Ethics

Ethics and publication work flow

 

Author responsibilities

Authorship: According to the ICMJE recommendations, all who meet the following four criteria should be identified as authors:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. 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.

Adherence to guidelines: The authors should strictly adhere to the manuscript preparation guidelines as described, and be aware of the peer review process as described.

Permission and copyright: Where relevant, it is the responsibility of the authors to obtain permission from copyright holders, and to ensure that the use of images, data and illustrations in the manuscripts do not violate copyright laws. If a copyright violation in any of the published article is brought to our attention, we will notify the author for correspondence. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to settle issues with the copyright holder.

Research and data integrity: The authors are responsible for ensuring the research was conducted in an ethical manner, data were collected and analyzed by employing appropriate scientific methods, and interpreted accurately. If required, the authors should produce raw data to the reviewers.

Acknowledgements: Where relevant, the authors should acknowledge their colleagues and sources of funding that made their research possible.

Conflict of interest: It is mandatory that authors should declare any conflicts of interest that are pertinent to their manuscript. 

Conflict of interest

The ICMJE guidelines state that a conflict of 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). Anything that could be perceived as a conflict of interest should be declared. Some examples are: financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony), personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs. 

Authors: As an integral part of the online submission process, the author who submits the article is required to declare the conflict of interest of all authors. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to obtain relevant information before starting the submission process. In addition, all manuscripts should include a mandatory conflict of interest statement as mentioned under author guidelines.  If there are no conflicts of interest then the author should enter “The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to research, authorship and/or publication of this article". If a previously undisclosed competing interest for an author of a published paper is brought to the attention of the publisher, and is subsequently confirmed with the authors, the undeclared interest will be published as an erratum in a future issue. 

Reviewers: Before accepting the invitation to review a paper, potential reviewers are required to disclose any conflict of interest.

Submission by an editor or editorial board member: No special consideration will be given to an article submitted by an author who is also an editorial board member. The process of selection of reviewers, and the review process will be similar to that of an author who is not an editorial board member.

Ethics approval and informed consent

All experiments involving humans and animals should obtain appropriate ethics approval, and declare it in the manuscript.

Human ethics: JPTCP considers WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects as the authoritative source, however, national and institutional variations are possible. All experiments involving human subjects or human-related materials should obtain relevant ethics approval in accordance with national and institutional guidelines. This should be clearly stated in the manuscript. If deemed necessary, JPTCP deserves the right to contact the authors’ institution for verification.

Informed consent: Where relevant, informed consent should be obtained from human subjects using the form approved by the institutional ethics committee prior to commencing any work. This should be clearly stated in the manuscript. If deemed necessary, JPTCP deserves the right to contact the authors’ institution for verification.

Animal ethics: All experiments involving animals should obtain relevant ethics approval in accordance with national and institutional guidelines prior to commencing any animal work. This should be clearly stated in the manuscript. If deemed necessary, JPTCP deserves the right to contact the authors’ institution for verification.

Peer review process

All submitted manuscripts will undergo a three-step review process: preliminary check, plagiarism check and expert peer review. 

Preliminary check: All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial office for compliance with guidelines for preparation of articles as described under Manuscript Preparation Guidelines. Articles that do not comply with the guidelines will be sent back to the authors. 

Plagiarism check:  Articles that are in compliance with the guidelines will be subjected to plagiarism check. We work with CrossRef to use iThenticate to detect plagiarism. iThenticate gives a 'similarity index', which is the word-by-word copying of materials from previously published literature. We use similarity index to make a decision. Even if the original source was cited, articles with more than 10% similarity index will be returned to the authors without peer review for re-writing. For articles with similarity index between 1-10%, we follow the guidelines of COPE on text recycling to make a decision. Articles that pass the plagiarism check will be reviewed by experts in the field. 

Selection of reviewers: JPTCP will find appropriate experts to review the manuscripts. Authors are required to suggest three potential reviewers, however. there is no guarantee that these reviewers will be invited to review. Potential reviewers will be personally contacted by the editorial staff to seek expression of interest to review the paper. The email will contain the details of the authors and the abstract. Also, the reviewers will be asked to disclose conflict of interest. If the reviewers agree to review, and if there is no potential conflict of interest, they will receive the official invitation from the journal containing the link to access the manuscript.  

Peer review and reviewer responsibilities: The reviewers will remain anonymous. Reviewers are expected to keep the manuscript confidential, provide an unbiased scientific opinion of the manuscript and declare any conflict of interest. Also, reviewers are expected to submit their comments within the indicated time frame. 

Criteria for assessing original articles: 

  • Does the manuscript require language editing?
  • Does the abstract convey the major theme of the paper?
  • Does the introduction describe the rationale for the study in the context of the available literature?
  • Where relevant, have appropriate ethics approval and informed consent been obtained?
  • Are the methods adequately described?
  • Is the number of samples, number of repeats, equipment and chemicals used clearly mentioned?
  • Is the catalogue number of antibodies mentioned?
  • Are statistical methods clearly stated?
  • Is the discussion well-balanced in light of the available literature and the research findings?
  • Is conflict of interest stated?

