About

Aims and scope

MISS is an interdisciplinary scholarly journal devoted to documenting high-quality measurement instruments for the social sciences (e.g. questionnaires). The journal publishes open access measurement instruments intended for scientific use across various disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, education, political science, economics etc.) or across multiple languages. Though focusing mainly on social surveys for the general population, the instruments may also be relevant for the study of individual differences and useful in specific diagnostic contexts. MISS expects empirical backing up of scientific claims, predominantly by a quantitative approach. MISS subscribes to high scientific, open-science and ethical standards, and employs a strict peer review procedure in line with COPE guidelines ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record.

Open access

All articles published by Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article processing charges (APC)

Authors who publish open access in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is:

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for articles published in our fully open access journals whose corresponding authors are based in the world’s lowest income countries (see our APC waivers and discounts policy for further information). Requests for APC waivers and discounts from other authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Starting from 2018, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is fully sponsoring a limited number of articles. In order to get the article processing charge (APC) paid via GESIS, authors need to contact matthias.bluemke@gesis.org before submitting their manuscripts.

Indexing services

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

We are working closely with relevant indexing services including PubMed Central and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) to ensure that articles published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences will be available in their databases when appropriate.

This journal is indexed by

DOAJ
Dimensions
EBSCO Discovery Service
Google Scholar
TD Net Discovery Service
CNKI
OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
ProQuest-ExLibris Primo
ProQuest-ExLibris Summon
Institute for Scientific and Technical Information of China
Naver

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and the reviewer reports provided to the authors are anonymous.

The benefit of double-blind peer review is that it allows reviewers to judge the manuscript based on content alone, and they are not unconsciously biased by knowledge of who the authors are.

Submitted manuscripts will initially be screened by the Editor-in-Chief, with manuscripts deemed of suitable quality and interest assigned to the relevant Section Editor. Manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or more experts, who will be asked to assess the manuscript and provide constructive comments for improvement, i.e. whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences should adhere to BMC's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences

Articles in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Meas Instrum Soc Sci [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Meas Instrum Soc Sci 2009, 1:115.

1:115 refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.