Instructions to Authors

Please note that the journal now encourages authors to complete their copyright licence to publish form online

Open Access Option for Authors

Manuscripts must be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed.

An OUP LaTex template is available and more information can be found at OUP's Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Radiation Protection Dosimetry uses the Modern Medium design.

This Journal takes publication ethics very seriously. If misconduct is found or suspected after the manuscript is published, the journal will investigate the matter and this may result in the article subsequently being retracted.

Scope

Radiation Protection Dosimetry covers all aspects of personal and environmental dosimetry and monitoring, for both ionising and non-ionising radiations. This includes biological aspects, physical concepts, biophysical dosimetry, external and internal personal dosimetry and monitoring, environmental and workplace monitoring, accident dosimetry, and dosimetry related to the protection of patients. Particular emphasis is placed on papers covering the fundamentals of dosimetry; units, radiation quantities and conversion factors. Papers covering archaeological dating are included only if the fundamental measurement method or technique, such as thermoluminescence, has direct application to personal dosimetry measurements. Papers covering the dosimetric aspects of radon or other naturally occurring radioactive materials and low level radiation are included. Animal experiments and ecological sample measurements are not included unless there is a significant relevant content reason.

PAPERS should be full papers of a theoretical or practical nature with comprehensive descriptions of the work covered.

NOTES may be briefer than a Paper. They may address a single point and methodology need not be included.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR should be written as letters with the authors' names and addresses at the end and should be marked 'For Publication'.

Manuscript preparation

It is a condition of acceptance that all authors shall have read and agreed to the contents and the format of their manuscript before submission and after any significant revisions have been made. The author submitting the paper should be prepared, if asked, to certify compliance with this rule.

All contributions should be in English (authors whose mother tongue is not English are requested to ask someone with a good command of English to review their contribution before submission). Spelling should be in accordance with the Oxford English Dictionary. However, please use 'dosemeter' rather than 'dosimeter', for consistency within the journal. Manuscripts should be written in the third person, not the first. Please reserve the use of capital letters for proper names and abbreviations only and not for commonly used terms. Please include line numbers in the manuscript file. Use continuous line numbers (do not restart the numbering on each page).

An institutional or industry email address must be provided for the corresponding author. This is for contact and verification purposes. If the corresponding author is unable to provide an institutional email address, they must disclose this to the Editors and Editorial Office and provide links to their publication record (associated with that email) or other legitimate public profiles (such as ORCID) which can be used to verify the individual.

Pre-Submission Technical Checks

In partnership with Cactus, we are offering authors free usage of their Paperpal Preflight tool pre-submission. This is an AI-driven tool that performs technical checks tailored to Radiation Protection Dosimetry. Authors are given a markup of suggested corrections to match their paper to journal requirements. Before submission, we encourage authors to run their paper through this tool. Please note that this is not mandatory and suggested corrections are optional.

Authors also have the option to pay for additional language checking – again, this is not mandatory and all suggested corrections are optional.

Title page

The title page should contain just the title, authors' names and full postal addresses, corresponding author contact information (telephone, fax and email) and a short running title. Titles should be brief and as informative as possible. A short title of not more than 40 characters (including spaces) for a running head should be supplied.

Abstract

An abstract of preferably not more than 150 words should be provided on its own page of the manuscript, headed by the title and authors' names.

Headings

Headings should be given to main sections and sub-sections, which should not be numbered. (The heading hierarchy is non-bold capitals, bold lower case and italic lower case.)

Footnotes

Footnotes should not be used. Such text should be inserted into the main document, in parentheses if necessary.

Tables

Tables should be supplied on separate pages at the end of the manuscript. Data in tables should be rounded to a level appropriate for the information being provided.

Units, symbols and equations

SI units should be used throughout but other established units may be included in brackets (note that cGy is not acceptable). Isotope mass numbers should appear at the upper left of the element symbol, e.g. ⁹⁰Sr. Equations should be fully typed and numbered sequentially. Scalar quantities and physical constants should be italicised, including subscripts, where used. Mathematics should be punctuated, as though part of a sentence.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined when they first appear in the text.

