Editorial Policies
- Authorship definition
- Disclosures and declarations
- Role of the Corresponding Author
- Author contributions
- Affiliation
- Changes to authorship
- Author name change
- Author identification
- Deceased or incapacitated authors
- Confidentiality
- Authorship issues or disputes
Citations
Plagiarism Policies
Corrections and Retractions
Ethical responsibilities of authors
Informed consent
- Informed consent
- Consent and already available data and/or biologic material
- Data protection, confidentiality and privacy
- Consent to participate
- Consent to publish
- Summary of requirements
Research involving human participants, their data or biological material
Authorship definition
These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere.
Authorship clarified
Journal of Current Health Sciences assumes that all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines a,b:
All authors whose names appear on the submission
- made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;
- drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
- approved the version to be published; and
- agree 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.
Journal of Current Health Sciences encourages collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted, and expect their inclusion as co-authors when they fulfil all authorship criteria described above. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section
Based on/adapted from:
a. ICMJE, Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors, http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
b. Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication, McNutt at all, PNAS February 27, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115
Disclosures and declarations
All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on the welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).
The decision of whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases, it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.
Role of the Corresponding Author
One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed
The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:
- ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
- managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors, before and after publication*;
- providing transparency on the re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
- Make sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).
*The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.
Author contributions
Please check the Instructions for the Authors of the Journal that you are submitting to for specific instructions regarding contribution statements.
In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the end of the submission.
Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:
Free text:
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Example CRediT taxonomy:
Role |
Definition |
Conceptualization |
Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims. |
Data curation |
Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use. |
Formal analysis |
Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesize study data. |
Funding acquisition |
Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication. |
Investigation |
Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection. |
Methodology |
Development or design of methodology; creation of models. |
Project administration |
Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution. |
Resources |
Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools. |
Software |
Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components. |
Supervision |
Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team. |
Validation |
Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs. |
Visualization |
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation. |
Writing – original draft |
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation). |
Writing – review & editing |
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages. |
Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….
For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.
For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author c.
Based on:
c. A Graduate Student’s Guide to Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship Order, APA Science Student Council 2006, https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/authorship-paper.pdf
Affiliation
The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after the publication of the article.
Changes to authorship
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
! Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!
Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.
Adding and/or deleting authors at the revision stage is generally not permitted, but in some cases, it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stage.
Author name change
An author who has changed their name for reasons such as gender transition or religious conversion may request for their name, pronouns and other relevant biographical information to be corrected on papers published prior to the change. The author can choose for this correction to happen silently, in which case there will be no note flagging the change on either the pdf or the HTML of the paper, or alternatively they may do so by a formal public Author Correction.
Author identification
Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
Deceased or incapacitated authors
For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.
Confidentiality
Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.
Authorship issues or disputes
In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.
Competing Interests
Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.
Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:
Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.
Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).
Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.
It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant, any such figure is necessarily arbitrary, so one possible practical guideline is the following: "Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published."
Non-financial interests: In addition, authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or personal beliefs (amongst others). Examples include, but are not limited to: position on editorial board, advisory board or board of directors or other types of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.
Primary research articles require a disclosure statement. Review articles present an expert synthesis of evidence and may be treated as authoritative work on a subject. Review articles therefore require a disclosure statement. Other article types such as editorials, book reviews, comments (amongst others) may, dependent on their content, require a disclosure statement. If you are unclear whether your article type requires a disclosure statement, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.
Please note that, in addition to the above requirements, funding information (given that funding is a potential conflict of interest (as mentioned above)) needs to be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript in the peer review system. This information will automatically be added to the Record of CrossMark, however it is not added to the manuscript itself. Under ‘summary of requirements’ (see below) funding information should be included in the ‘Declarations’ section.
Summary of requirements
The above should be summarized in a statement and included in a section entitled “Declarations” before the reference list. Other declarations include Funding, Conflicts of interest/competing interests, Ethics approval, Consent, Data and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements.
