Publishing and Editorial Policies
JHEOR closely follows standard publishing and editorial policies, including recommendations made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics.
JHEOR adheres to the highest standards concerning its editorial policies on publication ethics, scientific misconduct, consent and peer review criteria. Please see below for our policies on Peer Review, Confidentiality, Conflicts of Interest, Data Sharing, Plagiarism, and Human Rights.
Peer Review
All authors and reviewers should read our Peer Review Policy before submitting an article or a review. Any article published on JHEOR will have been reviewed through a double-blind peer review process. This means that both the identities of the author and the reviewer will be concealed from each other until the manuscript is cleared for publication. We use a double-blind review process in order to prevent the reviewer and author from forming any biases on either side. Furthermore, a double-blind review process maintains focus on the manuscript itself.
Once a manuscript is submitted to JHEOR, the editorial board will send the manuscript out for review. JHEOR will consider reviewers suggested by the author(s) of the manuscript for review but reserves the right to assign the manuscript to be reviewed by whomever they see fit. The manuscript will then be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether or not it duplicates other published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently cleared for publication. Reviewers are also expected to provide their recommendation for whether or not the content of the manuscript is relevant to JHEOR as a whole as well as make an evaluation on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions.
As stated in our Submission Guidelines, we require that the author(s) of the manuscript declare any conflicts of interest (which could be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious in nature) so that editors can assess these and factor them into their decisions. Reviewers are equally as expected to refer to the JHEOR editorial board with any conflicts of interest prior to accepting to review a manuscript. Additionally, reviewers should not accept to review a manuscript simply to read it without intending to write a review.
All reviewers are expected to provide fair, honest, and unbiased feedback to the author(s) of the manuscript within the agreed upon timeframe. Reviewers are expected to be as specific as possible, to provide supporting evidence, and to be as professional and appropriate as possible. Reviews should be civil and constructive, and editors reserve the right to edit or remove any comments felt to be inappropriate.
Note: The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision after considering reviewer feedback. The Editor-in-Chief may recommend the authors revise and resubmit the paper based on reviewer feedback.
Preprints
A preprint is a version of a research manuscript prior to formal peer review at a journal, that has been deposited on a public server. Preprints allow authors to make their findings available to their professional community and can allow feedback on draft versions prior to submission to a journal for formal publication. Preprints are not considered prior publication for purposes of consideration by JHEOR.
Authors should disclose details of preprint posting, including DOI and licensing terms, upon submission of the manuscript. When the preprint is published, the author is responsible for ensuring that the preprint record is updated with a publication reference, inclding the DOI and URL link to the published version of the article on the JHEOR website.
Confidentiality
The manuscripts that authors submit to JHEOR are the author’s confidential property. All manuscripts submitted to JHEOR are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by the disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details prior to publication.
JHEOR prohibits editors from sharing information about manuscripts, including their content and status within the review process, criticism by reviewers, and any other pertinent details about the manuscript with anyone other than the other editors, authors, and reviewers. JHEOR will do its best to maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, including requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings.
Additionally, reviewers are also prohibited from sharing confidential information with anyone who is not an author of the manuscript or part of the editorial board. Reviewers are expected to keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential during the review process. Reviewers and editorial staff members must not publicly discuss the author’s work, and reviewers must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. JHEOR expects reviewers not to retain copies of the manuscript for their personal use and to delete or destroy copies of the manuscript after submitting their reviews.
Because JHEOR uses a double-blind review process, the identities of the authors and the reviewers will at no point be revealed to the other party throughout the review process.
JHEOR reserves the right to breach confidentiality only in the serious case that dishonesty, plagiarism, or fraud is alleged. JHEOR will notify authors and reviewers if they intend to do so. In any other case, confidentiality must be honored by the editorial board of the publication as well as any and all associated parties.
Conflicts of Interest
According to the ICMJE uniform declaration of competing interests, authors should disclose four types of potential conflicts of interest:
- Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript
- Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript
- Any similar financial associations involving their spouse or their children under 18 years of age
- Non-financial associations that may be relevant to the submitted manuscript
JHEOR believes that in order to make the best decisions for the publication and the manuscript, the journal editor should know about any competing interests that authors may have. Competing interests will be published along with the paper. While a competing interest is not inherently unethical, it should be acknowledged and openly stated. Authors must complete and sign a declaration of competing interests upon the submission of their manuscript. They are also encouraged to list any and all competing interests in the cover letter accompanying their submission.
Data-Sharing
JHEOR encourages authors to make the data generated by research openly and publicly available upon the publication of their manuscript, wherever legally and ethically possible. We encourage authors to submit as much data as possible, but at least the minimum data required to reproduce the results presented in the article.
Data should not be shared in any way that could compromise participant anonymity or privacy, and data should not be shared if that would require the authors to break any laws or licensing agreements.
Plagiarism
JHEOR takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as one’s own original work. Self-plagiarism is the reuse of significant, identical or near-identical portions of one’s own work without citing the original. Unacknowledged use of AI-generated text is also considered plagiarism (see AI and Computer-Generated Content below).
JHEOR screens each manuscript upon submission using plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate and Similarity Check, which is offered through CrossRef and is powered by iThenticate. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, it is screened a second time to ensure there are no instances of plagiarism.
Where an article is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the article is contested, JHEOR reserves the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of the department or dean of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action. JHEOR’s Editorial Board will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism. The name of the author(s) committing plagiarism will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals.
Additionally, JHEOR seeks to protect the rights of our authors and will investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles.
Human Rights
Our policy is to ensure that all articles published by JHEOR are ethically acceptable. JHEOR expects authors to follow the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013. All authors are expected to have received approval to conduct research from an independent, local, regional, or national review body (e.g. ethics committee or institutional review board). Papers describing investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, in accordance with all applicable regulations, and that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the study were explained.
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, such as names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in any article published by JHEOR. Additionally, nonessential details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt about the anonymity of the subjects.
AI and Computer-Generated Content
Text, figures, images, or graphics generated from AI, machine learning, or other algorithmic programs cannot be used in original works submitted to JHEOR. Further, the journal prohibits AI coauthorship. AI-generated text is deemed reproduced material and must be cited as such, including:
- the prompt
- the AI tool and the version used
- the company that developed the tool
- the date the content was generated
- the general URL for the tool
This policy is consistent with our license agreement, which requires that papers be the original work of the authors, who assume full accountability for the integrity of the work.
Advertising
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