PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

The Medical Journal of Basrah University (MJBU) based its ethical policy on guidelines of Committees of Publication Ethics (COPE). Readers, Authors reviewers, and editors should follow these policies when working with MJBU.  The Ethical policies of MJBU ensure the quality of typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal published in concerned issues.

 

Responsibilities and Duties of Publishers

  • MJBU is guaranteeing that editorial resolutions on script proposals are accurate and ultimate.
  • MJBU is capable of guaranteeing the decisions on script proposals are only made centered on an expert decision and will not be influenced by any moneymaking interests.
  • MJBU is resolving to sustain the honesty of research and academic archives.
  • MJBU is observing the morals of Authors, Reviewers, Editorial Board Members, Editor-in-Chief, Readers, and Associate Editors.
  • MJBU is dedicated to examining the plagiarism and fraudulent facts matters involved in the presented manuscripts.
  • MJBU is continually ready to publish amendments, explanations, and renunciations concerning its publications.

Responsibilities and Obligations of Editors

  • The journal Editors should be fully authorized to cast-off/admit a script in agreement to the stipulated criteria.
  • The Editor-in-Chief, together with the reviewers and editors, should decide on whether the presented manuscripts are to be published or not.
  • The journal editors should request that all authors meet the MJBU Journal criteria for authorship and to make sure that no one who meets the requirements is left out.
  • The journal editors are required with the duty of selecting the reviewers and preserving their anonymity.
  • The Editors should strive to disclose and evade any engagement of interest on the manuscripts submitted.
  • The journal Editors ought to keep scholastic trustworthiness endeavor to satisfy the wants of authors and readers.
  • The journal Editors should be at will to examine sham data issues and plagiarism; thus, publish alterations, explanations, withdrawals, and apologies when found or needed.
  • The journal Editors should restrict themselves to the intelligent content of the presented manuscripts.
  • The journal Editors must keep the data about submitted manuscripts private, permitting only the corresponding reviewers, authors, potential reviewers, the publisher access as appropriate and other editorial advisers.
  • The editor will not use unpublished data or information disclosed in a submitted paper or any editorial board member for his/her personal research work without the author’s written consent.
  • In case of authorship dispute or discrepancy before or after a publication, the editors are mandated to explain to the authors the MJBU authorship policies in detail and make corrections.

Responsibilities and Duties of Reviewers

  • The Editors should be assisted by the journal Reviewers in taking the choice for publishing the presented scripts.
  • Reviewers should uphold the privacy of the manuscript review course.
  • The Reviewers should provide timely, unbiased, and documented feedback on the manuscript to allow timely publication of manuscripts.
  • The Reviewers are bound to alert the editors on any potential conflict of interest in any of the authors, institutions, or companies and decline to review the manuscript.
  • The Reviewer's critiques on the submitted should be thoughtful, fair, constructive, and objective and may include supplementary materials submitted by the author.
  • Refraining from any contact with the author.
  • Reviewers should ensure that the methods are detailed to allow the readers to understand the merit of the study design and replicate the work if desired.

Responsibilities and Duties of Authors

  • Manuscripts must be presented and put down in English using appropriate grammar and terminologies.
  • Manuscripts ought to be presented with the knowledge that they are presently not under review for forthcoming publication by another publisher or journal, not published anywhere
  • The presenting equivalent author is liable for guaranteeing that all the co-authors permit and recommend the script article's publication.
  • To withstand the peer review process, authors are obligated to take part in a peer review course to assess scripts from others. 
  • Authors should guarantee the scripts originating from a specific institute are presented with the authorization of that institute.
  •  The authors should allow the editing of the manuscripts for proper understanding and readability.
  • Authors should vividly recognize who assisted financially for the manner of research and/or establishment of the manuscript and, for a short time, elaborate the part of the sponsor/founder in any part of the work.
  • Where many authors are involved, the equivalent authors prior must sign a copyright release form to agreement and publication of the manuscript, to be validly accountable concerning the journal integrity and confidentiality policies.
  • As per the open-access license, authors hold legal possession of the copyright of their content, but permit anyone to reuse, download, modify, distribute copy and reprint the content given that the source and authors are properly cited.
  • Every author has to decide to permit the equivalent author to be the communicator with the editorial office to evaluate the manuscript proof and edit.
  • It is the duty of authors to alert the journal publisher or editor to address or withdraw the issue on the manuscript when they find out a major inaccuracy or error in their published work. 
  • Authors must be aware that the presented manuscripts under publishing or review by MJBU must be screened using Plagiarism Prevention Software.
  • The authors ought to guarantee that every author has gone through the last checklist before being presented to the MJBU.

Principles of Transparency

  • Peer review course: MJBU is a double-blind peer-reviewed print and electronic semiannual covering wide aspects of Medical sciences. On the journal’s website, this process and other policies associated with the journal's peer-reviewed process are available.
  • Governing Body: MJBU is equipped with an editorial board, whose members are professionals in the specific subjects of the journal scope. On the journal’s website, the affiliations and the full names are provided.
  • Contact info:  On the journal's website, the MJBU contact data is available.
  • Author Access/fees:  The authors are required to pay the article publication fee of US$ 75, divided into US$ 25 as an article processing charge (APC), followed by US$ 50 when the manuscript accepted as final publishing fees. The Journal's full text and database is freely available for all who can access its website.
  • Copyright: Journals vividly demand the nature of copyright under which the author will publish their work. Before any script is accepted, authors are required to sign the Journal Publishing Agreement.
  • Detection and handling issues of research misbehavior: The Chief Editor ensures adequate procedures to detect and avoid the publication of journals where research misbehavior has happened, plus the manipulation of citation, plagiarism, and data fabrication.
  • Web site:  The website of the journal indicates that there is care to ensure high professional and ethical standards.
  • Journal Name: The unique names of MJBU and The Medical Journal of Basrah University cannot be mistaken for other journals.
  • Conflicts of interest: Authors are demanded to provide evidence by submitting a Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form, which indicates that there is no conflict of interest when presenting their journals to MJBU.
  • Publishing schedule: The publishing of the journal is done twice a year.
  • Archiving: The safeguarding of access to the content of the journal and its electronic backup is vividly indicated.

