JMIR Publications

Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

JMIR Serious Games (JSG, ISSN 2291-9279; Journal Impact Factor™ 3.8, Journal Citation Reports™) is a multidisciplinary journal devoted to computer, web, virtual reality, mobile applications, and other emerging technologies that incorporate elements of gaming, gamification or novel hardware platforms such as virtual reality devices or wearables. The journal focuses on the use of this technology to solve serious problems such as health behavior change, physical exercise promotion (exergaming), medical rehabilitation, diagnosis and treatment of psychological/psychiatric disorders, medical education, health promotion, teaching and education (game-based learning), and social change. JSG also invites commentary and research in the fields of video game violence and video game addiction.

While JMIR Serious Games maintains a strong focus on health, the journal also aims to highlight research exploring serious games in health-adjacent and other interdisciplinary contexts, including but not limited to military, education, industry, and workplace applications.

In 2024, JMIR Serious Games received a Journal Impact Factor™ of 3.8 (5-Year Journal Impact Factor™: 3.9, ranked Q1 #24/174 journals in the category Health Care Sciences & Services) (Source: Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate, 2024) and a Scopus CiteScore™ of 7.3. This CiteScore™ places JMIR Serious Games in the 96th percentile (#6/161) as a Q1 journal in the field of Rehabilitation and in the 92nd percentile (#18/247) as a Q1 journal in the field of Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation. The journal is also indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central, DOAJ, Scopus, SCIE (Clarivate), and PsycINFO.

Section Policies

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Serious Games for Health and Medicine

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Serious Games for Education

• Mircea Focsa, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy Timisoara

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Serious Games for Political and Societal Change

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

User Needs Assessment for Games

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Formative Evaluation and Development of Games

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Exergames, Active Games and Gamification of Physical Activity

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Quality of Games

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Usability of Games and Gamification

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Gamification

Gamification is one of the techniques that applies game elements, such as game mechanics and dynamics, to a nongame context (eg, management, education, marketing, and health care).

• Mircea Focsa, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy Timisoara

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Games for Rehabilitation

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Games for Cognitive Assessment

• Max Birk, Eindhoven University of Technology

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Games for Medical Education and Training

• Mircea Focsa, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy Timisoara

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Game Development

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Games for Pain Management

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Theoretical Foundations and Frameworks on Games and Gamification

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Viewpoints and Personal Experiences on Gaming and Games

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Game Design and Efficacy of Game Elements

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Questionnaires and Instruments Related to Gaming

For example, development and/or validation of questionnaires for users, developers, or analysts of serious games.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Game Addiction and Other Unintended Consequences

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Discretionary Corrigenda

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Corrigenda and Addenda

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letters to the Editor

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Reviews

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Theme Issue: IEEE SeGAH: Serious Games and Applications for Health

Theme Issue (e-collection) for the annual IEEE SeGAH Conference examining “Serious Games and Applications for Health”. See: Call for papers.

• Nuno Dias, 2Ai-Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Campus do IPCA
• Duarte Duque
• Jaime Garcia
• Baki Kocaballi, University of Technology Sydney
• Nuno Rodrigues
• João Vilaça

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Letter

Research Letters present new, early, or preliminary research findings. The text should use standard research headings of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion and should be no longer than 750 words, with a maximum of 10 references and 2 tables or figures. The APF for Research Letters accepted after peer review is lower than the standard APF.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Tutorials in Serious Games

Standard article type 

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Commentary

A commentary is published alongside other articles published in JMIR Publications journals. Commentaries are typically invited. Unsolicited commentaries may be considered at the discretion of the editor. They may or may not be peer-reviewed. Articles submitted as a commentary should offer thoughtful criticism of published work, drawing from evidence, expertise, and/or additional perspectives. 

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

When we receive a manuscript, the Managing Editor and/or Assistant Editor and/or the Section Editor will first decide whether the manuscript meets the formal criteria specified in the Instructions for Authors and whether it fits within the scope of the journal. When in doubt, the editor will consult other members of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts are then assigned to a section editor, who sends it to 2-4 external experts for peer review. Authors are required to suggest at least 2 peer-reviewers (who do not have an conflict of interest) during the submission process. JMIR reviewers will not stay anonymous;  their names will be revealed and stated below the article in the event that the manuscript is published. Authors and reviewers should not directly contact each other to enter into disputes on manuscripts or reviews.

