About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Music and Medicine is a new interdisciplinary journal that will be an integrative forum for clinical practice and research related to music interventions and applications of clinical music strategies in medicine. Each peer reviewed issue will offer original articles, case studies, editorial commentaries, and interviews from clinical medicine, the neurosciences, behavioral sciences, nursing, and social work that translate music, music psychology, music cognition, music neurology, and music therapy into scientifically valid clinical applications. Music and Medicine’s goal is to bring together information that is currently scattered across many disciplines throughout many publications.

Among the topics that the journal will cover are:

  • Analgesia and Music Sedation
  • Brain Music Approaches
  • Cancer Care: Active and Receptive Music Approaches
  • Cardiology and Rhythm
  • Clinical Improvisation in Health and Disease
  • Dementia, Stroke and Music Memory
  • Environmental ICU Music
  • Infant Stimulation
  • Integrative Music Medicine
  • Medical Conditions and Treatment of Musicians
  • Medical Music Psychotherapy
  • Mood Disorders and Music Psychology
  • Music and Culture in Medicine
  • Music Health and Well Being
  • Music in Transition: NICU, Hospice to End of Life
  • Music in Surgery: Pre-op to post-op
  • Music in Traumatic Response and Injury
  • Neurologic Music Approaches
  • Pain and Palliative Medical Music Strategies
  • Psychosocial Music Interventions
  • Respiratory Music Advances: Asthma, CF, COPD
  • Song, Sound and Resonance in Mind-Body Medicine
  • Stress Response and Music Relaxation
  • Vibration and Toning in Medicine

Articles that emphasize the cultural implications of music in medicine in research/practice, as well as articles that discuss how to build and develop  effective programs will be highlighted. Music and Medicinealso will feature Personal Opinion Papers and Reviews of Controversial Topics and Practices (for example, brain music therapy or music healing).

Peer Review Process

All submissions will be peer reviewed by anonymous reviewers, including members of the distinguished, multidisciplinary editorial board. Music and Medicine aims for submissions to receive initial review within 2 months of receipt. Authors may be asked to submit subsequent revision rounds prior to final acceptance. Once a submission is accepted, authors will be asked to complete a Contributor Publishing Agreement.

Copyright assignment

 

Upon acceptance of your article you assign Music and Medicine the copyright to IAMM.

As such, as an author you grant IAMM to:

  • Effectively manage, publish and make your work available to members of IAMM and to the academic community
  • Serve as a host for your work as it appears in the journal
  • Assist, when applicable, in the requests on your behalf to take with appropriate action in conditions
    where your article has been plagiarized or misused.
  • Increase the potential visibility of your work through third parties.

After assigning copyright, you will still retain the right to:

  • Be credited as the author of the article.
  • Make printed copies of your article available to use for a lecture, conference or class that you are teaching, non-commercially.
  • Include your original manuscript article, depending pre-publication in your thesis or dissertation.
  • Present your article at a meeting or conference and distribute copies via slide of the article on a non-commercial basis
 
 

Committee on Publications Ethics

Music and Medicine is a member of COPE the (Committee on Publication Ethics). This informs all of our ethics and legal activity. Our journal’s Editors and Managers under the International Association of Music and Medicine (IAMM) assume legal and ethical responsibility for all submitted material. Our Editorial team work closely with the Editors, ensuring that each and every submitted work is dealt with respectfully and fairly.

I. The Editors of Music and Medicine shall:

  1. Comply with COPE core practices and guidelines.
  2. Actively practice, demonstrate and attend to the journal’s maintenance of reputable ethical standards and fair practices.

C. Provide assurances to the research and clinical community that there are no biases in the decisions of the editorial board and editors

D. Respect and maintain confidentiality as usual and customary, and most particularly when an author, reviewer and/or those involved with the piece and course of reviewings are involved in ethical query scrutiny.

  1. Develop a procedure for all members of the Editorial Board, reviewers and readership members to bring forth matters of concern related to an article, an issue related to an article, or the peer review procedure
  2. Ensure that critiques of submitted work, and Board reviews maintain integrity and that sensitivity is adhered to in a way that author/s and Ed Board members can perceive the feedback as constructive and suggestive

G. Protect submissions as precious intellectual property whereby research integrity is upheld and maintained.

H. Maintain and practice high ethical standards which implement scrutiny of:
+authorship  +originality of content  +avoiding re-publication of work published prior  +referencing with accuracy  +avoiding plagiarism  +attributing references to other’s ideas  +avoidance of falsification  + avoidance of fabrication

  1. Ensure authors have disclosed sources of funding and any other resources
  2. Maintain confidentiality of the IAMM
  3. Maintain awareness, and demonstrate with tenacity instances of potential citation manipulation, by informing the Editors.
  4. Engagement in implicit or explicit citations of a particular journal, or a self-authored published article as prerequisite for acceptance is highly discouraged and must be called out.

M.Checking that submissions meet appropriate content and ethical standards deal with any points of concern appropriately

N. Inform the Executive Committee of IAMM, on at least an annual basis, any relevant competing interests that may influence, or may be perceived to influence, their decisions as Editor.

