Publication Ethics

Studies in humans

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly. Authors are also encouraged to review international publication standards for both Authors and  Editors.

 
Studies in animals

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.


Informed consent

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval. Additionally, studies on patients or volunteers require informed consent (unless waived by the ethics committee), which should be documented as a statement in the manuscript. Written consents must be retained by the author. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained.

Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. The corresponding author, on behave of other co-authors, should sign the conflict of interest form and upload to the submission system.  If there are no interests to declare, please choose the first option in the template.

Copyright

EJCM is an Open Access journal. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. EJCM is fully compliant with open access mandates, under the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their articles, but they permit anyone unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Confidentiality

Editors and the publication staff should keep all information about a submitted manuscript confidential, sharing it only with those involved in the evaluation, review, and publication processes. Editors should consider adding a confidentiality notice to all correspondence, including reviewer forms, to serve as a reminder to authors, editors, and reviewers.

Funding Source:

Authors are requested to identify organizations, institutions, or companies that provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. This should be documented a statement in the manuscript. Additionally, if the sponsor(s) had a role in study design (the collection, analysis and interpretation of data) or the writing of the manuscript, this should be stated.

Authorship

Authorship should be based on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:

1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;

2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and

3. Final approval of the version to be published.

The order of authors should be based on the relative contribution towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the authors.


Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Retraction/withdrawal of a manuscript

Retraction/withdrawal means removal of a published/accepted manuscript. A retraction may be initiated by the editors of a journal, or by the author(s) of the papers (or their institution). A retraction note titled “Retraction: [manuscript title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list. The online manuscript is provided with a retraction note. The PDF version of the original manuscript is retained unchanged with a watermark on each page indicating that it is “retracted.” The HTML version of the document is removed. Withdrawal of accepted manuscript is a similar process that is reserved for for Articles in Press (accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information). Unlike retraction, both PDF and HTML versions are removed with a note stating that the manuscript has been withdrawn.

Editor-in-Chief will initiate retraction/withdrawal process (according to accepted standards) in case of:

  • It has clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
  • Major plagiarism
  • It contains material or data without authorization for use
  • It reports unethical research
  • It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process
  • The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (eg, conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Registration and reporting of clinical trials

Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the manuscript. Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Open access

EJCM is an Open Access journal. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. EJCM is fully compliant with open access mandates, under the Creative Commons Attribution license: 

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is unacknowledged copying or an attempt to misattribute original authorship, whether of ideas, text or results. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper.

All submitted manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism after submission and before starting review. If plagiarism less than 30% is detected by the editorial board member, reviewer, editor etc., during any stage of the review process- before or after acceptance- the manuscript will be retuned to the author for re-writing the plagiarized parts or to cite the references from where the content has been taken. If plagiarism percentage is more than 30%, the article may be rejected if it was detected during submission or retracted if it was detected after publication.

Editor's & Reviewer's Ethics

Editor Responsibilities

  • Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts
  • Providing a clear statement of the Journal’s policies on authorship criteria
  • Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency
  • Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff (e.g., editorial and sales), authors, and reviewers
  • Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work
  • Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review
  • Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner
  • Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons
  • Establishing clear guidelines for authors regarding acceptable practices for sharing experimental materials and information, particularly those required to replicate the research, before and after publication
  • Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions
  • Describing, implementing, and regularly reviewing policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in the peer review process
  • Informing authors of solicited manuscripts that the submission will be evaluated according to the journal’s standard procedures or outlining the decision-making process if it differs from those procedures
  • Developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts
  • Clearly communicating all other editorial policies and standards

Reviewer Responsibilities

  • Ensure the rigorous standards of the scientific process by taking part in the peer-review system.
  • Uphold the integrity of the journal by identifying invalid research, and helping to maintain the quality of the journal.
  • Fulfil a sense of obligation to the community and their own area of research.
  • Establish relationships with reputable colleagues and their affiliated journals, and increase their opportunities to join an editorial board.
  • Can help prevent ethical breaches by identifying plagiarism, research fraud and other problems by dint of their familiarity with the subject area.
  • Reciprocate professional courtesy, as authors and reviewers are often interchangeable roles – as reviewer, researchers "repay" the same consideration they receive as authors.
  • Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work