Speed of Peer-Review

The Internet is a fast-moving field and we acknowledge the need of our authors to communicate their findings rapidly. We therefore aim to be extremely fast (but still thorough and rigorous) in our peer-review process. For example, the paper "Factors Associated with Intended Use of a Web Site Among Family Practice Patients" (J Med Internet Res 2001;3(2):e17) was reviewed, edited, type-set and published within only 16 days. Including the two weeks time authors needed to revise their article, from first submission to final publication less than 1 month passed. (note that current turnaround times needed to review and edit papers vary, and primarily depend on the quality of the paper upon first submission!). Normally we can not give any guarantees on the speed of peer-review or publication - except if a paper has been submitted under the fast-track scheme, where we guarantee an editorial decision within 15 working days (3 weeks) and publication of the article within 4 weeks after acceptance. Starting in 2012, we aim for an average decision time of 2 months after submission for papers sent out for peer-review. There will however always be outliers (papers which are more difficult to evaluate)

Current statistics on turnaround time show that on average it takes 50 days to make an initial decision (29 days for fast-tracked papers). (see 1.4 on the stats page)

Criteria for Selection of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should meet the following criteria: the study conducted is ethical (see below); the material is original; the writing is clear; the study methods are appropriate; the data are valid; the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data; the information is important; and the topic is interesting for our readership. It is recognized that many submissions will describe websites and other Internet-based services. The Editorial Board strongly recommends that authors of such submissions make efforts to evaluate and if possible quantify the impact of these services. Submissions containing evaluations are more likely to be accepted than those containing descriptions of services alone, unless the service includes significant innovation. More descriptive papers - ideally with an evaluation plan - can be submitted to JMIR Res Protoc. Formative research, feasibility and pilot studies should be submitted to JMIR Formative Res (see also Publication Strategy article in our Knowledge Base).

Ethical Issues

Internet-based research raises novel questions of ethics and human dignity (see for example KB article on Ethics in Social Media Research). If human subjects are involved, informed consent, protection of privacy and other human rights are further criteria against which the manuscript will be judged. Papers describing investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, in accordance with all applicable regulations, and that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the studies were explained. JMIR is also encouraging articles devoted to the ethics of Internet-based research. In addition, as mentioned in the conflict of interest article, we will ask authors to disclose any competing interests in relation to their work.

Publication Frequency

This journal publishes articles continuously, i.e. articles are published online as soon as they are available (peer-reviewed and copy-edited).

Open Access Policy

All journals published by JMIR Publications provide immediate open access to their content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge and accelerates research. Copyright is retained by the authors, and articles can be freely used and distributed by others. Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published by JMIR Publications, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information (authors, title, journal, volume/issue, and article ID), a link to the original publication (URL), and this copyright and license information (“Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution cc-by 4.0”) must be included.

Please do not contact the publisher for “reprint permission” requests because, by default, this permission has already been given by authors (under the condition of attribution of the original source), and the publisher does NOT own the copyright for the material published. The authors retain the copyright, unless stated otherwise.

Author Self-Archiving

Archiving

JSG uses LOCKSS and is also archived in Pubmed Central. The LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system ensures a secure and permanent archive for the journal. LOCKSS is open source software developed at Stanford University Library that enables libraries to preserve selected web journals by regularly polling registered journal websites for newly published content and archiving it. Each archive is continually validated against other library caches, and if content is found to be corrupted or lost, the other caches or the journal is used to restore it.

Editor-in-Chief

Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH, FACMI, Founding Editor and Publisher; Adjunct Professor, School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Canada

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH, FACMI

Adjunct Professor, School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Canada

View Gunther Eysenbach's profile

Dr. Gunther Eysenbach, MD MPH FACMI, is the founding editor and publisher of JMIR Publications, a digital health and open science publisher, which he founded in 1999. Eysenbach is recognized by many as one of the leading academics in the field of digital health and eHealth and a pioneer of open access and open science. He is also a  producer, editor and publisher of influential knowledge translation products. According to Ioannidis et al (Plos Biol 2019), Eysenbach is the most cited academic in medical informatics. In 2002, he created a new scientific discipline, "infodemiology," which is recognized by WHO as a core area of practice when dealing with an "infodemic." Eysenbach also cofounded TrendMD, a Knowledge Translation tool, and is an angel investor in Digital Science and Digital Health startups, and is Adjunct Professor at the School of Health Information at the University of Victoria (Canada).

Former Editor-in-Chief

Nabil Zary, MD, PhD, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Science, Dubai, UAE

JMIR Serious Games is seeking an Editor-in-Chief to contribute to the journal's success and impact. Interested applicants can read more and apply here.

Dola Majekodunmi, PhD, Managing Editor

Editorial Board Members

Associate Editors

Naseem Ahmadpour, PhD, MsC

University of Sydney, Australia

Dr Naseem Ahmadpour is faculty at the School of Architecture, Design, Planning, University of Sydney and the program director of the Major in Design. She was awarded her PhD in human-technology interaction from University of Montreal (Ecole Polytechnique), Canada. She leads Affective Interactions lab at the University of Sydney where she conducts research at the intersection of Design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Her research is interdisciplinary and broadly explores and critiques new imaginaries for the future of care and work, as well as ethical approaches to and consequences of sociotechnical systems that increasingly shape that future. Specifically, she is interested in the applications of virtual reality technology and the opportunities and risks associated with immersive experiences mediated by this platform.

René Baranyi, Dr. techn.

TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology), Vienna, Austria

René Baranyi holds a position at the Institute of Information Systems Engineering Research Group for Industrial Software (INSO) at TU Wien, leveraging over 15 years of dedicated involvement in Serious Games, Gamification, and healthcare. With expertise spanning Sports and Lifestyle Medicine, Prevention, Physiotherapy, Rehabilitation Medicine, and exergame development, his primary focus is the seamless integration of Serious Games and Gamification into healthcare practices.

Baranyi specializes in conceiving and crafting digital platforms aimed at simplifying rehabilitation and promoting healthier lifestyles. He is notable for his work in supporting the design, analysis, and development of more than 60 Serious Games and Gamified healthcare applications, aiming to reshape the digital healthcare and rehabilitation landscape.

Baranyi’s commitment extends to streamlining technology integration in healthcare, enhancing patient outcomes, and overall well-being. His multifaceted contributions in research and education foster innovation in the healthcare sector, yielding benefits for individuals and the industry as a whole. 

Andres Bustillo

University of Burgos, Spain

Andres Bustillo holds a full Professor position in the Computer Engineering Department at the University of Burgos (Spain). Here he leads the XRai-Lab, which focuses on applications of XR to different fields. After joining the University of Burgos in 2007, his research interests were focused on the application of different machine learning and data mining techniques to complex data analysis. In the last ten years, his research has evolved to focus on the development of VR simulators for industry, cultural heritage and health care, focusing especially on mental health. Currently, his main research goals are the design optimization, gamification and the integration of artificial intelligence techniques in those VR simulators to increase learning outcomes. 

Kai Erenli

University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, Austria

Kai Erenli studied law at the University of Graz, Austria, where he wrote his doctoral thesis about the legal aspects of open source licensing. He is a member of the board of IT law at the Austrian network for IT lawyers. From 2011 to 2020, Erenli served as the study director of the Bachelor's program in Film, TV and Media Production at the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienne. Since 2020, he is study director of the Bachelor's program in Interactive Media & Games Business. He also serves as General Counsel to a Vienna based Animation Studio and previously was Art Director of @vertising in Graz. Erenli has produced and designed a fair amount of games, such as the Educational AR game “QuizeRo”. Kai is a founding member of Gütegemeinschaft Serious Games, Vice Chair of IEEE Consumer Technology's Technical Committee on Entertainment & Gaming, and a Board Member to the Immersive Learning and Research Network (iLRN).