O. Implement Crossref similarity check when suspect requires checking for plagarism and work with the IAMM to follow COPE guidelines, to address issues where  papers reflect an identical level of similarity to another publication.

  1. Seek to maintain Editorials, that are informed and considerate of others’ perspective, ensuring that fairness and sensitivity is maintained and defamatory text is avoided.

Q. Familiarize one another and ourselves with the appeals procedure which authors may take against Editorial decisions and inform the Executive Committee of any appeals as necessary, if additional support may be required

 

Journal Editorial ManagementPeer review and manuscript handling is inclusive of ethical, timely, effective peer review. This is fundamental to Music and Medicine and, in conjunction with the IAMM, the Editors are responsible for managing and assuring the integrity of the peer review process.

II. The Editors will:

  1. Ensure that a journal’s aims and content are current.
  2. Respect and maintain confidentiality through the peer review process.
  3. Maintain unbiased considerations to submitted manuscripts which rate submissions on merit avoiding aspects related to authors’ age, institutional affiliation. Seniority, race, gender, religion, nationality.
  4. Protect author identity.
  5. Comply with and uphold the journal’s peer review policy (e.g. single-anonymous/single-blind, double-anonymous/double-blind) and ensure that reviewers’ identities are protected as stated in that policy.
  6. Ensure that full peer review is conducted on each article, where constructive peer review reports have been obtained from an appropriate number of peer reviewers, as per the peer review policy stated on the journal’s website.
  7. Ensure that any Editorial Board members, or other members of the Editorial team (including any Guest Editors) involved in the peer review process, are working in an ethical, timely and effective manner.
  8. Maintain and assure the integrity of the peer review process, contacting the Managing Editor at mmdmanaging@iammonline.com immediately.
  9. Remove barriers or perceived blocks that restrict submission or publication-that is unrelated to the quality of the submission.
  10. Ease the use of a submission system that ensures easy peer review-setting up and tracking Editorial Board members’ the training offered, to ensure all submissions can be tracked and managed.
  11. Ensure peer review and editorial decision processes are easily accessible by ensuring that peer review reports are uploaded via the peer review system.
  12. Provide guidance for peer reviewers that is aligned with the journal’s peer review policy.
  13. Comply with data protection policies (including General Data Protection Regulation) ensuring that all data is kept secure and is maintained as required in accordance with the Editor Agreement.
  14. Verify the contact details of reviewers.
  15. Develop and maintain a review system that is consistent and which upholds the values of fair policy in returning, rejecting and withdrawing papers.
  16. Work closely with the Production team to keep the journal’s release on time and adherent to page limitations.
  17. Inform the IAMM, maintaining communication, to resolve any issues or inquiries related to submissions or published articles, using COPE guidance practices.
  18. Keep a constructive attitude and offer an assuring experience for all prospective authors regardless of peer review decisions.

Managing the Editorial Board: A cooperative, collaborative, active, and diverse Editorial Board with a communal vision of distinct content values and timeliness of production is essential for journal success and provides invaluable support to the Editors.

III. The Editors will:

A. Work in conjunction with the IAMM to appoint and manage a diverse and effective Editorial Board.

  1. Meet with the entire Editorial Board at the IAMM conferences.
  2. Routinely communicate on all decisions related to the journal and meet virtually at least 3x per year.

D. Actively involve Editorial Board members in the peer review process.

  1. Mentor and support other Editors and Editorial Board members when required, including management with oversight of Guest Editors.
  2. Engage with all Editorial Board members so they are confident in advocating for the journal’s aims and scope.

G. Update the IAMM of the efforts of the Editorial Board members on the strategic direction of the journal, and relay suggestions to the executive committee of the IAMM on how its activities might support and improve the journal’s strategic strategizing.

H. Offer strategies which ensure that all Editorial Board members understand their role and can maintain involvement as active contributors to the journal.

  1. Define and disseminate strategic objectives which define with decision-making principles and maintain mechanisms whereby the Editors of the journal can receive feedback internally and externally.
  2. Review the Editorial Board regularly, and refresh the board as required to ensure and maintain an active, diverse, engaged group of reviewers.

Competing interests and Relationship to the IAMM:

IV. The Editors will:

A. Ensure that all necessary affiliations have been disclosed and made apparent  (by authors, reviewers and any decision-making bodies such as the Editors, including the Editor in Chiefs). This includes the consent of research subjects and research teams and authors.

B. Declare and then abstain from the peer review process and editorial decisions for any papers authored by the Editors, and/or where the authors and Editorial team may have a competing interest. Pursuant to this, the Editors must delegate responsibility of the peer review, and editorial decision process of any of their own work submitted to the journal, to another suitable Editor on the journal such as the Managing Editor, or a member of the Editorial Board. They can also nominate a step-in Guest Editor who will maintain the procedures of evaluation, assessment, peer review and who will make transparent to the team, the actual final editorial decision.

V. Relationship to the IAMM

A. The Editors work in partnership with the IAMM to ensure the journal’s aim respresents inclusivity, seeking to provide diversity, that will aim toward acheiving a successful, creative and integrative global environment of professionalism.