Publication/Editorial Policies
1. ETHICS POLICIES
According to principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing a good research should be justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved in accordanceto COPE, OASPA, DOAJ and WAME.
Reasonable steps will be taken to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. If tables, illustrations or photographs, which have already been published, are included, a letter of permission for re-publication should be obtained from author(s) as well as the editor of the journal where it was previously published. Written permission to reproduce photographs of patients, whose identity is not disguised, should be sent with the manuscript.
ICMJE recommendations are followed to review best practice and ethical standards in the conduct and reporting of the manuscript, and other material published in the journal, to help authors, editors and other involved in peer review and biomedical publishing create and distribute accurate, clear, reproducible, unbiased research articles. The role of authors and contributors are also according to ICMJE recommendations which is based on four criteria; available on www.icmje.org.
If a medicine is used, generic name should be indicated. The commercial name may, however, be mentioned only within brackets, if necessary. In case of medicine or device or any material indicated in text, a declaration by author(s) should be submitted that no monetary benefit has been taken from manufacturer/importer of that product by any author. In case of experimental interventions, permission from ethical committee of the hospital should be taken beforehand. Fully informed consent should always be sought. It may not always be possible, however, and in such circumstances, an appropriately constituted research ethics committee should decide if this is ethically acceptable.
2. PEER REVIEW POLICY
JGMDS is a peer-reviewed journal. Submitted manuscripts are reviewed for originality, relevance, statistical methods, significance, adequacy of documentation, reader interest and composition. We use Double-Blind Peer Review Policy. Reviewers should keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential. This is in accordance with the ICMJE responsibilities in the Submission and Peer-Review Process.
3. PLAGIARISM POLICY
To verify the originality of articles submitted to JGMDS, all submitted manuscripts are scanned and compared with the Turnitin database. JGMDS strictly follows the PMDC and HEC guidelines/criteria for all types of plagiarism. The duplicate publication can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper. If plagiarism is detected by JGMDS, the editorial board member, reviewer, and editor will not accept the manuscript at any stage of the process. The similarity index should not be more than 17%.
4. DATA SHARING POLICIES
The JGMDS requires the data generated by your research that supports your article to be made openly and publicly available upon publication of your article. It is strongly encouraged that data generated by your research that supports your article be made available as soon as possible, wherever legally and ethically possible. The data from clinical trials are to be made available upon reasonable request (to comply with ICMJE recommendations).
5. ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGES
Authors of Original Manuscripts must submit bank draft of Rs/-5,000 (Non - Refundable) Submission Fees and Rs/-15000 (Refundable) Acceptance Fees, Total Rs/-20,000 Pkr , Case reports, review article, letter to editor and guest editorials are exempted from processing charges.
For online Transfer Contact: editor@jgmds.org.pk
The Pay-Order / Bank Draft should be drawn in the name of 'Journal of Gandhara Medical & Dental Sciences', and sent to the address, Chief Editor, JGMDS, Gandhara University, Canal Road University Town Peshawar, Pakistan.
6. OPEN ACCESS POLICY
JGMDS is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles but only for non-commercial purposes, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
7. SECTION POLICIES
Editorial, Original Article, Meta-Analysis, Systematic Review, Letter to Editor, Review Article/Chapter/Textbook all the following are Open Submission and Peer-Reviewed.
8. COPYRIGHT POLICY
The corresponding author(s) retains ownership of the copyright of the published work without any restrictions. The terms of the Creative Commons license do not apply to the copyright holder. JGMDS has an open access publication policy. The full text of all articles is available free of charge.
9. AUTHORSHIP POLICY
The four criteria’s for authorship that is Non Author Contributors, Author Alteration, Contributor Statement, Correspondence Author, Deceased Author are according to ICMJE and COPE recommendations.
10. CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY
A definition by WAME states that “conflict of interest exists when a participant in the publication process (author, peer reviewer, or editor) has a competing interest that could unduly influence (or be reasonably seen to do so) his or her responsibilities in the publication process."
Any conflict of interest should be declared by all authors. This may include grants or honorarium, credits and promotions, memberships or any personal or professional relationships which may appear to influence the manuscript. Such competing interests are not unethical but should be declared. Authors should state the conflict of interest clearly in the submission statement form. This statement should also appear at the end of the text before the references. If there are no conflicts of interests, the authors should state, none to declare (to Comply with ICMJE recommendations)
11. ETHICAL APPROVAL OF RESEARCH
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. Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, in text and illustrative material (to comply with ICMJE recommendations).
When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.
Every manuscript submitted to JGMDS should have ethical approval by the ethical review board of the institution. If an institution does not have an ethical review committee, the institution’s approval from the concerned department may be submitted.
