Editorial
Policies
Outline
The Journal of Multidisciplinary Care approves the
guidelines of the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE),
the World Association of Medical Editors policies (WAME), and the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations
for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in
Medical Journals.
Authorship
As stated in the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations,
credit for authorship requires:
1.
Substantial contributions to the
conception and design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the
data,
2.
The drafting of the article or
critical revision for important intellectual content;
3.
Final approval of the version to
be published;
4.
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 article are appropriately investigated and
resolved.
Authorship credit
should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the four
components mentioned above. Those who do not meet all four criteria
should be acknowledged.
Participation
solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify
authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for
authorship.
The order of
naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the
contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the
order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors.
In addition, any changes must be
explained to the Editor/Editor-in-Chief.
In line with COPE guidelines, our journal requires written confirmation
from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of
submission(s) or published item(s). This approval must be via direct email from
each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all
authors agree with the suggested changes. It is not the journal editor’s
responsibility to resolve authorship disputes. A change in authorship of a
published article can only be amended via publication of an Erratum or
Correction.
Authors
should follow "the international standards
for authors" recommended by COPE.
The Journal of Multidisciplinary Care Authorship
Standards
To respect the
authorship right of authors and uphold scientific honesty, the authorship of the Journal of Multidisciplinary Care should be compiled as follows:
1. Author names
should not be added, removed, or changed in the order after submitting the
manuscript.
2. Each article
could have one corresponding author.
3. Authors are not
recommended to be co-first authors. Authors in the same institution could not
be the co-first authors.
Note. The Journal of Multidisciplinary Care reserves the right of final
explanations to the Authorship standards.
Clinical Trial Registry
Based on the ICMJE recommendations
a clinical trial is defined as “any research project that prospectively assigns
people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent
comparison or control groups, to study the cause-and-effect, relationship
between a health-related intervention and a health outcome.” In agreement
with the ICMJE’s recommendations, The Journal of
Multidisciplinary Care would consider publishing clinical
trials that have been registered with a clinical trial registry that allows
free online access to the public. As per our policy, registration of
all trials in a public registry approved by the
ICJME -- a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry
Platform available from the following link:
www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/index.html.
Research
Reporting Guidelines
Authors are
encouraged to use the EQUATOR Network reporting
guidelines for the study type:
·
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs): CONSORT guidelines
·
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines
and MOOSE guidelines
·
Observational studies in epidemiology: STROBE guidelines
and MOOSE guidelines
·
Diagnostic accuracy studies: STARD guidelines
·
Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE guidelines
·
Case reports guidelines: CARE guidelines
Withdrawal, Corrections, and
Retractions policies
As a follower of
the COPE, the Journal of Multidisciplinary Care adheres
to the “Code of Conduct” the “Best Practice Guidelines” and "Principles
of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing".
Withdrawal
Withdrawal is an action that takes
the manuscript out of the review process and places it back into the author’s
dashboard. In general, we do not suggest article withdrawal, since it wastes
valuable manuscript processing time, money, and works invested by the publisher.
Withdrawal Steps
·
Pre-Review is a period that an author(s)
submit(s) her/his article until it is sent for review.
·
Peer-Review: this is a period the manuscript is submitted
completely to the website and included in the review process.
·
Final Decision: this is a period from the acceptance
of an article until it is sent for publication if the article meets the journal
standards.
·
Pre-Publication: when a paper is accepted for
publication or published as an “ahead of print (In Press)” paper but has no volume/issue/page number.
·
Post-Publication: when a paper is published and
placed in a volume/issue with the page number.
Policies
·
Pre-Review: The author(s) can withdraw their
papers at this step without posting compelling
reasons.
·
Peer-Review, Final Decision, and
Pre-Publication: The authors
should have compelling reasons in order to withdraw their papers.
·
Post-Publication: Withdrawing at this step is not
possible at all.
When a withdrawal occurs, our publisher will
remove the article content (HTML and PDF) and replace it with an HTML page
describing that the article has been withdrawn according to the Publisher’s
policies.
See COPE Cases for details.
Correction
Journal of Multidisciplinary Care will consider the publication of a
correction when a mistake may jeopardize the conclusions of an article or
contains incorrect information regarding the metadata of an article such as author
names, affiliations, title, etc) but does not undermine the validity of the
findings. A note linking to the correction will be placed on the original
article page.
Redundant
publication
Duplicate or redundant
submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to
different journals at the same time. In such a case, we will follow the COPE guidelines.
Note: ICMJE recommends that translations are
acceptable but MUST reference the original. Based on our policy, translations
of the original article can be considered as an online supplementary file. Editors
may consider publishing a correction rather than a retraction/notice of
duplicate publication in such cases.
