The SMSJ follows the Core Practices and flowcharts regulated by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), to handle potential misconduct.
- Authorship and Contributorship: Authorship policies are elaborated, concerning conditions for eligibility.
The journal adheres to the ICMJE instructions for the definition of authorship, which is demonstrated in four parts in the following:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- 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.
Anyone assigned as author, should possess all of what has been mentioned above, the four criteria, at the same time.
Any contributor who does not happen to possess the criteria for authorship, should be mentioned in Acknowledgments section with their permission. In Acknowledgement section, any financial support, scientific or technical assistance, gifts, etc., should be acknowledged.
- Complaints and Appeals: The journal follows COPE flowcharts and guidelines for dealing with complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.
Our journal attempts to respond to complaints as quickly as it can. In case of displeasure, the editor-in-chief will take the correspondence responsibility via email.
- Conflicts of interest / Competing interests: The journal manages conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication. We encourage authors to let us know if any forms of conflict of interest exist, (financial, academic, personal, etc.) to minimize the risk of bias in the process.
It is recommended that authors fill out the following form:
ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
- Data and reproducibility: If you are considering submitting a clinical trial study as an author, you are required to register it. Also use of guidelines for reporting is mandatory.
- Data Fabrication/ data Falsification:
Data Fabrication refers to inventing data and reporting them in the research.
Data Falsification is the inappropriate manipulation of original data with the purpose to make it misleading, so that the research findings are not correctly represented.
This type of misconduct is strictly forbidden.
We encourage researchers intending to submit their RCTs to SMSJ, to have their data prepared. The journal reserves the right to ask for original findings at any time.
The SMSJ follows COPE’s flowcharts to manage potential misconduct.
- Suspect of Image Manipulation:
Modification applied to images may be deluding, particularly in scientific data and for researches. Nonetheless, it may be valid if applied with regard to terms mentioned in the following. Authors are required to mention where changes to images have been made. The Journal asks the authors for original images to identify any inappropriate manipulation.
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- Specific properties within an image may not be intensified, disguised, eliminated, introduced, or moved.
- Adjustments to contrast or brightness are admissible if applied to the image equally and entirely. In addition, adjustments should not manipulate the features within the image in a way that it becomes misleading compared to the original one.
The SMSJ follows COPE’s guidelines and flowcharts in case of suspected Image Manipulations.
- Copyright: If your manuscript includes some form of formerly published content or image, as an author you are accountable for providing the journal with attained permission from copyright holders. It is mandatory to provide the original permission in written form for any copyrighted part.
- Ethical oversight :
- Informed consent: All participants and patients participating in a study should be apprised fully about the potential effects or side effects of the drugs or substances used and interventions practiced. Informed consent should be in written form, taken from participants or their legal guardians. In addition, the informed consent statements should be discussed in more detail in “Methods & Materials†section. The journal may require the documentaries if necessary.
- Human & Animal Rights Statement: Anytime working with human subjects, or data or material relating to human beings, the Declaration of Helsinki should be taken into account and the projects should receive approval from a review body; such as institutional review board or ethics committee and a statement that the study was approved by the local ethical committee must be include.
If the research is being done on animals, researchers should consider Animal ethics and welfare guidelines. Authors are required to mention if their work was in accordance to standards for use of and working with laboratory animals.
- Intellectual property:
Authors who publish with SMSJ agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after the submission is accepted, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and more citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Plagiarism: The journal handles plagiarism according to COPE guidelines and flowcharts. Authors must pay attention to not include the exact same content in their manuscript from formerly published manuscripts or papers, unless it is quoted using quotation marks besides referencing. To investigate potential plagiarism, we use plagiarism checker software. If any plagiarism is found, authors will be requested to restate that part in their own words.
- Journal management: The SMSJ relies on Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for financial support, however, this journal features editorial freedom, and the manuscripts are judged based on quality, accuracy, and consistency with journal’s scope.
Our journal adheres to principles of Relationship Between Journal Editors-in-Chief and Owners, delineated by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
- Peer review processes: The journal manages possible complaints and conflicts of interest to peer review process regarding COPE guidelines and flowcharts.
- Post-publication discussions and corrections: The journal reserves the right to publish corrections to the former version of the manuscript, revise it, or retract the article even after publication. Post- publication discussion may be executed through Letter to Editor.
- Retraction Policy: Our journal takes measures in accordance to COPE flowcharts in case of retraction of article is considered.
