Publication Ethics and Research Misconduct

Publication ethics

• Author must confirm that, their work was performed with respect to the Declaration of Helsinki principles of research conduct and reporting (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/), and a formal review and acceptance by an appropriate institutional research and ethics review board is recommended (The number and date of approval must be provided within the methods section of the manuscript).
• When reporting animal experiments, authors should confirm that, their work is in line with the national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals, or with other similar recommendations (e.g., “the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare (http://www.veteditors.org/consensus-author-guidelines-on-animal-ethics-and-welfare-for-editors)).
• Consent: In clinical trials, an informed written consent must be signed by the patient or his/her guardian and the research must be compliant with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (icmje.org). Authors required to forward a copy of consent or sign a certificate letter about the process of consenting.  
• Confidentiality is respected and be guaranteed. It is the sole responsibility of the authors to ensure that, patients' data or any data referring to his/her identity will not be violated in any section of their manuscript (including figures).
• Plagiarism Prevention: Plagiarism is an offence that strictly prohibited, and by submitting the article for publication, the authors agree that the publishers have the right to take appropriate action if plagiarism is discovered. SJMS uses a plagiarism detection software (e.g., iThenticate) to check for instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. SJMS permits an overall similarity index of ≤ 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. Articles with higher percentages of plagiarism may be rejected directly or returned to the authors to correct the problem.
• Research Misconduct: Scientific misconduct in research includes but is not limited to data fabrication; data falsification, including different image manipulation; and plagiarism. Each case of research misconduct will be treated individually and decisions will be built on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). Cases also may be submitted – anonymously – to be discussed in COPE forums.
• All cases of misconduct allegations, authorship disputes, or suspicion manuscript manipulations (e.g., paper mills) will be discussed seriously and anonymously by the editorial board and appropriate decision according to COPE guidelines.
• If editorial board decide to retract the manuscript, a retraction stamp will be added to the published version of the article through all pages and the title of the article.
• Corrections and retractions: Honest errors are an inevitable part of science and publishing processes. When discovered, correction is needed, encouraged and supported by SJMS. Corrections are considered for errors of facts, and published in both electronic and print format to ensure proper indexing. The old version of article (with errors) had an announcement of recent corrected version, which will be published with correction. This applied for errors which did not change the results significance, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations of the article. However, if errors are serious enough to affect result validations, conclusion and recommendations of the article, retraction is the rule.  However, retraction with republication (replacement) could be considered in cases of unintentional, and honest errors (e.g., miscalculation or misclassification) with valid science. The article considered for republication with further editorial and peer review process with inclusion of original data and extent of correction, as an appendix for transparency.  
• Authorship criteria
• For authorship to be considered, the author must fulfil the principle four criteria of authorship recommended by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). These are: 1) Significant participation in the conceptualization or work design; or the gaining, analysis, or explanation of data for the work; 2) Drafting and/or revising the manuscript critically; 3) Approve the final manuscript version submitted for publication; 4) Held the responsibility for all aspects of the work regarding its accuracy and integrity.
• It is the collective responsibility of the authors, not SJMS, to guarantee that all people named as authors meet all authorship criteria; it is not the role of SJMS editors to determine who qualifies or does not qualify for authorship or to mediate authorship conflicts.
• Contribution details: Authors should provide a clear description of each individual author contribution. Contribution should include author’s role in conceptualization, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, data acquisition and analysis, manuscript drafting, writing and revision.
• Changes to authorship: Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors beforemanuscript submission and the definitive list of authors must be completed at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors list should be made only before the manuscript acceptance and must be approved by the Editor in chief. However, any changes must be signed and approved by all authors. A written approval letter must be provided, which will be retained by the journal.
• Non-Author Contributors: Contributors who do not meet all authorship criteria should not be listed as authors. However, they should be acknowledged. Examples include but not limited to acquisition of funding, administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading.
• Financial and Non-Financial Relationships, Activities, and Conflicts of Interest
• A declaration of financial (e.g., employment, consultations and ownership,), non-financial relationships and activities of interest (e.g, personal relationships or competition, and intellectual beliefs) must be declared. If any conflicts not found, it must be declared. Financial interests, direct or indirect, that exist in connection with the content of the manuscript must be declared in the cover letter.