Instructions to Authors

Categories of Manuscripts Accepted

TAPS is an open access, peer reviewed journal presently published 4 times a year. TAPS aims to provide a platform for educators, students and practitioners engaged in medical and health professional education in the Asia Pacific region and beyond to share their expertise, experience and wisdom in order to build a community of educational scholars.

TAPS serves as a bridge to link our readers, researches and educators with different concepts being applied in different regions, the lessons learned and how well to adapt these best practices through cutting edge research. This open access journal aims to provide free resources in terms of research evidence and best practices in medical education to countries which have limited access to contemporary health education literature.

TAPS encourage our authors to share their work which may be in the original or translated language, to better reflect their teaching and learning practices.

TAPS welcomes manuscripts under the following categories. For details on each category, please click on the category title to download the manuscript template. All manuscripts submitted to TAPS must adhere to the template provided.

Kindly ensure that all references cited are referenced according to APA Style (7th ed.) – Refer to the NUS Library Guides for more information.

Note: Standard institutional review board (IRB) procedures must be followed and approval obtained by the author(s) prior to submission to TAPS for any research involving human participants.
For authors who have carried out research and submitted papers to TAPS in English, you are allowed to retain certain terminologies in your own original language in order to provide clarity/context to our readers.

  • Original Articles:

    Articles are based on systematic studies and primary research in medical education. Replication studies that clearly justify the need are also welcome. The manuscript should have a maximum of 4,000 words, excluding an abstract of a maximum 250 words. The maximum number of tables, figures and/or pictures is 5. The manuscript should also include a maximum of 5 practice highlights, 3-10 keywords, and brief note(s) on authors’ individual contributions (maximum of 50 words per contributor).

  • Review Articles:

    Synthesised literature in an area of importance to medical and health professional education. Review articles are usually invited, though unsolicited articles from an expert in the area of research being discussed are also welcome. A maximum of 4,000 words, excluding an abstract with a maximum of 250 words. The maximum number of tables, figures and/or pictures is 5. 

  • Short Communications:

    Brief research articles on matters of interest recently completed, or innovative initiatives in medical and health professional education. This research should be conducted systematically (with valid results provided). Limited to 1,500 words excluding an abstract with 1 table or figure and 3-10 keywords. The maximum number of references is 5.

  • Letter to the Editor:

    A maximum of 400 words and 2 references. There should not be any table / figure / picture.

  • Personal View:

    Personal viewpoints or debates on interesting issues relevant to medical and health professions education. A maximum of 1,500 words and 5 references. There should not be any table / figure / picture or abstract.

  • Global Perspectives:

    Regional, country or institutional reports of development in medical and health professions education. A maximum of 2,000 words with a maximum of 5 references. The maximum number of tables, figures and/or pictures is 3.

  • Case Studies:

    (At the Forefront) Short structured reports that represent medical education case studies or a new research methodology, a critical and/or innovative perspective or a new idea of relevance to medical and health professional education. A maximum of 1,000 words including subheadings and 1 table or figure. There should not be any abstract.

  • Commentaries:

    Commentaries are usually invited, with a maximum of 400 words and 2 references.

  • Multimedia Article:

    A short video/animation of not more than 7 minutes elaborating the scholarly work that you have embarked on. It could be:
    A) Explaining your work, highlighting the key findings and the main conclusion(s) using a video format.
    B) An introduction to an article which you have published in TAPS, where the author(s) highlight the key findings and the main conclusion(s) using a video format.
    C) An introduction to an article which you have published in other journals, where the author(s) highlight the key findings and the main conclusion(s) using a video format. However, it is mandatory that written permission must be obtained from the journal publisher.

Manuscript Review Policy

Standard peer review procedures are used for submissions. The editors may request for suggestions of reviewers from the authors. The Editors-in-Chief retain the sole right to make decisions on the review process.

Copyediting and Page Proofs

Authors may be required to revise their manuscripts based on reviewers’ and/or editors’ suggestions. However, this does not automatically bind TAPS to publish any article.

The lead author will receive page proofs for revision.

Data Sharing Policy

The Asia Pacific Scholar (TAPS) acknowledges the archive of data makes available to the higher education community, a repertoire of resources for data replication and scientific progress as well as enabling results validation for papers submitted to TAPS.

Where possible, TAPS encourages authors to deposit their data for the submitted papers in a suitable public repository via a valid link for archive and validation purposes. This repository should be open access and enjoy guaranteed preservation. This statement can be published in their paper and shared data should be cited.

Full Manuscript—For data deposit with DOI, refer here (e.g. Open Science Framework). 
Anonymised Manuscript—For data deposit with anonymised datasets, refer here (e.g. Figshare).

The following table provides few freely available data repositories for consideration.

Repository Name Information on fees/costs Size limits
Scholarbank

For NUS Users only

Free of charge

 1GB per file
Harvard Dataverse Free archive up to over 1 TB 2.5 GB per file, 10 GB per dataset
Open Science Framework Free of charge 5 GB per file, multiple files can be uploaded
Zenodo Donations towards sustainability encouraged 50 GB per dataset, multiple datasets can be uploaded
Mendeley Data Contact repository for dataset up to a maximum size of 100GB 10 GB per dataset
Figshare Free for 100 GB per Scientific Data manuscript. Additional fees apply for larger datasets 1 TB per dataset

Authors are to take care in ensuring that the data archived should be replicable both in results and analysis to support the stated conclusion in the submitted paper. Authors should also ensure that the data shared neither violate the protection of human subjects/rights nor invoke privacy/legal concerns.

The above mentioned is subjected to TAPS Informed Consent Policy and editorial policy.

Announcements