering or distress. Humane endpoints are used as an alternative to allowing such conditions to continue or progress to death following the experimental intervention (“death as an endpoint”), or only euthanizing animals at the end of an experiment. Before a study begins, researchers define the practical observations or measurements that will be used during the study to recognize a humane endpoint, based on anticipated clinical, physiological, and behavioral signs. Please see the NC3Rs guidelines for more information. Additional discussion of humane endpoints can be found in this article: Nuno H. Franco, Margarida Correia-Neves, I. Anna S. Olsson (2012) How “Humane” Is Your Endpoint? — Refining the Science-Driven Approach for Termination of Animal Studies of Chronic Infection. Ukwuru Science Pathog 8(1): e1002399 doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1002399.

Full details of humane endpoints use must be reported for a study to be reproducible and for the results to be accurately interpreted.

For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript:

The specific criteria (i.e. humane endpoints) used to determine when animals should be euthanized.
The duration of the experiment.
The numbers of animals used, euthanized, and found dead (if any); the cause of death for all animals.
How frequently animal health and behavior were monitored.
All animal welfare considerations taken, including efforts to minimize suffering and distress, use of analgesics or anaesthetics, or special housing conditions.

If humane endpoints were not used, the manuscript should report:

A scientific justification for the study design, including the reasons why humane endpoints could not be used, and discussion of alternatives that were considered.
Whether the institutional animal ethics committee specifically reviewed and approved the anticipated mortality in the study design.

Observational and field studies

Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify:

Permits and approvals obtained for the work, including the full name of the authority that approved the study; if none were required, authors should explain why
Whether the land accessed is privately owned or protected
Whether any protected species were sampled
Full details of animal husbandry, experimentation, and care/welfare, where relevant

Paleontology and archaeology research

Manuscripts reporting paleontology and archaeology research must include descriptions of methods and specimens in sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Data sets supporting statistical and phylogenetic analyses should be provided, preferably in a format that allows easy re-use. Read the policy.

Specimen numbers and complete repository information, including museum name and geographic location, are required for publication. Locality information should be provided in the manuscript as legally allowable, or a statement should be included giving details of the availability of such information to qualified researchers.

If permits were required for any aspect of the work, details should be given of all permits that were obtained, including the full name of the issuing authority. This should be accompanied by the following statement:

All necessary permits were obtained for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.

If no permits were required, please include the following statement:

No permits were required for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.

Manuscripts describing paleontology and archaeology research are subject to the following policies:

Sharing of data and materials. Any specimen that is erected as a new species, described, or figured must be deposited in an accessible, permanent repository (i.e., public museum or similar institution). If study conclusions depend on specimens that do not fit these criteria, the article will be rejected under UKWURU SCIENCE's data availability criterion.
Ethics. UKWURU SCIENCE will not publish research on specimens that were obtained without necessary permission or were illegally exported.

Systematic Reviews

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses

A systematic review paper, as defined by The Cochrane Collaboration, is a review of a clearly formulated question that uses explicit, systematic methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. These reviews differ substantially from narrative-based reviews or synthesis articles. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies.

Reports of systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include a completed PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) checklist and flow diagram to accompany the main text. Blank templates are available here:

Checklist: PDF or Word document
Flow diagram: PDF or Word document

Authors must also state in their “Methods” section whether a protocol exists for their systematic review, and if so, provide a copy of the protocol as supporting information and provide the registry number in the abstract.

If your article is a systematic review or a meta-analysis you should:

State this in your cover letter
Select “Research Article” as your article type when submitting
Include the PRISMA flow diagram as Fig 1 (required where applicable)
Include the PRISMA checklist as supporting information

Meta-analysis of genetic association studies

Manuscripts reporting a meta-analysis of genetic association studies must report results of value to the field and should be reported according to the guidelines presented in Systematic Reviews of Genetic Association Studies by Sagoo et al.

On submission, authors will be asked to justify the rationale for the meta-analysis and how it contributes to the base of scientific knowledge in the light of previously published results. Authors will also be asked to complete a checklist (DOCX) outlining information about the justification for the study and the methodology employed. Meta-analyses that replicate published studies will be rejected if the authors do not provide adequate justification.