Retraction
In
keeping with COPE's Retraction Guidelines, a retraction will
be considered by our editors if:
- It has clear evidence indicating the results are
unreliable, either because of major errors (eg, miscalculation or
experimental error, data fabrication, image manipulation, …)
- It has plagiarism.
- The findings have previously been published elsewhere
without proper citation to previous sources, permission to reproduce, or
justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
- There is a copyright infringement or other legal
issues
- It reports unethical research
- It has been published solely on the basis of a
compromised or manipulated peer review process
- The author(s) failed to declare a major
conflict of interest
Authors or editors
of the journal may retract a paper. However, the final decision is made by the
editors for retracting the material. If none of the authors will approve publishing
a retraction, the editor/s may request such a retraction from the investigating
institution, or the editor may ask for a retraction on behalf of the journal. In each
condition, the editor should inform the author(s) or institution affiliated with
the author(s) for publishing a retraction.
- Note: After publishing a retraction, the HTML version of the
document will be removed from the site. Additionally, The PDF file of the
article is retained unchanged; only a watermark showing the “retracted” label is
placed on each page of the PDF. Finally, a
link is made to the original article.
Plagiarism
Journal of Multidisciplinary Care is powered by the iThenticate
software, a plagiarism detector service that considers the originality of
content submitted before publication. When plagiarism is identified, we act
based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE.
Plagiarism contains, but is not
limited to:
·
Directly copying text from other
sources
·
Using an idea from another source
with a little altered language
·
Copying ideas, images, or materials/data
from other sources
·
Reusing text from your previous
publications
Plagiarism Policies
·
If plagiarism is identified during
the peer review stage, the manuscript may be rejected.
·
If plagiarism is identified after the publication of the article, we reserve the right to request a correction or
retract the paper based on COPE guidelines.
Ethical Policies
Journal of Multidisciplinary Care expects the highest ethical
standards from its authors, reviewers, and editors when conducting research,
submitting papers, and throughout the peer-review process.
Journal of Multidisciplinary Care adheres to the
policies of the Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE), World
Association of Medical Editors (WAME),
and International Committee of
Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations
Thus, The Journal of Multidisciplinary Care expects all authors, reviewers and editors to consider COPE, ICMJE and Equator Network’s reporting guidelines in scientific writing.
Human and animal ethics
Authors reporting experimental
studies on human subjects must include an ethical approval statement on the Title
page indicating (a) informed consent was taken from all patients enrolled
in the study and (b) the study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of
the 1975 Declaration of
Helsinki as reflected in a priori approval by the institution's human
research committee. For protecting the safety of individuals who participate
in the study, academic and funding organizations
require any study including human
participants be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) or ethics
review committee. In studies involving animal experimentations, all criteria highlighted
in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory
Animals" should be addressed.
Patient Consent
The protection of a patient's
right in a scientific publication is essential. Any article submitted to the
journal including personal medical material about an identifiable living
individual needs the patient’s consent before it can be published. Therefore, all participants
are required to sign an informed consent form after reading the study’s information
sheet. Before signing a consent form, the purpose of all procedures and their
possible harms must be completely clarified to all patients who participate in
the study. Participants should voluntarily agree to such participation. Nevertheless,
informed consent forms should be sent online for advance review.
If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be
traced in a study, then publication will be possible only if the information
can be sufficiently anonymized. Anonymization means that neither the person nor
anyone else could identify the individual with certainty.
If the patient is dead the authors should track permission from
a relative. If the relatives are not contactable, the journals will balance the
worthwhileness of the case, the likelihood of identification, and the
likelihood of an illegal act in the decision to publish a
submitted paper.
Images—such as x-rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images,
pathology slides, or images of undistinctive parts of the body—may be used without
consent so long as they are anonymized by the removal of any identifying marks
and are not accompanied by text that could reveal the patients’ personal characteristics.
Competing Interest Statement
In medical publications, a conflict of
interest (COI) happens when an author has financial or other relationships
influencing the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. COI may occur in various forms such
as financial ties, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or
religious beliefs, and institutional affiliations. In managing COI, The JMDC abides by the policy
statement of the WAME. All authors should declare their COI, if any, during the
manuscript submission. Additionally, reviewers and editors are requested to announce
their COI when they agree to take a manuscript for reviewing and handling,
respectively. Reviewers and Editors with COI will be excepted from the
manuscript process. All authors must declare all competing interests on their title
page. Further information can be found at the following links:
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests and the World Association of Medical
http://wame.org/wame-editorial-on-conflict-of-interest
Peer Review Process
All submissions to the journal go
through a Double-Blind Peer-Review Process. A peer review system including two or three reviewers is applied
to guarantee the quality of manuscripts accepted for publication. Our Editors have the right to decline the review process of the
manuscript when the manuscript: (a) focused on a subject outside the aim and scope
of the Journal, (b) has technical errors, (c) has no novelty, and is written in
poor English.
