Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Originality
The JDUHS only consider work that has not already been reported in a published paper or described in a paper sent or accepted elsewhere for publication. However, a complete report following the publication of a preliminary report, usually in the form of an abstract, or a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting, if not published in full in a proceeding or similar publication, may be submitted. Although the editors and reviewers make every effort to reconfirm the originality and validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal, its editors.
Ethical approval
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The submission of ethical/institutional approval letter is a mandatory requirement. The approval letter must contain the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate. Moreover, a statement including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number must also be mentioned in the manuscript. An example is shown below:
- The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Dow University of Health Sciences (approval No. 2019001).
If a study was granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Further information and documentation to support this should be made available to the Editor on request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, the Editor may contact the given ethics committee for further information. In addition, the journal will not be approved studies without IRB approval or the manuscript with post-study IRB approval. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.
Clinical Trials Registration must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions and trial registration number must be included in the manuscript and Authorship form.
Patient anonymity and informed consent
It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's anonymity is carefully protected. Authors must verify that any investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent or with an exemption approved by the appropriate ethics board.
Authors must obtain written consent from people shown in pictures and submit written consent with the manuscript. To further protect anonymity, consider masking eyes. Names of the patient should be removed from any figures or photographs. The personal identification of the participant and the institution from the pictures should be removed before submission to the journal.
It is the responsibility of the authors to take and report consent to participate in research involving human subjects. The informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18 years of age) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. Special consent for vulnerable populations like prisoners, insane, internally displaced persons should be obtained with permissions from legal custodians or state.
Protection of Animals in Research
Research involving animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions or licenses must be included in the manuscript.
Conflict of interest and the author’s contributor form
Each author must complete and submit the journal’s conflict of interest and author’s contributor form at the time of submission of the manuscript, which includes disclosure of potential conflicts of interest-based on the recommendations of the ICMJE www.icmje.org/update.html. Note that it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to make sure that all the co-authors have contributed substantively.
Editorial policy and process
The JDUHS strictly follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Submission of a manuscript to the JDUHS implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.
Peer-review policy
All manuscripts will be initially reviewed by the in-house member of the journal to check its similarity index, compliance with the journal guidelines, and ethical considerations.
The JDUHS follows a double-blind peer review policy, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. To facilitate this, please include the title page (with author details) separately.
At least three independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, scientific validity, and significance to community/society/literature.
Although, the journal of Dow University of Health Sciences does utmost effort to ensure a speedy and fair review. Author(s) is also advised to submit the revised version within 6 weeks of the authors being notified to avoid any delay in the review process. In case of delay, a notification will be sent to the author for the final decision process.
Authors may suggest potential peer reviewers for their manuscript. For this purpose, authors should provide the institutional email address and expertise of the reviewer in the relevant field. However, it is not obligatory that the journal would send the articles to those reviewers for peer review.
Note that the suggested peer reviewer must not be from the same institution/research group as the author, and they must not have published together. Providing falsifying information, intentionally or unintentionally, will result in not only the rejection of the manuscript but may lead to further investigation in line with the journal misconduct policy.
Advertising policy
JDUHS has a strict policy on advertisements and sponsored publications. The author should ensure that the advertisement complies with the rules and regulations of marketing and sales of the product being advertised. The decision to publish a manuscript does not depend upon monetary or commercial interests. The articles promoting injurious or hazardous products will not be accepted. Any article advertising a product that is considered inappropriate by the standards of the journal or advertising any pharmaceutical product will be declined.
Open access policy
The JDUHS is an open-access journal i.e., all articles published in Journal of the Dow University of Health Sciences will be freely accessible for all scholars via our website www.jduhs.com.
Articles published in the Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium; provided the original work is properly cited and initial publication in this journal.
Plagiarism Policy
All manuscripts submitted to the JDUHS are subject to screening using the Turnitin Software for textual similarity to other previously published works.
The JDUHS only accepts the manuscript with a similarity index of less than 19% with no single source of more than 5%. All manuscripts irrespective of their originality will not be considered for publication if the similarity index report is unsatisfactory. However, the editor may send the plagiarism report to the corresponding author and give a chance to revise the manuscript to make it suitable for consideration. Moreover, the journal also discourages self-plagiarism.
Misconduct Policies
The JDUHS follows the recommendation of COPE and ICMJE regarding ethical policies and dealing with misconduct like falsifying data, plagiarising others' works, breach of confidentiality, and dishonesty in suggesting referring reviewers. In all cases, the author or reviewer will be contacted directly. Furthermore, the journal may speak directly to the author's or reviewer's institution or other appropriate organization if severe misconduct is suspected.
Note that if any misconduct is suspected during the review process the manuscript will be held until any concerns have been resolved. Furthermore, the article will be retracted if misconduct is proved after publication.
ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA
To correct errors in published articles, the corresponding author should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with a detailed description of the proposed correction. Corrections that profoundly affect the article’s interpretation or conclusions will be reviewed by the editors. Corrections will be published as corrigenda (corrections of author’s errors) or errata (corrections of publisher’s errors) in a later issue of the journal.
