A Peer Reviewed/ Referred Journal
ISSN: 1548 - 7741
6.4
All authors should agree to be listed and should approve the submitted
and accepted versions of the publication. Any change to the author
list should be approved by all authors including any who have been
removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a
point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should
keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the
publication (e.g. responding to reviewers’ comments).
6.5 Authors
should not use acknowledgements misleadingly to imply a contribution or
endorsement by individuals who have not, in fact, been involved with the
work or given an endorsement.
7 Accountability and responsibility
7.1
All authors should have read and be familiar with the reported work and
should ensure that publications follow the principles set out in these
guidelines. In most cases, authors will be expected to take joint
responsibility for the integrity of the research and its reporting.
However, if authors take responsibility only for certain aspects of the
research and its reporting, this should be specified in the publication.
7.2
Authors should work with the editor or publisher to correct their work
promptly if errors or omissions are discovered after publication.
7.3
Authors should abide by relevant conventions, requirements, and
regulations to make materials, reagents, software or datasets available
to other researchers who request them. Researchers, institutions, and
funders should have clear policies for handling such requests. Authors
must also follow relevant journal standards. While proper
acknowledgement is expected, researchers should not demand authorship as
a condition for sharing materials.
7.4 Authors should respond
appropriately to post-publication comments and published correspondence.
They should attempt to answer correspondents’ questions and supply
clarification or additional details where needed.
8 Adherence to peer review and publication conventions
8.1 Authors should follow publishers’ requirements that work is not submitted to more than one publication for consideration at the same time.
8.2
Authors should inform the editor if they withdraw their work from
review, or choose not to respond to reviewer comments after receiving a
conditional acceptance.
8.3 Authors should respond to reviewers’ comments in a professional and timely manner.
8.4
Authors should respect publishers’ requests for press embargos and
should not generally allow their findings to be reported in the press if
they have been accepted for publication (but not yet published) in a
scholarly publication. Authors and their
institutions should liaise
and cooperate with publishers to coordinate media activity (e.g. press
releases and press conferences) around publication. Press releases
should accurately reflect the work and should not include statements
that go further than the
research findings.
9 Responsible reporting of research involving humans or animals
9.1 Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use
of animals).
9.2
If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported
research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically
(e.g. copies of approvals, licences, participant consent forms).
9.3
Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable
individual data collected in the course of research without specific
consent from the individual (or their representative). Researchers
should remember that many scholarly journals are now freely available on
the internet, and should therefore be mindful of the risk of causing
danger or upset to unintended readers (e.g. research participants or
their families who recognise themselves from case studies, descriptions,
images or pedigrees).
9.4 The appropriate statistical analyses
should be determined at the start of the study and a data analysis plan
for the prespecified outcomes should be prepared and followed. Secondary
or post hoc analyses should be distinguished from primary analyses and
those set out in the data analysis plan.
9.5 Researchers should
publish all meaningful research results that might contribute to
understanding. In particular, there is an ethical responsibility to
publish
the findings of all clinical trials. The publication of
unsuccessful studies or experiments that reject a hypothesis may help
prevent others from wasting time and resources on similar projects. If
findings from small studies and those that fail to reach statistically
significant results can be combined to produce more useful information
(e.g. by meta-analysis) then such findings should be published.
9.6
Authors should supply research protocols to journal editors if requested
(e.g. for clinical trials) so that reviewers and editors can compare
the research report to the protocol to check that it was carried out as
planned and that no relevant details have
been omitted. Researchers
should follow relevant requirements for clinical trial registration and
should include the trial registration number in all publications arising
from the trial.