The cover letter must include a statement declaring the study complies with the current ethical considerations. Authors reporting the experimental studies on human subjects must include a statement of assurance in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript that:
Every experimental or clinical study may raise controversial ethical issues (e.g., Institutional Ethical Approval to study on animal or human subjects). Thus, the journal editorial board expects all authors, reviewers, and editors to consider the COPE, ICMJEand Equator Network’s reporting guidelines in medical ethics plus the scientific writing. If any, authors should state related declaration(s), otherwise, the following sentence should be given: “None be declared”.
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In the studies using animal experimentation, assurance must be provided that all animals received humane care according to the criteria outlined in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" prepared by the National Academy of Sciences and published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH publication 86-23 revised 1985). When conducting research on animals we commit to The Basel Declaration which shows outlines fundamental as well as ethical guidelines at the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS).
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To publish an article in a research journal, author(s) are requested to get the ethical permission from their institute. In this permission, authors will agree upon standard ethical behavior.
How can I receive the "Ethical Approval Code"?
Before you plan to start a research, project involving human participants or personal data, you must apply for an “ethical approval” for that from one of the University’s research ethics committees. The information requested by your local committee will depend on your discipline and the type of research that you intend to undertake.
Examples of local ethics authorities in different universities:
Which type of manuscripts are required to declare "Ethical Approval Code"?
The below table describes the requirement of approval code and informed consent in different types of manuscript.
Manuscript Type |
Ethical Approval Code |
Patient Informed Consent |
Research Articles |
|
|
|
required |
required |
|
required * |
- |
|
required/optional ** |
required/optional ** |
|
optional |
optional |
Case Reports |
required/optional *** |
required *** |
Table notes:
* : Veterinary clinical cases: For studies using client-owned animals, a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care and an informed client consent statement should be included in the Materials and Methods section.
* : Animal Studies: The ethical review committee approval, and the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines followed regarding the animal's welfare is strongly required in these types of studies.
** : In vitro studies on human or animal tissues are obliged to show "ethical approval code".
*** : Case reports are not obliged to show “Ethical Approval Code”. But it is strongly recommended to obtain written and signed informed consent from patient/ guardians for publishing the case report.
Which type of manuscripts does not need ethical approval code?
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Based on the ICMJE recommends that authorship criteria are as below:
In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their coauthors. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding, the gathering of data, technical help, writing assistance, and general supervision of the research group does not warrant authorship. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. Please guarantee that anyone stated in the Acknowledgements section has granted its clearance for permission to be listed.
Authorship Statement
An authorship statement is required for every manuscript submitted and should state who has contributed what to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article. Please note that authors' initials must be typed in this statement.
Example:
K.R developed the original idea and the protocol, abstracted and analyzed data, wrote the manuscript, and is guarantor. C.F.N and D.P contributed to the development of the protocol, abstracted data, and prepared the manuscript.
Acknowledgments
Recognize individuals who provided assistance to the project. Report all sources of grant and other support for the project or study, including funds received from contributors, institutions and commercial sources. Consultancies and funds paid directly to investigators must also be listed.
Authorship Changes
NEW: Based on our internal policy, we don´t accept any change in the authorship including addition and or deletion of the authors after initial submission except for those cases that are decided by the editorial board.
Competing Interests
A competing interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain - employment, Consultancy, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert- testimony or personal relationship). There is nothing unethical about a competing interest but it should be acknowledged and clearly stated. All authors must declare all competing interests in their covering letter and in “Competing Interests” section at the end of the manuscript file (before the references). Authors with no competing interests to declare should obviously state that.
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Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations, however they are brought to the journal’s or publisher’s attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to handle allegations from whistleblowers.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/misconduct
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Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/appeals
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There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/competinginterests
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Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/data
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Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/oversight
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All policies on intellectual property, including copyright and publishing licenses, should be clearly described. In addition, any costs associated with publishing should be obvious to authors and readers. Policies should be clear on what counts as prepublication that will preclude consideration. What constitutes plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication should be specified.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/intellectualproperty
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The Journal accepts manuscripts only through the online submission system, easy to use and easy to track, thus the submission will be done rather faster by electronically submission. Once you submit an article, it will be forwarded to one of the editors and afterwards to at least two peer-reviewers. At once after submission, the author will be notified of the both submission process via the email and the follow-up ID code. It is recommended to save the sent ID code for all the next correspondence regarding each article, separately.
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All peer review processes must be transparently described and well managed. Journals should provide training for editors and reviewers and have policies on diverse aspects of peer review, especially with respect to adoption of appropriate models of review and processes for handling conflicts of interest, appeals and disputes that may arise in peer review.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/peerreview
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Journals must allow debate post publication either on their site, through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such as PubMed Commons or PubPeer. They must have mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles after publication.
Find out more: publicationethics.org/postpublication
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Plagiarism and Similarity Rates
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. We recommend reviewers in the peer review process to completely check and control the similarities and guide authors to avoid similarities with other published materials.
We check all manuscripts using iThenticate plagiarism checker in at least 2 important steps: