Ethical considerations
The editorial board of JOMOS promotes ethical publication practices.
Indeed, JOMOS is committed to the highest standards of publishing integrity and academic honesty.
The Editors-in-chief, reviewers and authors are encouraged to refer to The Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) for all aspects of publication ethics.
Conditions for submitting an article
Submission of a manuscript implies that the work has not been published and is not submitted for publication anywhere else. Publication must be approved by all authors. For ethics in publishing consult COPE http://publicationethics.org/ .
Authors are invited to comply with the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals”, which were established and made available by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ .
Severe misconduct (for example, data fabrication, falsification or plagiarism) is taken seriously into consideration and is further investigated. When a suspicion of misconduct turns out to be confirmed, the available sanction is applied.
Occasionally, or on a regular basis, SimilarityCheck can be used by the journal to identify a case of misconduct.
Authorship
The ICMJE recommends that all those designated as authors meet all of the criteria they describe. The list of criteria is available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/ . Those contributors who do not meet all of the criteria shall be acknowledged.
Conflict of interest
Authors must disclose whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. They should also state that they have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested.
Therefore the manuscript must be accompanied by the " Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Form " at the initial submission.
Any additional conflict of interest, on personal or any other level must also be disclosed.
Peer Reviewing
The manuscripts have all identifying information removed from them by the editors prior to the beginning of the review process. Then, all manuscripts submitted to the journal (JOMOS) are submitted to two reviewers independent from the editorial committee of the journal. The reviewers are informed of the necessity to keep the manuscript confidential before acceptance and publication, and their identity will not be disclosed to the authors. Based on the recommendations of the reviewers, the editorial board decides whether the manuscript is:
- Accepted without modifications
- Accepted with corrections and consistent answers to the reviewers comments
- Rejected
The revised version must be submitted no later than 6 weeks after the decision notification.
The Editors-in chief have full authority for acceptation/rejection of the submitted manuscripts. Persons with a conflict of interest towards a submitted manuscript shall declare it and be withdrawn from the peer reviewing of this particular article.
Policies for publication for errata and for article retraction
Despite careful peer reviewing and article production, situations might occur where errata should be published or articles retracted. The Editors-in-chief, together with the publisher therefore follow the flowcharts established by COPE and published on their website ( http://publicationethics.org/ ).
Publication Ethics and protection of research participants
All laws and regulations should be strictly followed. Authors are requested to indicate ethical declarations issued by their institution and concerning their research, including permit numbers, in the Material and Methods section. Authors are requested to fully comply with the ICMJE recommendations in this respect, particularly with the patient’s right to privacy, as well as the necessity to have the patient’s written consent.
Statement of Informed Consent
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.
Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note, authors should identify Individuals who provide writing assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance.
Statement of Human and Animal Rights
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.