The Journal of BIOS 6618 is the official internal publication of the Advanced Biostatistical Methods I course at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Each year (volume) of the journal encompasses two distinct issues: one focusing on simulation studies and another on applied data analysis. Specific details as to project deadlines, rubrics, and more can be found for current students on the Canvas course page. The details below are meant to mimic those of real journal websites for submission to provide practice for future submissions.
Two types of articles are accepted:
Simulation studies: these articles focus on the use of simulation studies to explore research questions that do not involve “real” data. Articles may include exploration of theorems discussed in class, evaluation of test properties under various assumptions, illustration of power calculations for unique problems, or other applications where simulation studies may be of interest.
Brief reports: these articles are short analyses to answer a research question from real world data. Articles must include at least one advanced topic including:
Articles should be submitted in a format compatible with Canvas SpeedGrader (e.g., DOCX or PDF).
Preferably, articles will be written using R Markdown. All files will ultimately be converted to PDF for inclusion in the journal issue disseminated internally within the class.
Simulation studies have an expected page length of at least 1.5 pages and no more than 2 pages.
Brief reports have an expected page length of at least 2.5 pages and no more than 3 pages.
These pages limits include the required figure(s) and table(s), but not references.
Use a standard font size and any standard font. Articles should be single spaced.
The article should have an informative title. Additionally, author information should include:
A short abstract should describe the problem, data, and results.
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, ‘and’, ‘of’). These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Articles should follow a similar structure to that outlined below:
Note, these exact names do not need to be used and can be customized to your given article, analysis, and context.
All tables and figures should be “publication ready” with informative titles and labels. Where applicable, units of measurement should be included. Variable names from code should be replaced with meaningful labels (e.g., instead of “outcome_variable4” write the actual outcome).
Simulation studies must include at least one table and one figure, but more may be included. These count towards the two page limit.
Brief reports must include a “Table 1” that describes the study population as well as at least one figure. Additional tables and figures may be included as necessary to present and summarize results. These count towards the three page limit.
To enhance readability and clarity of the text as well as tables and figures, decimal numerals should - with the obvious exception of P-values - be rounded to the unit whenever possible (i.e. in all cases in which the rounding procedure does not change the meaning).
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Any style of reference is acceptable as long as formatting is consistent.
Given the small page limits, it is acceptable to include additional tables and figures beyond the required minimum of one table and one figure in a Supplemental Materials section if needed. These figures and tables should be referenced in the text as Figure S1, Table S1, etc.
While you should direct the reader to the Supplemental Materials to access the additional tables, figures, or information, the paper itself should be able to be largely understood as though a reader did not have access to the supplement.
An appendix with R, SAS, or other code should be included starting on a new page after your references with code that is clearly commented for the simulations, analyses, figures, and tables ultimately included in the report. Code that was ultimately not used in the final report should be excluded from this appendix.