Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics

Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):

Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences is obligated to deliver the superior standards of publication ethics. Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences adheres to the publication standards recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics and prohibits any trials involving unethical conduct. Needless to say, articles submitted for publication undergo peer review, and if they are found not to meet publication ethics standards, they will be declined.

1.     Responsibilities of Editors:

ü  All authorsꞌ articles should be evaluated without distinguishing according to color, citizenship, gender, etc. The only thing that must be considered is the scientific content of articles.

ü  Editors could decide to accept or refuse articles based on peer review evaluation, editorial boardꞌ results, and the article's significance.

ü  The editing staff of the journal should not reveal any information regarding articles to any party other than the corresponding reviewers, the editorial board, and the publisher.

ü  Exploiting the contents of the unpublished materials by editors is not allowed without getting the agreement of the corresponding authors.

ü   Confidentiality, the editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers as appropriate. In the case of a misconduct investigation, the editor-in-chief may disclose material to third parties (e.g., an institutional investigation committee or other editors).

ü  Ensuring the integrity of the published record:

If serious concerns are raised by readers, reviewers, or others regarding the conduct, validity, or reporting of academic work, the editor-in-chief will initially contact the authors and allow them to respond. If that response is unsatisfactory, the journal will take this to the institutional level. In cases where concerns are very serious and the published work is likely to influence clinical practice or public health, the journal may consider informing readers of these concerns while the investigation is ongoing. Once an investigation is concluded, the journal will publish a comment explaining its findings. The editor-in-chief may decide to retract a paper if serious misconduct has occurred, even if an investigation by an institution or national body does not recommend it.

2.   Responsibilities of Reviewers:

ü  Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive comments on the manuscript that help the author(s) to revise the manuscript to higher standards and quality.

ü  Reviewers must notify the editors in case the articlesꞌ topics donꞌt match with their specialization to avoid any potential delays.

ü  Reviewers are not allowed to reveal any information regarding the articles' contents to any other party other than the ones mentioned previously.

ü  Reviewers must clearly state their decisions about articles with proper supporting arguments.

ü  Reviewers are called for checking the cited materials and references of date used in the authorsꞌ articles.

ü  Reviewers are advised to have identical interests with the article's contents to avoid any possible conflict of interest.

ü  Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

ü  Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

ü  Electronic physician will take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage.

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 3.  Responsibilities of Authors:

Authorship: an individual is named as an author when he/she intellectually contribute to a scientific investigation. When individuals meet the following four criteria, then they can be known as authors:

ü  Scholarship: Participate significantly in the conception, design, execution, and/or analysis and interpretation of data.

ü  Authorship: Contribute to drafting, reviewing, and/or revising the manuscript for intellectual content.

ü  Approval: Approve the manuscript to be published.

ü  Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributorship: Every submitted manuscript should include information about those who have contributed to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article.

Acknowledgments: All other contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include an individual who provided general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, as well as writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

þ  Authors are required to submit the exact date of their research, and manuscripts should include a list of references used in their articles.

þ  Authors must verify that the submitted research work is of their own, except for the cited and/or quoted materials from other researchersꞌ work.

þ  Authors should not submit the same article to more than one journal, as this is considered a breach of the publication ethics statements.

þ  In case there is more than one author for the same article, the corresponding author should ensure that the other authors have agreed on the final copy of the submitted manuscript.

þ  All required information about the authors must be included in the manuscript, for example, authors' names, affiliations, places of work, and email addresses.

þ  Authors should obviously disclose conflicts of interest in their manuscripts.

þ  If the authors' work requires chemicals and/or equipment that may pose hazards from their use, the authors should clearly state this in the manuscript.

þ  If the authors note an error or inaccuracy in their submitted research, they must notify the publisher as soon as possible after submitting their manuscript.

þ  Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

þ  Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

þ  Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

þ  Appropriate approvals, licenses, or registrations should be obtained before the research begins, and details should be provided in the report (e.g., Institutional Review Board or Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals). If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g., copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms). Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative).

þ  All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

þ  When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

 

 4.  Plagiarism:

þ Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text.

þ Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences uses Turnitin similarity check before publication to detect submissions that overlap with published manuscripts.

þ Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors by more than 20% will be rejected. Any published articles may need to be corrected or retracted.

þ An electronic physician checks the originality and presents the “Similarity Report” to the authors. Authors should ensure that submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Applicable copyright laws and conventions should be followed. Copyright material (e.g., tables, figures, or extensive quotations) should be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgment.

5.  Change, Replacement, and/or Modification of a Published Article:

• Withdrawal: In case a complaint is filed regarding an inaccuracy of a published article’s material, then the journal will consider the received complaint, and a fair decision will be taken whether to delete the complained material or not.
• Replacement: The published article could be replaced in the case of the author submitting an updated version of the article. At least three reviewers should accept the updated version of the article before processing the replacement. Additionally, a correction notice will be published alongside the corrected version of the article to state the changes made.
• Removal: The published article will be removed if any of the publishers, researchers, reviewers, or others find a high number of errors or a high rate of plagiarism. After that, the article will be removed from the journal database.