Ben Gerber, MD, MPH

UMass Chan Medical School, USA

Dr. Gerber is Professor and Division Chief of the Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science at UMass Chan Medical School. He is an internist, health services researcher, and software developer. He has developed various educational, entertaining, and interactive apps and online resources to support chronic disease self-management, and evaluated several of them through randomized controlled trials.

Gerber’s research focus is on behavior change and health education in the context of chronic disease self-management.

Shuqing Liu, PhD

Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

Shuqing Liu’s research spans various fields such as user experience, behavioral marketing, and positive psychology. Currently, her expertise focuses on customer experience and loyalty in design, the application of positive psychology to user experience design, and the utilization of new technologies to enhance consumer well-being and happiness. Her research employs a mixed-methods approach, blending qualitative and quantitative methods in interdisciplinary studies. Her research makes contributions to the field of business analytics visualization, the localization of MOOCs within international contexts, and the aesthetic preference of Chinese users for interactive products, among others. Additionally, she advocates for integrating behavioral science into user experience design. As an instructor, she has led her teams to develop games and other products that have received significant awards in both international and domestic design competitions. She also serves as an expert member in international and national professional associations relevant to her areas of expertise. As the Associate Editor for JMIR Serious Games, she is dedicated to discovering cutting-edge research that fosters sensible decisions and promote healthier and happier lives. 

Anna McDaniel, RN, PhD

University of Florida, USA

Anna McDaniel served as the fifth Dean of the University of Florida College of Nursing, and currently serves as Scholar in Residence with the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering (HWCOE), in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE).

During her deanship, McDaniel led the transformation of the research and education missions of the college, including implementation of simulation pedagogy and extensive renovation of the simulation training and innovation center.

McDaniel’s own program of translational research has been characterized by the innovative use of information technology to enhance decision-making by clinicians, support provider adherence to risk reduction guidelines, and promote positive health behaviors in consumers. Her research bridges traditional disciplinary boundaries by merging a clinical focus (e.g. cancer prevention and control; symptom management and survivorship) with health informatics and implementation science.

Throughout her career, she has made significant contributions to improving the health care of persons with nicotine dependence through evidence-based tobacco control interventions, including a randomized trial to test the efficacy of interactive voice response technology for enhancing a “real world” tobacco treatment service delivery model to prevent smoking relapse in participants who strive for abstinence, a multi-media tobacco cessation intervention that was distributed to over 250 hospitals, and a computerized decision support system for nicotine dependence treatment in primary care.

Cosima Prahm, PhD, MSc, BA

Department for Hand, Plastic, Reconstructive and Burn Surgery, BG Trauma Clinic, University of Tuebingen, Medical Faculty, Tuebingen, Germany

Cosima Prahm serves as Lab Manager and Head of Research at BG Trauma Clinic at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. Her research spans interdisciplinary clinical projects related to direct patient applications such as extremity reconstruction, peripheral nerves, human machine interfaces, prosthetic training, phantom limb pain and TechNeuroRehabilitation. In 2017, she founded the PlayBionic working group, which generates innovations in the field of virtual rehabilitation and develops software for human-machine-interaction and health related applications. Prahm graduated from the Medical University Vienna, Austria, with a PhD in Medicine – Clinical Neuroscience. 

Eva Oliveira, PhD

Polytechnic of Cávado and Ave (IPCA), Portugal

Eva Oliveira currently works as Adjunct Professor, lecturer on Digital Games Development Engineering and Computer Science Engineering Graduation, and director of the Digital Games Development Masters at the Polytechnic of Cávado and Ave (IPCA).

Her research focuses on user centered design and development, serious games related to psychotherapy and education, and game design and player experience studies guided by human computer interaction foundations. She is an integrated member of the HumanISE Center at INESC-TEC, Porto, where she is involved in interdisciplinary research and collaboration projects in the field of computer science and applied engineering. 

She holds a PhD in Human Computer Interaction from the Large-Scale Informatics Systems Laboratory (LaSIGE), a research unit of the Informatics Department of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon.