Personal data from third-party sources

For all studies using personal data from internet-based and other third-party sources (e.g., social media, blogs, other internet sources, mobile phone companies), data must be collected and used according to company/website Terms and Conditions, with appropriate permissions. All data sources must be acknowledged clearly in the Materials and Methods section.

Read our policy on data availability.

In the Ethics Statement, authors should declare any potential risks to individuals or individual privacy, or affirm that in their assessment, the study posed no such risks. In addition, the following Ethics and Data Protection requirements must be met.

For interventional studies, which impact participants’ experiences or data, the study design must have been prospectively approved by an Ethics Committee, and informed consent is required. The Ethics Committee may waive the requirement for approval and/or consent.

For observational studies in which personal experiences and accounts are not manipulated, consultation with an Ethics or Data Protection Committee is recommended. Additional requirements apply in the following circumstances:

If information used could threaten personal privacy or damage the reputation of individuals whose data are used, an Ethics Committee should be consulted and informed consent obtained or specifically addressed.
If authors accessed any personal identifying information, an Ethics or Data Protection Committee should oversee data anonymization. If data were anonymized and/or aggregated before access and analysis, informed consent is generally not required.

Note that Terms of Use contracts do not qualify as informed consent, even if they address the use of personal data for research.

See our reporting guidelines for human subjects research .

Cell lines

Authors reporting research using cell lines should state when and where they obtained the cells, giving the date and the name of the researcher, cell line repository, or commercial source (company) who provided the cells, as appropriate.

Authors must also include the following information for each cell line:

For de novo (new) cell lines, including those given to the researchers as a gift, authors must follow our policies for human subjects research or animal research, as appropriate. The ethics statement must include:

Details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval; AND
For human cells, confirmation of written informed consent from the donor, guardian, or next of kin

For established cell lines, the Methods section should include:

A reference to the published article that first described the cell line; AND/OR
The cell line repository or company the cell line was obtained from, the catalogue number, and whether the cell line was obtained directly from the repository/company or from another laboratory

Authors should check established cell lines using the ICLAC Database of Cross-contaminated or Misidentified Cell Lines to confirm they are not misidentified or contaminated. Cell line authentication is recommended – e.g., by karyotyping, isozyme analysis, or short tandem repeats (STR) analysis – and may be required during peer review or after publication.

Blots and gels

Please review UKWURU SCIENCE’s requirements for reporting blot and gel results and providing the underlying raw images.

Antibodies

Manuscripts reporting experiments using antibodies should include the following information:

The name of each antibody, a description of whether it is monoclonal or polyclonal, and the host species.
The commercial supplier or source laboratory.
The catalogue or clone number and, if known, the batch number.
The antigen(s) used to raise the antibody.
For established antibodies, a stable public identifier from the Antibody Registry.

The manuscript should also report the following experimental details:

The final antibody concentration or dilution.
A reference to the validation study if the antibody was previously validated. If not, provide details of how the authors validated the antibody for the applications and species used.

We encourage authors to consider adding information on new validations to a publicly available database such as Antibodypedia or CiteAb.

Small and macromolecule crystal data

Manuscripts reporting new and unpublished three-dimensional structures must include sufficient supporting data and detailed descriptions of the methodologies used to allow the reproduction and validation of the structures. All novel structures must have been deposited in a community endorsed database prior to submission (please see our list of recommended repositories).

Small molecule single crystal data

Authors reporting X-Ray crystallographic structures of small organic, metal-organic, and inorganic molecules must deposit their data with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD), or similar community databases providing a recognized validation functionality. Authors are also required to include the relevant structure reference numbers within the main text (e.g. the CCDC ID number), as well as the crystallographic information files (.cif format) as Supplementary Information, along with the checkCIF validation reports that can be obtained via the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr).

Macromolecular structures

Authors reporting novel macromolecular structures must have deposited their data prior to initial submission with the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB), the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB), the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB), or other community databases providing a recognized validation functionality. Authors must include the structure reference numbers within the main text and submit as Supplementary Information the official validation reports from these databases.