Should the information already be mentioned somewhere else in the manuscript, for example under Methods & Materials, please make sure to repeat that information on this page.
Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.
When all authors have the same (or no) conflicts and/or funding it is sufficient to use one blanket statement.
Provide “Funding” as a heading (see template) |
Partial financial support was received from [...] |
The research leading to these results received funding from […] under Grant Agreement No[…]. |
This study was funded by […] |
This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […] |
In case of no funding: |
The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. |
No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. |
No funding was received for conducting this study. |
No funds, grants, or other support was received. |
Provide “Conflicts of interest/Competing interests” as a header (see template) |
Financial interests: Author A has received research support from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company Wand owns stock in Company X. Author C is consultant to company Y. Non-financial interests: Author C is an unpaid member of committee Z. |
Financial interests: The authors declare they have no financial interests. Non-financial interests: Author A is on the board of directors of Y and receives no compensation as member of the board of directors. |
Financial interests: Author A received a speaking fee from Y for Z. Author B receives a salary from association X. X where s/he is the Executive Director. Non-financial interests: none. |
Financial interests: Author A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M and Company N. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company O. Author D has received travel support from Company O. Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M, Company N and Company O. |
When authors have nothing to declare the following statement may be used: |
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. |
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. |
All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. |
The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article. |
The authors are responsible for the correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.
Peer Review Policies
All submissions to the Journal of Current Health Sciences (JCHS) undergo a rigorous peer-review process to ensure the quality and validity of the published research. The journal operates a double-blind peer review process, meaning that the authors and the reviewers are anonymous. The review process is carried out by experts in the relevant fields of study, who evaluate the submitted manuscripts based on their scientific merit, originality, and relevance to the journal's scope.
- Initial evaluation: Upon receipt of a manuscript, the editorial board will conduct an initial evaluation to ensure that the manuscript meets the scope and focus of the journal and adheres to the publication conditions. Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements will be rejected without further review. The manuscript with a higher than 15% similarity will be rejected in this stage. The editorial office will check the article formatting and citation styles and adhere to the specified author guidelines. If the required conditions are unmet, the manuscript will be returned to the author for reformatting and resubmission. If the manuscript passes approval, it will be sent to reviewers.
- Assignment of reviewers: The editorial board will select at least two independent reviewers who are experts in the relevant field of study and have experience in the research area the manuscript covers. The reviewers will be blinded to the identity of the authors, and the authors will be blinded to the identity of the reviewers. The listing of the names of the authors, acknowledgments, and references to author contributions must be removed from the manuscript and posted in the Title page file. The assigned editor will then send invitations to reviewers. The invited reviewers are expected to be affiliated with differing institutions from those of the corresponding authors. Moreover, reviewers will consider the invitation according to their own scientific expertise, any potential conflicts of interest, and other relevant criteria. Our journal is committed to assigning reviewers within two weeks.
- Review process: The reviewers will evaluate the manuscript based on its scientific quality, originality, validity, and relevance to the field of study. The reviewers are usually given two weeks to review the research work. They will provide constructive feedback to the authors to help improve the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, rejection, or revision of the manuscript.
- Decision: The editor-in-chief will make the final decision on whether to accept, reject, or request a revision of the manuscript based on the feedback provided by the reviewers and the manuscript's adherence to the publication conditions. If the comments/responses of the reviewers differ significantly, the academic editor may invite an additional individual to review the manuscript before making the final decision. The academic editor will send a decision (with rejection, acceptance, or the need for major or minor revisions) to the author via the online system, along with any relevant comments submitted by the reviewers. As our journal adopts the double-blind, peer-review principle, all comments and suggestions remain anonymous. The average time from submission to the first decision will be 6 week, and from acceptance to publishing will be 2-4 month.
