Guidelines on Ethical Conduct and Publication

Guidelines on Ethical Conduct and Publication

These guidelines are intended as a reference for authors and reviewers. JCMS endeavors to maintain the highest ethical standards for the articles it publishes. To do so, the journal follows established international standards and guidelines on the conduct and publication of research, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/files/u7141/1999pdf13.pdf).

JCMS considers these guidelines as necessary to provide authors with clear and easily accessible information on the important ethical issues to ensure that their papers are ethically compliant.－

Publication Ethics

  1. Journal Policies on Authorship and Contributorship

JCMS follows the ICMJE recommendations on authorship credits, which aim to ensure that only those who have made material contribution to the research are named as authors. These require that all four of the following criteria be met to be considered an author:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content

Final approval of the version to be published

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.

Every person who meets all four criteria should be identified as an author. Those who meet some but not all of these criteria should be included in an acknowledgement. It should be noted that data collection, laboratory testing, data management, acquisition of funds, provision of support for the study, etc. do not qualify (on their own) an individual for being included as an author.

JCMS expects papers submitted to be original and not already published, accepted for publication, or currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must affirm this and disclose any papers that overlap with the submitted paper, including paper(s) published in other languages, although translation may occasionally be considered with the agreement of the other journal.

If any change (additions, deletions, changes of order to the authors, or contributions attributed differently) arises in authorship and/or contributorship after the initial submission or when the article is under review process, a formal approval from all authors must be submitted to the Chief Editor.

When disagreements among authors arise, JCMS follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts.

  1. Journal Policies on Complaints and Appeals

2.1 Appealing the Editorial Decision

If the author believes the decision to reject the submission by the editor or the reviewer was not in accordance with journal policy and procedures, the author may appeal the decision by providing the editor with a detailed point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments. The editor will revisit the peer review process undertaken for the submission. If the decision was made in line with editorial criteria, the decision to reject is final. If the author is dissatisfied with the way the editor has handled their appeal, they may contact at jcms@journals.uol.edu.pk

2.2 Appealing Corrective Action taken Post Publication

If concerns are raised on a published article, the Editor, in line with guidance published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including “retraction guidelines” will determine whether a published article needs to be retracted or not. As referenced in the authorship agreement, the journal reserve the right to take corrective action as they deem necessary in the interest of their responsibility for maintaining a transparent and accurate academic record.

2.3 General Concerns or Complaints

Any author wishing to raise a concern or make a complaint about any aspect of being published in a journal, should email at jcms@journals.uol.edu.pk. Our managing editor will then lead the investigation following COPE guidelines. The investigation will establish whether the correct procedures have been followed and assess whether the author’s concerns have been addressed fairly and without prejudice. JCMS will review the paper’s peer review history and any correspondence between the author, editor, and reviewers. The author will be informed of the outcome in writing.

  1. Journal Policies on Conflicts of Interest / Competing Interests

Any conflict of interest should be declared by all authors. This may include grants or honorarium, credits and promotions, memberships or any personal or professional relationships which may appear to influence the manuscript. Such competing interests are not unethical but should be declared.

Authors should state the conflict of interest clearly in the submission form. This statement should also appear at the end of the text before the references. If there are no conflicts of interests, the authors should state, “none to declare.”

  1. Journal Policies on Data Sharing and Reproducibility

This policy applies to research data that may be required to confirm the validity of research results in materials published by JCMS. Research data includes information obtained directly by the authors ("primary data"), as well as data from other sources analyzed by the authors during the study ("secondary data").

Research data can come in many formats, including data or materials that underlie the answer to a research question and can be used to confirm the results regardless of their form. This can be quantitative information or qualitative statements collected by researchers during their work through experiments, observations, modelling, interviews or other methods. Research data includes tabular data, code, images, documents, maps, and processed and/or raw data.

  1. Journal’s Policy on Ethical Oversight

Per the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices.

For studies involving human or animal subjects, JCMS requires that information about appropriate institutional review board approval be included with the submission or described within the article. For research involving human subjects, authors should explain how informed consent was obtained from all participants.  Informed consent should be obtained if there is any reasonable possibility that complete anonymity cannot be maintained. The privacy of human subjects should never be violated without prior informed consent. Identifying information should be excluded from the study data unless the information is essential for the study purposes and the subject (or their legal representative has given prior written informed consent. However, subject information should never be falsified or modified. When informed consent has been given by the subjects, it should be included in the article.