6.  Data Fabrication:

þ This idiom refers to faking authors for their research findings. It could happen when authors intend to fabricate research data and then present a false impression.

þ E.g., making up images by adding or neglecting some data point from plotted figures, by changing graphs or charts, by omitting outliers, or by canceling inappropriate results, etc.

þ Some authors seek to improve the suitability of images for reading by applying a number of known techniques, such as adjusting brightness and color balance. This process cannot be called fabrication when applied to the whole image rather than to some of its parts. Anyway, if those modifications are made to images, the journal editor should be informed at the time of submission by adding a note to the paper cover.

þ Unacceptable making-up techniques include improving, removing, obfuscating, and/or adding new elements or parts to images.

þ Authors may be asked to submit their original research data, in case their images and/or data are doubted.

7. Conflict of Interest Policy:

A conflict of interest could exist when the relationship between authors and editors is:

þ  Current or recent colleagues

þ  Current or recent co-authors

þ  Current or recent students

þ  Financial relationship

þ  Any other forms of conflict of interest: personal issues, intellectual issues, etc.

Those relationships will properly affect journal editorsꞌ actions:

£  Authors are required to fully revel any conflicts of interest by listing them on the paper cover when they submit their paper to the journal.

£   Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences assigns all submissions to editors, minimizing possible conflicts of interest. Afterward, editors are asked to notify the managing editor of any conflicts not listed within the conflicts above.  

£  If none of the journal editors meet all conflict-of-interest screens, co-editors with the least conflict of interest will be assigned to the submission.

£  The journal editor may refuse to publish a paper based on one of the disclosed conflicts of interest.

8.  Complaints Policy:

A complaint is authorsꞌ expression of displeasure:

¤ Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences welcomes authors' complaints regarding its actions, procedures, and/or policies, as they provide motivation and an opportunity for improvement. Therefore, a quick, respectful, and helpful response will be established for all authorsꞌ complaints.

¤ Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences thinks that authors don’t complain about something published and/or a decision made by it, but they may complain when there is a process failure; e.g., when there is a delay in replying, a harsh response, and/or an inaccurate judgment.

¤  If a complaint is received regarding an inaccuracy in a material, the journal will investigate the complaint and make a final decision on whether to omit the material. The complained-of material may not be removed if the journal finds the complaint lacks a good basis; otherwise, a legitimate definition or exemption may apply.  

Authors should make complaints as soon as possible after paper publication, after action has been taken, etc., by typing an email to the Journal's managing Editor, mentioning the following information: paper title, volume number, and issue number with their complaint.

9.  Retraction and Correction Policy:

The Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences' retraction and correction policy is based on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Retractions:
Retractions are used to remove a published paper from the scientific record. It should not be undertaken lightly and can occur only under extraordinary circumstances. The retraction may be initiated by the editors of a journal, or by the author(s) of the papers (or their institution).

Retraction by an editor will be issued upon several conditions:

§  severe plagiarism (severe will be determined by the Editor and verified by plagiarism checking software).

§  Data recycling in a purportedly original research article:

o   Double publications.

o   Data fabrication

o   Faulty or unreliable findings, and other harmful practices.

In this case, A retraction notice will be published. This notice will include the title and authors of the article, the reason for the retraction, and who is retracting the article. It will be published online, with a link to the online version of the article, and included in the table of contents for that issue. Before publishing the notice of retraction, the authors should send a signed statement to the editorial office.

Corrections:
Corrections could be made to the published paper if they seriously affect the results. Corrections are published in subsequent issues under Corrections and Addendum.

Al-Zahrawi Journal of Medical Sciences should consider issuing a correction if:

§  Only a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication reports flawed data or proves to be misleading, in a way that does not severely affect any findings.

§  The Author or Contributor list is incorrect.

§  A Correction rather than a Retraction would better serve the scientific community.

Corrections to peer-reviewed content fall into one of three categories:

·        An Erratum (Publisher correction): to notify readers of a critical error made by publishing/journal staff (usually a production error) that negatively impacts the publication record, the scientific integrity of the article, or the reputation of the Authors or the journal.

·        Corrigendum (Author correction): to notify readers of an important error made by the Authors, that negatively impacts the publication record or the scientific integrity of the article, or the reputation of the Authors or the journal.

·        Addendum: an addition to the article by its Authors to explain inconsistencies, to expand the existing work, or otherwise explain or update the information in the main\work.

The decision of whether a correction should be issued is made by the Editor(s) of a journal, sometimes with advice from Reviewers or Editorial Board members. Handling Editors will contact the Authors of the paper concerned with a request for clarification, but the final decision about whether a correction is required and which type rests with the Editors.

10. Change in authorship

We do not allow any change in authorship after the paper is published. We cannot allow any addition, deletion, or change in the sequence of the author’s name and affiliation. We have this policy to prevent fraud.