Methods, software, databases, and tools

UKWURU SCIENCE will consider submissions that present new methods, software, databases, or tools as the primary focus of the manuscript if they meet the following criteria:

Utility
The tool must be of use to the community and must present a proven advantage over existing alternatives, where applicable. Recapitulation of existing methods, software, or databases is not useful and will not be considered for publication. Combining data and/or functionalities from other sources may be acceptable, but simpler instances (i.e. presenting a subset of an already existing database) may not be considered. For software, databases, and online tools, the long-term utility should also be discussed, as relevant. This discussion may include maintenance, the potential for future growth, and the stability of the hosting, as applicable.

Validation
Submissions presenting methods, software, databases, or tools must demonstrate that the new tool achieves its intended purpose. If similar options already exist, the submitted manuscript must demonstrate that the new tool is an improvement over existing options in some way. This requirement may be met by including a proof-of-principle experiment or analysis; if this is not possible, a discussion of the possible applications and some preliminary analysis may be sufficient.

Availability
If the manuscript’s primary purpose is the description of new software or a new software package, this software must be open source, deposited in an appropriate archive, and conform to the Open Source Definition. If the manuscript mainly describes a database, this database must be open-access and hosted somewhere publicly accessible, and any software used to generate a database should also be open source. If relevant, databases should be open for appropriate deposition of additional data. Dependency on commercial software such as Mathematica and MATLAB does not preclude a paper from consideration, although complete open source solutions are preferred. In these cases, authors should provide a direct link to the deposited software or the database hosting site from within the paper. If the primary focus of a manuscript is the presentation of a new tool, such as a newly developed or modified questionnaire or scale, it should be openly available under a license no more restrictive than CC BY.

Software submissions

Manuscripts whose primary purpose is the description of new software must provide full details of the algorithms designed. Describe any dependencies on commercial products or operating system. Include details of the supplied test data and explain how to install and run the software. A brief description of enhancements made in the major releases of the software may also be given. Authors should provide a direct link to the deposited software from within the paper.

Database submissions

For descriptions of databases, provide details about how the data were curated, as well as plans for long-term database maintenance, growth, and stability. Authors should provide a direct link to the database hosting site from within the paper.

Read the UKWURU SCIENCE policy on sharing materials, software and code.

New taxon names

Zoological names

When publishing papers that describe a new zoological taxon name, UKWURU SCIENCE aims to comply with the requirements of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). Effective 1 January 2012, the ICZN considers an online-only publication to be legitimate if it meets the criteria of archiving and is registered in ZooBank, the ICZN's official registry.

For proper registration of a new zoological taxon, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Anochetus boltoni Fisher sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:B6C072CF-1CA6-40C7-8396-534E91EF7FBB

You will need to contact Zoobank to obtain a GUID (LSID). Please do this as early as possible to avoid delay of publication upon acceptance of your manuscript. It is your responsibility to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final published paper.

Please also insert the following text into the Methods section, in a sub-section to be called “Nomenclatural Acts”:

The electronic edition of this article conforms to the requirements of the amended International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and hence the new names contained herein are available under that Code from the electronic edition of this article. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN. The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix “http://zoobank.org/”. The LSID for this publication is: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: XXXXXXX. The electronic edition of this work was published in a journal with an ISSN, and has been archived and is available from the following digital repositories: LOCKSS [author to insert any additional repositories].

All UKWURU SCIENCE articles are deposited in LOCKSS. If your institute, or those of your co-authors, has its own repository, we recommend that you also deposit the published online article there and include the name in your article.

Botanical names

When publishing papers that describe a new botanical taxon, UKWURU SCIENCE aims to comply with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). The following guidelines for publication in an online-only journal have been agreed such that any scientific botanical name published by us is considered effectively published under the rules of the Code. Please note that these guidelines differ from those for zoological nomenclature, and apply only to seed plants, ferns, and lycophytes.

Effective January 2012, the description or diagnosis of a new taxon can be in either Latin or English. This does not affect the requirements for scientific names, which are still to be Latin.