- Revision process: If the manuscript is accepted with revision, the authors will be asked to revise the manuscript based on the feedback provided by the reviewers and resubmit it for further review. Re-submitted material must include the revised manuscript with highlighted changes and a rebuttal letter. The author is usually given two weeks (for minor revisions) and four weeks (for major revisions) to revise the manuscript. The major revised manuscript will undergo a second round of review by the same reviewers, who will evaluate whether the revisions adequately address their feedback. For minor revisions, the subsequent review process may not be necessary.
- Publication: Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the authors will be asked to submit a final version of the manuscript, which will be copyedited and formatted for publication in the journal.
This peer review process will ensure that all manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Current Health Sciences are evaluated based on the highest standards of scientific integrity and ethical conduct and that only the highest quality research is published.
Citations
Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive self-citation, coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite, gratuitous and unnecessary citation of articles published in the journal to which the paper has been submitted, and any other form of citation manipulation are inappropriate.
Citation manipulation will result in the article being rejected, and may be reported to authors’ institutions. Similarly, any attempts by peer-reviewers or editors to encourage such practices should be reported by authors to the publisher.
Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript:
- Any statement in the manuscript that relies on external sources of information (i.e. not the authors' own new ideas or findings or general knowledge) should use a citation.
- Authors should avoid citing derivations of original work. For example, they should cite the original work rather than a review article that cites an original work.
- Authors should ensure that their citations are accurate (i.e. they should ensure the citation supports the statement made in their manuscript and should not misrepresent another work by citing it if it does not support the point the authors wish to make).
- Authors should not cite sources that they have not read.
- Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.
- Authors should avoid citing work solely from one country.
- Authors should not use an excessive number of citations to support one point.
- Ideally, authors should cite sources that have undergone peer review where possible.
- Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
Plagiarism Policies
Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
- Authors should make sure they have permission for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
- Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
- Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
- Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include the creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
- Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after the acceptance of a manuscript.
Papers submitted to the Journal of Current Health Sciences will be screened for plagiarism using CrossCheck/iThenticate plagiarism detection tools. Journal of Current Health Sciences will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.
Before submitting articles to reviewers, those are first checked for similarity/plagiarism tool, by a member of the editorial team. The papers submitted to the Journal of Current Health Sciences must have a similarity level of less than 20%.
Plagiarism is the exposure of another person’s thoughts or words as though they were your own, without permission, credit, or acknowledgement, or because of failing to cite the sources properly. Plagiarism can take diverse forms, from literal copying to paraphrasing the work of another. In order to properly judge whether an author has plagiarized, we emphasize the following possible situations:
- An author can literally copy another author’s work- by copying word by word, in whole or in part, without permission, acknowledge or citing the original source. This practice can be identified by comparing the original source and the manuscript/work that is suspected of plagiarism.
- Substantial copying implies an author reproduce a substantial part of another author, without permission, acknowledgement or citation. The substantial term can be understood both in terms of quality and quantity, being often used in the context of Intellectual property. Quality refers to the relative value of the copied text in proportion to the work as a whole.
- Paraphrasing involves taking ideas, words or phrases from a source and crafting them into new sentences within the writing. This practice becomes unethical when the author does not properly cite or does not acknowledge the original work/author. This form of plagiarism is the more difficult form to be identified.
Corrections and Retractions
Corrections and Retractions
If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the journals and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after an investigation, there are valid concerns, the authors concerned will be contacted under their given email address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the journal and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
- If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
- If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:
- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article.
- an editor’s note or editorial expression of concern may be placed with the article.
- or, in severe cases, retraction of the article may occur.
The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, editor’s note, editorial expression of concern, or retraction notice. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform watermarked “retracted” and the explanation is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
- The author’s institution may be informed.
- A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.
Removal of Published Content
In exceptional circumstances, the Journal of Current Health Sciences reserves the right to remove an article or other content from the Journal of Current Health Sciences’ online platforms. Such action may be taken when (i) Journal of Current Health Sciences has been advised that content is defamatory, infringes a third party’s intellectual property right, right to privacy, or another legal right, or is otherwise unlawful; (ii) a court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, requiring removal of such content; (iii) content, if acted upon, would pose an immediate and serious risk to health. Removal may be temporary or permanent. Bibliographic metadata (e.g. title and authors) will be retained and will be accompanied by a statement explaining why the content has been removed.
