For editor:
The editor makes the final decision regarding all the content. Decisions may be made by issues unrelated to the quality of a manuscript, such as suitability for the journal. The editor can reject any article at any time before publication, including after acceptance if concerns arise about the integrity of the work.
- Reviewers' and authors' identities are kept confidential.
- The existence of a submitted manuscript is not revealed to anyone other than the reviewers and editorial staff.
For authors:
- Upon submission, by checking off predesigned statements, author(s) should certify that neither the submitted manuscript nor another one with substantially similar content under their authorship has been published in any language or being considered for publication elsewhere.
- Author(s) should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article
- Author(s) should guarantee that data are available and will be provided if anyone needs them.
- In the event that an author is added or removed from the list of authors, written acceptance, signed by author(s), must be submitted to the editorial office.
- Sources of financial support for the project should be acknowledged.
- If the study involves human beings, the author(s) must include a statement that the study was approved by the local ethical committee and that written informed consent was obtained from the study participants. For those who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. Also, the compliance of maintenance and care of experimental animals with National Institutes of Health guidelines for the human use of laboratory animals, should be declared in text.
- All relevant permissions to use unpublished observations of others must be obtained by the manuscript author(s) and stated in the text. The names of the original author(s) should be declared. Also, permission must be obtained to reproduce or adapt any figures or tables that have been published previously and declared in the legend/footnote.
- Author(s) should certify that their research study is in agreement with the regulations of their institution(s) and generally accepted guidelines governing such work; contains no violation of any existing copyright or other third party right; and is free of any obscene, indecent, libelous, or otherwise unlawful material.
With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and development of tools that can perform human-like tasks such as summarizing articles, writing essays, creating images, and preparing presentation drafts, authors of scholarly articles may find these tools helpful and plan to use them for preparing their manuscripts. However, they should note that these tools have important limitations. They may use phrases from previously distributed material verbatim and/or without proper referencing, thus generating plagiarized material. They may also make statements that are not true or dismiss views opposing the one expressed in the output.
Based on the WAME recommendations, AI tools cannot be listed as authors since they do not meet the authorship criteria as they cannot take responsibility for the integrity of the work, approve the manuscript’s final version, understand conflict of interest, or hold copyright. Yet, authors who have used these tools for preparing their manuscript should clearly introduce the tool they have used and how they have used it in the methods section of the manuscript. The authors should note that they are responsible for the content of their manuscript, including the parts produced by the AI tools. They should make sure that publication ethics are observed throughout the manuscript.
For reviewers:
- Reviewers are required to keep manuscripts and their information confidential.
- They must not use knowledge of the manuscript before its publication for their personal interests.
- The reviewers' comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.
- Reviewers should declare their conflicts of interest and decline review if a conflict exists. Knowing the author(s) must not affect their comments and decision.