 

Breach of Public Ethics

  • Plagiarism: This is the use of another person's ideas or other materials as if they are one's own. MJBU journals consider plagiarism as duplication of even a sentence from someone else script. Also, the use of your manuscript has been previously published without an appropriate and valid citation. MJBU uses plagiarism prevention software to screen manuscripts that are published or are under review because plagiarism is an infringement of publication ethics. Editors use the crosscheck service to prove the paper’s originality. The Itheniticate software provides Crosscheck in the academic sphere www.ithenticate.com provides the entire list for journals in the CrossCheck database.
  • Data Fabrication and Falsification: These are major issues of research misconduct. Data fabrication entails cooking data on experiments that were not carried while falsification is whereby the experiments and research were carried out, but the data is changed and recorded. In addition, falsification entails manipulating research processes, materials, and equipment; therefore, the research is not correct.
  • Simultaneous Submission: This happens when a manuscript (or considerable parts from a manuscript) is presented in a journal when it is now under contemplation by an alternative journal.
  • Redundant (multiple, duplicate) Publications: Redundant publications involve the substantial overlap of a publication with another that has been published, in the press, or already submitted. There is usually no cross-referencing and often subsequent to the wish to plump academic vitae.
  • Inappropriate Author Attribution or Contribution: All the recorded authors ought to achieve the authorship criteria, made a major scientific impact on the research in the scripts, and verified its entire claim. All the contributions should be stated with the owners together with acknowledgment stating all the participants, including laboratory technicians, students, sponsors, donors, and translators.                                    
  • Citation Manipulation: It entails extreme references in the script presented, which is not essential to the scholarly work submitted but has been added to increase the number of references in articles published in a specific journal or an author's work. This leads to the misunderstanding of that precise journal and work in which it is, therefore is a type of scientific misbehavior.
  • Sanctions: In a scenario that there are recorded infringements of any of the policies as mentioned earlier in a journal  despite the breach occurring or not in  a journal, the below sanctions will be applied:

·         An instant indictment of the infringing script,

·         Instant denunciation of all the manuscript presented to any journal published by the authors of the infringing manuscript,

·          At least 36 months of preventing the authors from presenting any recent manuscript to all journals, either together with authors who infringed the manuscript or individually.

                        ·         Banning the infringing authors from attending the Editorial Board of journals.

 Treating Scenarios of Misconduct

 After violations against MJBU’s publication ethics are approved, MJBU addresses ethical distress diligently as per an issue-specific standard practice as briefed below. 

  • The journal Editor is to alert the MJBU Editorial Office of the violation by issuing duplicates of the appropriate material and a draft letter to the equivalent author seeking elaboration in an open-minded approach.
  • If the author’s clarification is improper and there are suggestions that major unethical conduct has taken place, the issue is raised to the Publication Committee through Editorial Office. After deliberating on the matter, the committee agrees if the matter is adequately serious to permit a ban on forthcoming submissions.  
  • If the violation is less severe, the Publication Committee advises the Editor, sends the author a reprimand letter, and alerts the author of MJBU publication policies; if the manuscript had been published, the author is requested by the Editor to apologize in the journal to rectify the record.
  • The corresponding author receives a notification, and any work by the author in charge of the breach or any work these persons co-authored that is under review by the MJBU journal will be immediately rejected.
  • The authors are not allowed to serve as a reviewer for MJBU Journal and on the MJBU editorial board. MJBU holds permission to take further action.
  • In risky scenarios, an alert will be sent to the associations of the authors, and for five years, the authors are not allowed to present their work to MJBU.
  • In major scenarios of scam that lead to the withdrawal of the article, there will be the publishing of a retraction notice in the journal and will be connected to the online version of the article. In addition, the online version will be stamped with the withdrawal date.

 Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

 Research must be carried out within the appropriate ethical framework. The manuscript might be rejected if there is suspicion that the work has not been conducted ethically. Author(s), however, may be contacted by the ethics committee for more information. If the Editors have serious concerns about the ethics of a study, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds.

 Research related to human subjects, their material, or data, must be performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must be approved by an appropriate ethics/bioethics committee.

 Authors reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting, must give a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new procedure or tool was considered more appropriate than usual clinical practice. Authors should obtain ethics committee approval and patient informed consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool, and for inclusion of details and images related to individual participants.

 Ethical approval (including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate) must be included in the manuscript. In case of exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including reasons for exemption).

  In order to maintain high ethical standards for articles published in the MJBU, the Journal follows international standards and guidelines on the conduct and publication of health research including: World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).These guidelines explain our position on specific ethical issues of conducting and reporting research. They provide guidance on the ethical standards, that are expected to conform to in the papers submitted for consideration for publication, and outline procedures if these standards are breached.

 The Editor will take into account the animal welfare issues and reserves the right to reject a manuscript, especially if the research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms of animal research. Relevant guidelines (e.g. the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK and Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) should be followed.

 Field studies, experimental and non-experimental research on animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines and/or appropriate permissions must be included in the manuscript.