This review consists of the following steps:
1. At the first stage, an internal staff checks the format and style of the manuscript
to assure that it is suitable to go through the normal peer-review process. If
authors have not considered the guides, the manuscript will be sent back to the authors for compatibility.
2. Submissions are then assigned to
an Editor for evaluation.
3. The Editor decides whether
reviews from additional experts are needed to evaluate the manuscript. The
majority of submissions are evaluated by two external reviewers, but it is up
to the Editor to determine the number of reviews.
4. After evaluation, the Editor
chooses between the following decisions:
·
Accept
·
Minor Revision
·
Major Revision
·
Reject
If the decision is Minor
Revision or Major Revision, authors have 40 days to resubmit the
revised manuscript. Authors may contact email addresses if they require an
extension. Upon resubmission, the Editor may choose to send the
manuscript back to external reviewers or may make a decision based on
personal expertise. Finally, Managing Editor receives the reviewers’ comments and sends them along with the decision letter to the corresponding author. The final decision on each manuscript will
be made by the Editor-in-Chief.
Duties of Editors
Publication decisions
The editors of the Journal are responsible for deciding which of the articles
submitted to the journal should be published. They are guided by the policies
of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as
shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and
plagiarism. They actively work to improve the quality of the journal.
Fair play
The editor evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard
to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin,
citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Confidentiality
The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a
submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers,
potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as
appropriate.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial
Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and the
editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in
improving the paper.
Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a
manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify
the.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.
They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the
editor.
Editorial Freedom at the Journal of Multidisciplinary Care
The Journal of Multidisciplinary Care adheres to the World Association of Medical Editors
(WAME) Policy on “The Relationship between Journal
Editors-in-Chief and Owners”. More specifically, the Editor-in-Chief has editorial
independence and as such has full authority over the journal’s editorial
content including how and when information is published. Editorial decisions
are based solely on the validity of the work and its importance to readers, not
on the policies or commercial interests of the owner. The JMDC is the official
journal of the Shahrekord University of Medical
Sciences. Neither the Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences nor other organizations interfere in the evaluation, selection, or editing of individual articles, either directly or by creating an
environment in which editorial decisions are influenced.
CrossMark Policy
CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard
method for readers to find the current version of a piece of content. By
applying the CrossMark logo, our journal is committing to maintaining the content and to notifying
readers of changes if and when they occur.
All articles have the CrossMark logo in PDF or HTM files. Clicking
on the CrossMark logo at the top of each article in PDF and HTML files will
indicate the current status of a document and may also give additional
information about the document.
For more details on CrossMark, please refer to the CrossMark website
at the following link:
https://www.crossref.org/services/crossmark/.
Editorial Board Policy
The selection of the Editorial/Advisory Board is a vital stage. We choose
our editors in keeping with the quantity and the quality of published articles,
citation of their works together with the "H-index". Journal of Multidisciplinary Care follows “the COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal
Editors” regarding the selection of them.
Editor-in-Chief/Deputy Editor-in-Chief
S/he is the lead editor playing a vital role to guarantee the integrity and quality of the content of the submitted manuscript. EIC must have at
least a Ph.D./MD degree to be able to lead the publication process. Based on the Scopus
database, the minimum h-index for the Editor-in-Chief is 14. S/he has some
responsibilities as follows:
·
Making an
overall plan for improving the quality of the content regarding submitted
manuscripts
·
Reviewing
and making the final decision for the submitted manuscripts
·
Identifying
qualified editorial board members who can contribute to the progress and
management of the journal
- Handling meetings in order to interact
with all the members of the Editorial Board regarding code conducts,
standards, and new policies of the Journal.
Associate Editors
Associate editors are
responsible for the peer-review process and ensuring the publication of high-quality
papers. They would help the lead editor in terms of different aspects
related to the works of publication and the peer-review process.
Editorial Board Members
The Editorial
Board Members must be familiar with the
peer-review process, publication ethics, and code of conduct as well as
standards for high-quality publications. Academic
merit/competency and having a high H-index are two main top factors for selecting
editorial board members.
Publication Charge
This journal
is a platinum open access. Therefore, there is no publication fee in this
journal. The publication of this journal is financially supported by Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences.
Article Sharing Guidelines
The
following points highlight our policies regarding manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Multidisciplinary Care:
1- Submitted version of the article: The authors
submitting articles to the Journal of Multidisciplinary
Care are banned from the publication of the submitted data (except for
registries required for clinical trials) in an open repository before its
acceptance.
2-
Accepted version of the article: The authors can deposit their manuscript in open
repositories after acceptance in the journal process without any embargo
policy.
3-
Final version of the article (PDF format): We encourage authors to share the final
PDF version of their article in open repositories.
Advertising Policy
At
present, the Journal of Multidisciplinary Care does
not publish any advertisements.