Maurizio Schmid, PhD

Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

Maurizio Schmid is Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Roma Tre University. His research work includes biomedical signal processing and modelling in the area of motor control, and the development of algorithms and devices in the area of rehabilitation engineering. He is involved in studies on the validity and effectiveness of virtual environment systems and games as tools for rehabilitation, applied ergonomics, and ambient assisted living. Schmid holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Bologna.

Fotios Spyridonis, PhD

Senior Lecturer, Brunel University, London

Dr. Spyridonis is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Brunel University London, UK. His research interests center on Interactive Multimedia and Human-Computer Interaction. He is particularly interested in developing human-centered systems for real-world applications. He has worked on using serious games to promote web accessibility design and improve decision making, as well as on supporting and improving chronic pain management. More recently, his work has focused on identifying and assessing cyber threats to virtual reality environments and on using multisensory experiences.

Tanjir Rashid Soron, MD, MPH

Founder, NiHealth, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dr. Soron is the founder and managing director of NiHealth and Telepsychiatry Research and Innovation Network in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his MD in Psychiatry after completing an MBBS and MPH. Afterward he completed an MSc in Global eHealth from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He started his career as Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and subsequently established the Telepsychiatry Research and Innovation Network to increase access to mental health using technology and conducting research to reduce the wide mental health treatment gap in Bangladesh and other Low and Middle-Income Countries. He brings the concept of blending nature into digital health solutions in designing his next venture Naturalistic Intelligent Health (NiHealth). Along his professional journey, he has gained experience in strategic and policy development and developing and deploying low-cost innovative digital mental health solutions.

Dr. Soron is active in investigating the potential areas of user-centered, cost-effective technological solutions for mental health and their integration among vulnerable communities, specifically people with autism spectrum disorder and slum dwellers in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Leon Y. Xiao, LLM

Leon Y. Xiao is a PhD Fellow at the IT University of Copenhagen. Leon researches video game law, particularly the regulation of loot boxes, a quasi-gambling monetisation mechanic in video games. He uses empirical legal research methods and is passionate about open science. He also dabbles in some research on gameplay time and the intersections between cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and gambling. Leon's research is often featured in the media. Game companies have also taken direct compliance and remedial actions following his research.

Past Editorial Board Members

Mariano Alcañiz, Laboratory Of Immersive Neurotechnologies (LabLENI), Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain

Craig Anderson, Iowa State University, United States

Julian Alvarez, Lille 1 University, France / Play Research Lab, Ludoscience, France / Lutin UserLab, France

Max Valentin Birk, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Ceclia Boyer, Health On the Net Foundation, Switzerland

Brian Cugelman, AlterSpark, Canada

Guido Giunti, University of Oulu, Finland

Maurits Graafland, Flevo Ziekenhuis, Netherlands

Daria Kuss, Nottingham Trent University, England

Emanuele Lettieri, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Ricky Leung, University of Albany, United States

Allan McDougall, Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, Canada

Marlies Schijven, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, the Netherlands

Join the Editorial Board

We are currently looking to expand our Editorial Board. To apply to be an Editorial Board member/Associate Editor for JMIR Serious Games, please apply using the form linked in this article.

You should hold a PhD or similar higher degree, have a publication track record, and ideally have academic editing experience.  

Indexing and Impact Factor

JMIR Serious Games (JSG, ISSN 2291-9279) is a sister journal of JMIR, the leading eHealth journal. JMIR Serious Games is indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central, DOAJ, Scopus, SCIE (Clarivate), and PsycINFO.

In 2024, JMIR Serious Games received a Journal Impact Factor™ of 3.8 (5-Year Journal Impact Factor™: 3.9, ranked Q1 #24/174 journals in the category Health Care Sciences & Services) (Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate).

It also received a Scopus CiteScore™ of 7.3, placing JMIR Serious Games in the 96th percentile (#6/161) as a Q1 journal in the field of Rehabilitation and in the 92nd percentile (#18/247) as a Q1 journal in the field of Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation (Scopus Citescore).