Criteria for assessing review articles: 

  • Does the manuscript require language editing?
  • Does the abstract convey the major theme of the article?
  • Does the article comprehensively and critically evaluate an existing problem in the context of the available literature?
  • If relevant does the article suggest a possible solution to the problem?
  • Is conflict of interest stated? 

Editorial decision: Based on the comments of the reviewers, a decision will be made either to accept the manuscript without any changes, give authors an opportunity to revise and resubmit, or reject. The corresponding author will be notified of the decision. 

If the authors choose to revise and resubmit, the manuscript will be evaluated by the original reviewers or the editor-in-chief to verify if the original comments of the reviewers have been adequately addressed. If the authors have adequately addressed the original comments, the reviewers are not allowed to raise new comments. Depending upon the evaluation, the manuscript will be either accepted or returned to the authors for further clarification. If the paper is accepted, it will be published online. If rejected, it is final and no further appeal is possible.

Each published article will be assigned a doi, deposited with CrossRef.

Publication ethics

Following is an outline of our commitment to publication ethics and transparency in accordance with the principles of the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE), and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). 

Editorial team: The full names and affiliations of the editorial board members of JPTCP are given here. 

Author fees:  This is mentioned here.

Copyright/Licensing Policy: The authors retain the copyright of their published articles. All our publications are open access, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This policy is displayed on our website, and also on the html and pdf of published articles. 

Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct 

Plagiarism check:  All submitted articles undergo plagiarism check first. We work with CrossRef to use iThenticate to detect plagiarism. iThenticate gives a 'similarity index', which is the word-by-word copying of materials from previously published literature. We use similarity index to make a decision. Even if the original source was cited, articles with more than 10% similarity index will be returned to the authors without peer review for re-writing. For articles with similarity index between 1-10%, we follow the guidelines of COPE on text recycling to make a decision. 

Responsibility of reviewers: Reviewers are expected to keep the manuscripts confidential, provide an unbiased scientific opinion of the manuscript on time and declare any conflict of interest as described.

Copyright violation: Where relevant, it is the responsibility of the authors to obtain permission from copyright holders, and to ensure that the use of images, data and illustrations in the manuscript do not violate copyright laws. If a copyright violation in any of the published article is brought to our attention, we will notify the authors. It is the responsibility of the authors to settle issues with the copyright holder. As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off this statement. 

Corrections: If an error in any of the published chapter is brought to our attention, we will publish an Erratum or Corrigendum. The published manuscript will remain unaltered. 

Retraction: Proof of scientific misconduct will lead to retraction of a published article. Other issues will be dealt with on a case-by-case based on the retraction guidelines of COPE. The retracted article and the reason(s) for retraction will be clearly stated. 

Ownership and management: Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology is published under the banner of Codon Publications, a privately-owned company. The company is registered in Australia under ABN 66856928087. The administrative aspects of the journal are done in Australia. The infrastructure for publication and technical support for online presence is provided by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), Simon Fraser University, Canada and Open Journal Systems Company, Arizona, US. Post-acceptance processing of articles is delegated to various companies. Plagiarism checks are provided by Crossref.

Web site: To the best of our knowledge, the site does not contain any misleading information. If any misleading information on the website is brought to our attention, we will take corrective action.

Name of journal: PubMed indexation and ISSN were used as the criteria for determining the name of the journal.  At the time of publication of the first issue in 1994, to the best of our knowledge, there were no other journals with the similar name that met both criteria. 

Access: Our publications are freely available online. There is no need for any kind of registration to access them. 

Revenue sources: Article processing fee 

Advertising: We do not accept third-party advertisements. 

Publishing frequency: Each calendar year will have one volume. The journal publishes articles as soon as the final copy-edited version is approved by the authors rather than waiting for a collection of articles. Also, each article is published in its respective category (editorial, review, original or commentary). As a result, the page numbers in the 'Table of Contents' displayed for each issue will reflect this rather than numerical order. This policy is mentioned here. 

Direct marketing: Potential authors are invited by email.

Contact details: Our contact details are displayed under 'Contact. 

Instructions for Authors: Detailed guidelines for authors are included here. 

Complaints: Any complaint about the journal should be sent to [email protected] with the subject line "Complaint". In the initial contact, identify yourself, state the complaint and sign off with your full name and contact details, including a valid phone number with the country and area code. The initial email should not contain any attachments, html codes, or clickable links. All correspondence should be in English with the subject line ‘Complaint’. Initial emails that do not meet any of these criteria will not receive a response and will be deleted. Emails that meet these criteria will receive a response from the editorial office within 72 hours. The Publisher will work with the person who made the complaint for a speedy resolution. To maintain transparency, all correspondence will be in writing, via the above email address.