Ethical Authorship Policy for Single-Center and Multi-Center Studies

Single-Center Studies: For studies conducted at a single institution, all listed authors must be affiliated with the institution where the research was carried out.

Multi-Center Studies: In the case of studies conducted across multiple institutions, each participating institution must have its own separate ethical consent approval, with distinct ethical consent letter numbers corresponding to their involvement.

  1. Journal’s Policy on Intellectual Property

JCMS requires authors to make their article open access under one of the Creative Commons Licenses in order to meet the terms of open access publication and ensure the widest possible dissemination. The standard under which all articles are published is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).

  1. Journal’s Options for Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

JCMS is committed to maintaining the integrity and accuracy of published research. This policy outlines the procedures for facilitating post-publication discussions and corrections to address errors, clarify information, or engage in scholarly discourse after an article has been published. JCMS encourages constructive post-publication discussions among authors, readers, and the research community to foster dialogue and exchange of ideas. Authors, readers, and other stakeholders are invited to submit comments, questions, or critiques regarding published articles to the JCMS Editorial Office.

7.1 Corrections and Errata

Authors are responsible for promptly notifying the JCMS Editorial Office of any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions discovered in their published work. Corrections and clarifications will be considered for publication as errata, which will be linked to the original article to ensure transparency and accessibility. Corrections should be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office, clearly indicating the nature of the error and providing the corrected information.

7.2 Editorial Review

All requests for corrections and errata will be reviewed by the editorial team to assess the validity and significance of the proposed changes. Corrections deemed necessary for maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record will be published promptly. In cases of serious errors, ethical breaches, or irreproducibility of results, JCMS reserves the right to retract published articles. Retractions will be issued following a thorough investigation and deliberation by the editorial board, in accordance with COPE guidelines and other relevant standards. Retracted articles will be clearly marked as such on the journal's website, and the reasons for retraction will be provided.

  1. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

The Publishers and the editors of JCMS take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including but not limited to plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In this context the Publisher and Editors of the journal use the COPE guidelines of sharing of information among editorial team regarding possible misconduct, guidelines in good publication practice approved by COPE, and CSE’s white Paper on promoting Integrity in scientific journal publications. In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations.

We expect that the authors of the papers submitted to the journal will follow the principles of research integrity: honesty in all aspects of research; scrupulous care, thoroughness and excellence in research practice; transparency and open communication; care and respect for all participants in and subjects of research; accountability both for one’s own research integrity and that of others.

  1. Scientific Misconduct

JCMS takes any allegation or evidence of scientific misconduct seriously. Examples of scientific misconduct include:

Violation of Ethical Research Standards: failing to adhere to standards for research involving humans and animals.

Fabrication and falsification of data and abuse of accepted research practices such as making up data, deliberately suppressing and/or altering data, and manipulating experiments/analysis to obtain desired results.

Plagiarism: using the published language or ideas of others without appropriate acknowledgment of the source and representing such ideas as one’s own. When referring to the published ideas/opinions of others, full referencing is expected. Brief quoted statements could be acceptable if good justification is provided and such statements are placed within inverted commas.

Duplicate Publication: this refers to the publication of a paper by at least one of the authors that overlaps substantially with another one already published, without clear reference to the previous publication. Duplicate publication is considered unethical particularly for original research because it can lead to double-counting of data and inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study.

Impropriety of authorship: this refers to improperly assigning authorship credit either by inclusion (“guest” authorship) or exclusion (“ghost” authorship).

Authors may appeal decisions on their papers if they believe there is good reason for an appeal. Such appeals will be carefully considered by the editorial team.

  1. Participant Confidentiality and Respect

Manuscripts should be prepared in such a way that they preserve participants’ confidentiality. Authors are expected to obtain an individual’s explicit consent for the use of any personal or medical information that may make the participant identifiable and must ensure the dignity and respect of the participants and their communities in their manuscript.

  1. Website: Our website, reflective of our commitment to high ethical and professional standards, ensures clarity and accuracy without any misleading information. JCMS maintains originality and distinctiveness, avoiding resemblance to other journals or publishers. You'll find a clear 'Aims & Scope' statement on the webpage, defining our readership and what we consider for publication, along with our authorship criteria. ISSNs are prominently displayed for both print and electronic formats.
  2. Funding

JCMS requires authors to state all sources of funding for their study.

  1. Clinical Trials Registration

JCMS requires registration of clinical trials in national trials registry before undertaking the trial, as a condition of consideration for publication.