References

References should be indicated in the text by superior numbers in parentheses and the full reference should be given in a list at the end of the paper in the following form, in the order in which they appear in the text:

1. Crase, K. W. and Gammage, R. B. Improvements in the use of ceramic BeO in TLD. Health Phys. 29, 739-746 (1975).
2. Clarke, R. H. and Webb, G. A. M. Methods for estimating population detriment and their application in setting environmental discharge limits. Proceedings of Symposium - Biological Impications of Radionuclides Released from Nuclear Industries. Vienna, March 1979. IAEA-SM-237/6, 149-154 (1980).
3. Aird, E. G. A. A. An introduction to medical physics. Heineman Medical Books Ltd (1983) ISBN 0 433 003502.
4. Duftschmid, K. E. TLD personnel monitoring systems - the present situation. Radiat. Prot. Dosim. 2, 2-12 (1982).
5. International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements. Determination of operational dose equivalent quantities for neutrons. ICRU Report 66. J. ICRU 1, (2001).

All the authors' names and initials (or the first 10 followed by et al.), the title of the paper, the abbreviated title of the journal, volume number, page numbers and year should be given. Abbreviated journal titles should be in accordance with the current World List of Scientific Periodicals. Please note the use of lower case lettering in article titles.

Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, Radiation Protection Dosimetry strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

Data Citation

Radiation Protection Dosimetry supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

• [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

ORCID

Radiation Protection Dosimetry requires submitting authors to provide an ORCID iD at submission to the journal. More information on ORCID and the benefits of using an ORCID iD is available. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website.

Preprint policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Funding information

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: 'This work was supported by …'
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. 'National Institutes of Health', not 'NIH' (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: '[grant number xxxx]'
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: '[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]'
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus 'and' before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: 'This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].

Crossref Funding Data Registry:

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

Figure preparation

Further information on submitting figures for review and production can be viewed in the online submission instructions.

The number of figures used should be kept to the minimum consistent with clear presentation of the work reported. Numbered figure legends should be provided with the manuscript. We reserve the right to reduce or enlarge artwork to the optimum size for legibility in the journal.

Guidelines

The lettering in figures should be of such a size that the letters and symbols will remain legible after reduction to fit the printed area available. Figures should have left hand vertical and bottom horizontal axes only, with no background shading, but a right hand vertical axis may be included if scaled differently to the left hand axis. Lines should be black (i.e. not coloured) and key information should be incorporated into the caption, and not superimposed on the figure itself. Please do not indulge in the sophisticated graphics techniques available to make figures unnecessarily complicated, such as the use of pseudo-3D presentations when 2D figures are perfectly adequate (e.g. histograms).

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Correspondence

Proofs will be emailed to the corresponding author and any corrections must be returned to the production office at Oxford University Press within three days. Any corrections that contradict journal style will not be transferred.

Any queries relating to your manuscript after it has been accepted may be sent to RPD production, OUP ([email protected]).

Copyright

It is a condition of publication in the journal that authors grant an exclusive licence to the journal, published by Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In assigning the licence, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance..

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

Special issues/proceedings issues

The Instructions to Authors apply to special/proceedings issue manuscripts. Authors should use the online submission system. All such manuscripts must be clearly marked with the conference details. Articles should usually (by agreement with the conference organisers) be restricted to six printed pages. All manuscripts will be reviewed using the online journal submission system.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices.  Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as “when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as “when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification,
or
when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as “behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.
Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes. Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.
If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the Journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision. To do so, please contact the editorial office at [email protected] providing as much specific detail as possible about why the original decision should be reconsidered. Every appeal will receive a response within a reasonable timeframe. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact [email protected]. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes

Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Open Access Option for Authors

Radiation Protection Dosimetry offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges. 

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Conflict of Interest

At the point of submission, Radiation Protection Dosimetry's policy requires that each author reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated - including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

Author Toll Free Link and Discounts

All corresponding authors will be provided with a free access link to their article upon publication.  The link will be sent via email to the article’s corresponding author who is free to share the link with any co-authors.  Please see OUP’s Author Self-Archiving policy for more information regarding how this link may be publicly shared depending on the type of license under which the article has published.  

All authors have the option to purchase up to 10 print copies of the issue in which they publish at a 50% discount. Orders should be placed through this order form. Orders must be made within 12 months of the online publication date.