All case reports require approval on the institutional letterhead from the head of the department. A statement should be included that participants gave informed consent before being included in the study or for publication of a case report.
12. FUNDING DISCLOSURE
All sources of grants received, and its spending should be disclosed. Such statements should be declared on the submission statement form and at the end of the manuscript before the references. If there are no funding sources, the authors should state “none to declare”.
13. REJECTED ARTICLES - APPEALS
Authors whose articles have been rejected have the right to send a letter of appeal giving detailed explanations. This will be reviewed internally, and a decision will be taken accordingly. Revised articles will not be considered at this stage.
14. REPRODUCTION OF PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES
It is the author's responsibility to secure all permissions prior to submission of the manuscript. A signed letter of consent should accompany any part of the article accessed from another source from the copyright holder, which may be the author, journal or publisher.
15. ETHICAL/SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT
JGMDS follows the guidelines provided by the COPE, WAME, ICMJE, HEC for dealing with scientific misconduct following are giver below;
- Falsification of data: ranges from fabrication to deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, or willful suppression and/or distortion of data.
- Plagiarism: The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another without crediting their true source, and representation of them as one's own original work.
- Improprieties of authorship: Improper assignment of credit, such as excluding others, misrepresentation of the same material as original in more than one publication, inclusion of individuals as authors who have not made a definite contribution to the work published; or submission of multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
- Misappropriation of the ideas of others: an important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange of ideas among colleagues. Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of reviewing grant applications and manuscripts. However, improper use of such information can constitute fraud. Wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.
- Violation of generally accepted research practices: Serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research, improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or improper reporting of results.
- Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research: Including but not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations of applicable local regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials.
- Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct: This includes unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct, failure to report known or suspected misconduct, withholding or destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct and retaliation against persons involved in the allegation or investigation. (http://www.wame.org/recommendations-on-publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals).
- Every allegation of ethical/scientific misconduct is taken seriously at JGMDS. We will follow the guidelines prescribed by COPE and ICMJE. The manuscript processing will be halted while the fact-finding investigation is being carried out.
16. RETRACTION POLICY
As per COPE Guidelines, a publication should be retracted by the editors if:
- There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, as a result of major error (experimental error or miscalculation), fabrication or falsification (image manipulation).
- There exists plagiarism.
- The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification.
- It contains material or data without authorization for use.
- Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue.
- It reports unethical research.
- It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process.
- The author failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.
17. REPOSITORY POLICY
Journal of Gandhara Medical and Dental Sciences (JGMDS) permit Author(s) to self-archive and make their article publicly accessible immediately on their employer’s internal website; their institutional and/or funder repositories.
JGMDS strongly encourage authors to deposit the Version of Record. Authors should also deposit the URL/DOI of their published article in any repository, in addition to the Version of Record.
This will guarantee that the definitive version is readily available to those accessing author’s article from such repositories and means that your article is more likely to be cited correctly.
As there are many ways you can share the different versions of your article as it moves through the stages towards publication a summary is provided as follows.
- Submitted version
Authors can share their submitted version (Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM)) via social media, on a scholarly collaboration network, Author’s own personal website, or on a preprint server intended for non-commercial use (for example arXiv, bioRxiv, SocArXiv, etc.). Posting on a preprint server is not considered to be duplicate publication. If author do decide to post his/her AOM anywhere, upon acceptance, Author acknowledges that the article has been accepted for publication by JGMDS as follows:
“This article has been accepted for publication in Journal of Gandhara Medical and Dental Sciences (JGMDS)
- Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript)
Authors can post their accepted version of articles (Accepted Manuscript (AM)) at any point after acceptance (this includes posting to Facebook, Google groups, and LinkedIn, plus linking from Twitter). To encourage citation of their work, we recommend that they insert a link from their posted AM to the published article with the following text, including the DOI:
“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Gandhara Medical and Dental Sciences (JGMDS) on [date of publication], [Article DOI].”
- Published version (Version of Record):
On publication authors can link to the Published version of Articles (Version of Record (VOR)) using the DOI or they can post the article PDF on any non-commercial websites and repositories of their choice. Connecting the different versions of their article.
By the time your article is published, author may have already shared their AOM and AM in various places. It is a good idea to link these to the VOR after publication, by adding some text such as:
“This is an [title of Accepted Manuscript / Author’s Original Manuscript] of an article published in Journal of Gandhara Medical and Dental Sciences (JGMDS) on [date of publication], available at [Article DOI].”
18. LICENSE POLICY
All articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) Attribution Non-Commercial License which states that:
Anyone is free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
The terms of the Creative Commons license do not apply to the copyright holder.
19. RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORIAL TEAM
The responsibilities of the editorial board members are according to guidelines recommended by COPE, ICMJE.
20. ARCHIVING POLICY
JGMDS aims to preserve all the published content on the Internet Archive, PKP PN CLOCKSS, Open Archives, Open Aire, Katalog Plus, FatCat, National & Shuhada-e-APS Memorial Library of Pakistan.
These Long-term preservation services ensure the availability of the scholarly published content by JGMDS to the community, despite any accidental loss of data in its personal archival records. JGMDS also assigns Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) to all its manuscripts and contents to facilitate reaching their permanent links on the internet.
21. SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY
The Published version of an article is the final version that can't edit further. The Published version of the article is placed on the journal's website on an immediate basis.
Self-archiving of the Published version is not subject to any embargo period
The published version may be placed on:
- the author's personal website
- the author's company/institutional repository or archive
- not for profit subject-based repositories such as PubMed Central
The Author shall deposit an online published copy, issued by the JGMDS if he interest to deposit anywhere.
22. RETRIEVE AND REFUND POLICY
Charges:
- Submission Fee Refund: The submission fee of Rs. 15,000 is non-refundable.
- Acceptance Fee Refund: If the author has submitted both fee drafts and the article is rejected, the acceptance fee of Rs. 5,000 is refundable.
Article Rejection:
- In the event that an article is rejected by our reviewers or editorial board, the author is not eligible for a refund of the Rs. 15,000 submission fee.
- However, if the author has submitted both fee drafts and the article is rejected, the 25% i-e; Rs. 5,000 acceptance fee is refundable.
Article Withdrawal:
- If an author chooses to withdraw their article, no refunds will be issued for the Rs. 15,000 submission fee.
Questions and Contact: If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [editor@jgmds.org.pk].
23. PROTECTION OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS POLICY
JGMDS aims to seek approval for the authors to research from an independent local, regional, or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). All investigators should ensure that the planning conduct and reporting of human research are following the Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted by the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication.
JGMDS intends that when reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare and Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals. JGMDS encourages approaches that avoid or replace the use of animals, which minimize the number of animals used per experiment and which minimize animal suffering and improve welfare.
Acceptance of a manuscript according to the above policies, the authors must provide ethical review committee approval. The declaration that the experiments on animals were conducted under local Ethical Committee laws and regulations as regards care and use of laboratory animals. A certificate that adheres to legal and ethical requirements have been fulfilled regarding human/animal treatment in the study. It should also be written in the methodology section of the study. Informed consent should be taken from the participant who owned the animal and submitted to the editor.
24. INFORMED CONSENT POLICY
The participant consent form should be taken from an adult participant and/or from parents/guardians of participants of minor and deceased. Consent must be taken for all case reports/ case reports/ clinical pictures/ adverse drug reactions. It should be written in the methodology section of the manuscript. The consent form must be made available at the editor's request, and it should be confidential. If there is doubt regarding the anonymity of the patient, then informed consent must be obtained. Masked study participants' consent should be provided in written form to the editors. Case reports should be according to the CARE guidelines.
25. ADVERTISING POLICY
JGMDS does not publish any advertisements from organizations or any other Pharmaceutical Companies.
26.Clinical Trial Registration Policy
JGMDS is committed to promoting transparency, rigour, and reproducibility in clinical research. The journal requires that all clinical trials submitted for publication must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible database. The publication of results of all randomized control trials will only be considered if the ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) are followed. A trial registration number and date must be included in the manuscript submitted for publication. Retrospective registration will not be considered. If the Trial was conducted without registration, the article will not be accepted for processing. The JGMDS reserves the right to reject any manuscript that does not comply with this clinical trial registration policy.
The clinical trial must be registered in a publicly accessible database that is acceptable to the ICMJE. Examples of acceptable databases include ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/), the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform), and The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) (http://www.dra.gov.pk/).
Exceptions: In rare cases, the JGMDS may consider an exception to this policy if a clinical trial was not registered before the enrollment of the first participant due to factors beyond the control of the study sponsor or principal investigators, such as an unforeseen safety issue or the decision to terminate the study. In these cases, the authors must provide a written explanation of the circumstances to the editor.
27. CORRECTION POLICY
The editor will issue a correction when a manuscript has a minor flaw that does not significantly affect any findings and when a correction is more appropriate than a retraction for the benefit of the scientific community.
ERRATUM or CORRIGENDUM, will be issued depending on the source of the mistake.
Erratum will be issued if the mistake originated from the production process handled by the publisher, while a corrigendum will be issued if the mistake is due to an author's miscalculation or oversight.
