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[P1] 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.