Ethical responsibilities of authors
Journal of Current Health Sciences is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining the integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:
The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one publication for simultaneous consideration. The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism). A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the number of submissions and submitted to various publications or to one publication over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’). The concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers. Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image-based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.
Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
Authors should make sure they have permission for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate). Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged. Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person. Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include the creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others). Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript. [See also Authorship principles. -> Link to other modules.]
Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.
*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.
If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author. If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction: an erratum/correction may be placed with the article an editorial expression of concern may be placed with the article or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur
The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, editorial expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
The author’s institution may be informed. A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.
Fundamental errors
Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.
Suggesting/excluding reviewers
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.
Informed consent
Informed consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is especially true concerning images of vulnerable people (e.g. minors, patients, refugees, etc) or the use of images in sensitive contexts. In many instances authors will need to secure written consent before including images.
Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics (such as facial features, fingerprint, writing style, voice pattern, DNA or other distinguishing characteristic) and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases. Detailed descriptions of individual participants, whether of their whole bodies or of body sections, may lead to disclosure of their identity. Under certain circumstances consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person.
Informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort meaning.
Exceptions where it is not necessary to obtain consent:
• Images such as x rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, brain scans, pathology slides unless there is a concern about identifying information in which case, authors should ensure that consent is obtained.
• Reuse of images: If images are being reused from prior publications, the Publisher will assume that the prior publication obtained the relevant information regarding consent. Authors should provide the appropriate attribution for republished images.
Consent and already available data and/or biologic material
Regardless of whether material is collected from living or dead patients, they (family or guardian if the deceased has not made a pre-mortem decision) must have given prior written consent. The aspect of confidentiality as well as any wishes from the deceased should be respected.
Data protection, confidentiality and privacy
When biological material is donated for or data is generated as part of a research project authors should ensure, as part of the informed consent procedure, that the participants are made aware what kind of (personal) data will be processed, how it will be used and for what purpose. In case of data acquired via a biobank/biorepository, it is possible they apply a broad consent which allows research participants to consent to a broad range of uses of their data and samples which is regarded by research ethics committees as specific enough to be considered “informed”. However, authors should always check the specific biobank/biorepository policies or any other type of data provider policies (in case of non-bio research) to be sure that this is the case.
Consent to participate
For all research involving human subjects, freely-given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.
In the case of articles describing human transplantation studies, authors must include a statement declaring that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners and must also name the institution(s)/clinic(s)/department(s) via which organs/tissues were obtained.
Consent to publish
Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in a journal article. Authors should make sure to also seek consent from individuals to publish their data prior to submitting their paper to a journal. This is in particular applicable to case studies.
Summary of requirements
The above should be summarized in a statement and included in a section entitled “Declarations” before the reference list. Other declarations include Funding, Conflicts of interest/competing interests, Ethics approval, Consent, Data and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements.
Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.
Provide “’Consent to participate” as a heading (see template) |
Sample statements consent to participate: |
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. |
Informed consent was obtained from legal guardians. |
Written informed consent was obtained from the parents. |
Verbal informed consent was obtained prior tothe interview. |
The patient has consented to the submission of the case report for submission to the journal. |
Provide “’Consent to publish” as a heading (see template) |
The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in Figure(s) 1a, 1b and 1c. |
The participant has consented to the submission of the case report to the journal. |
Patients signed informed consent regarding publishing their data and photographs. |
Sample statements if identifying information about participants is available in the article: |
Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article. |
If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.
The authors are responsible for the correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.
Images will be removed from the publication if authors have not obtained informed consent or the paper may be removed and replaced with a notice explaining the reason for removal.
Reference from Springer Nature with some adaptation and modifications for this journal