Also effective January 2012, the electronic PDF represents a published work according to the ICN for algae, fungi, and plants. Therefore the new names contained in the electronic publication of UKWURU SCIENCE article are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone, so there is no longer any need to provide printed copies.

Additional information describing recent changes to the Code can be found here.

For proper registration of the new taxon, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Solanum aspersum S.Knapp, sp. nov. [urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77103633-1] Type: Colombia. Putumayo: vertiente oriental de la Cordillera, entre Sachamates y San Francisco de Sibundoy, 1600-1750 m, 30 Dec 1940, J. Cuatrecasas 11471 (holotype, COL; isotypes, F [F-1335119], US [US-1799731]).

Journal staff will contact IPNI to obtain the GUID (LSID) after your manuscript is accepted for publication, and this information will then be added to the manuscript during the production phase

In the Methods section, include a sub-section called “Nomenclature” using the following wording:

The electronic version of this article in Portable Document Format (PDF) in a work with an ISSN or ISBN will represent a published work according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and hence the new names contained in the electronic publication of a UKWURU SCIENCE article are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone, so there is no longer any need to provide printed copies.

In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to IPNI, from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The IPNI LSIDs can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID contained in this publication to the prefix http://ipni.org/. The online version of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: [INSERT NAMES OF DIGITAL REPOSITORIES WHERE ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT WILL BE SUBMITTED (LOCKSS etc)].

Fungal names

Effective January 2012, the description or diagnosis of a new taxon can be in either Latin or English. This does not affect the requirements for scientific names, which are still to be Latin.

Additional information describing recent changes to the Code can be found here.

For proper registration of the new taxon, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Hymenogaster huthii. Stielow et al. 2010, sp. nov. [urn:lsid:indexfungorum.org:names:518624]

You will need to contact either Mycobank or Index Fungorum to obtain the GUID (LSID). Please do this as early as possible to avoid delay of publication upon acceptance of your manuscript. It is your responsibility to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final published paper. Effective January 2013, all papers describing new fungal species must reference the identifier issued by a recognized repository in the protologue in order to be considered effectively published.

In the Methods section, include a sub-section called “Nomenclature” using the following wording. Note that this example is for taxon names submitted to MycoBank; please substitute appropriately if you have submitted to Index Fungorum using the prefix http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=.

The electronic version of this article in Portable Document Format (PDF) in a work with an ISSN or ISBN will represent a published work according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and hence the new names contained in the electronic publication of a UKWURU SCIENCE article are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone, so there is no longer any need to provide printed copies.

In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to MycoBank from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The unique MycoBank number can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the MycoBank number contained in this publication to the prefix http://www.mycobank.org/MB/. The online version of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: [INSERT NAMES OF DIGITAL REPOSITORIES WHERE ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT WILL BE SUBMITTED (LOCKSS etc)].

Qualitative research

Qualitative research studies use non-quantitative methods to address a defined research question that may not be accessible by quantitative methods, such as people's interpretations, experiences, and perspectives. The analysis methods are explicit, systematic, and reproducible, but the results do not involve numerical values or use statistics. Examples of qualitative data sources include, but are not limited to, interviews, text documents, audio/video recordings, and free-form answers to questionnaires and surveys.

Qualitative research studies should be reported in accordance to the Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) checklist or Standards for reporting qualitative research (SRQR) checklist. Further reporting guidelines can be found in the Equator Network's Guidelines for reporting qualitative research.

You may be eligible for APC support

Many institutional partners globally have publishing agreements with UKWURU SCIENCE to allow their corresponding authors to publish with reduced or no APCs. To determine if your corresponding author is eligible, please visit our institutional partners page to determine what kind of agreement your institution has with UKWURU SCIENCE.

If your corresponding author is affiliated with a participating institution, they must follow the instructions below to demonstrate eligibility.

Read the full instructions for submitting to a journal with the Flat Fee Agreement.

If your corresponding author is not from a participating institution and requires assistance paying publishing fees, please consider applying for a fee waiver at submission.