Publication Ethics

Ethical Issues [part one]

Every experimental or clinical study may raise controversial ethical issues (e.g., Institutional Ethical Approval for working with animal or human subjects). Thus, Journal of Renal Injury Prevention expects all authors, reviewers and editors to consider COPE, ICMJE and Equator Network’s reporting guidelines in medical ethics plus scientific writing. If any, authors should state related declaration(s), otherwise the following sentence should be given “None to be declared". Please take a look at the review process in Journal of Renal Injury Prevention. 

The cover letter must include a statement declaring that the study complies with current ethical considerations.

Ethical issues (including plagiarism, misconduct, data fabrication, falsification, double publication or redundancy) must completely considered by the authors.

Authors reporting experimental studies on human subjects must include a statement of assurance in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript reading that: (1) informed consent was obtained from each patient enrolled in the study and (2) the study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki as reflected in a priori approval by the institution's human research committee. In studies involving animal experimentation, provide assurance that all animals received humane care according to the criteria outlined in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" prepared by the National Academy of Sciences and published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH publication 86-23 revised 1985).

DUTIES OF EDITORS

Publication decisions

The editors of Journal of Renal Injury Prevention are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. They are guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.  They actively work to improve the quality of the journal.

Fair play

The editor evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Ethical Issues [part two]

Please take a look at following guidelines provided by COPE for editors and reviewers that maybe helpful for authors, too:

Flowcharts shows how we behave with unethical papers

Redundant (duplicate) publication in submitted manuscript and published article
Suspected plagiarism in submitted manuscript and published article

Plagiarism

In case, any attempt of plagiarism is brought to our attention accompanied with convincing evidence, following steps would be taken:

 (a)      After consulting the respective Editorial Board Members, authors guilty of plagiarism will be debarred from publishing their papers in Journal of Renal Injury Prevention.

(b)     Heads of the Departments/Institutes of the offending authors will be intimated of such incidences of plagiarism.

c)       In case of confirmation of plagiarism on an already published article, the Editor will be obliged to withdraw the article from the journal website.

 Editorial Freedom at the Journal of Renal Injury Prevention

The Journal of Renal Injury Prevention is an international peer-reviewed journal which will publish articles relevant to protection/prevention of renal failure. The Journal of Renal Injury Prevention adheres to the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy on “The Relationship between Journal Editors-in-Chief and Owners [http://www.wame.org/resources/policies# independence]” .More specifically, the Editor-in-Chief has editorial independence and as such has full authority over the journal’s editorial content including how and when information is published. Editorial decisions are based solely on the validity of the work and its importance to readers, not on the policies or commercial interests of the owner. The Journal of Renal Injury Prevention is a publication of Nickan Research Institute. Neither the Nickan Research Institute, nor other organizations interferes in the evaluation, selection or editing of individual articles, either directly or by creating an environment in which editorial decisions are influenced.

 Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Guidelines for Filing a Competing Interest Statement

Definition: Conflict of interest (COI) exists when there is a divergence between an individual’s private interests (competing interests) and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests. COI in medical publishing affects everyone with a stake in research integrity including journals, research/academic institutions, funding agencies, the popular media, and the public.

COI may exist in numerous forms including financial ties, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, and institutional affiliations. In managing COI, The Journal of Renal Injury Prevention abides to the policy statement of the WAME. All authors should declare their COI, if any, during the manuscript submission. Reviewers are asked to declare their COI after they accept to review a manuscript. Editors should also declare their COI during handling of a manuscript.

Managing COI depends on disclosure because it is not possible to routinely monitor or investigate whether competing interests are present. COI disclosed by authors will be presented in the Editorial Board and an appropriate action will be taken. Those reviewers and Editors with COI will be excluded from the manuscript process. If competing interests’ surface from other sources after a manuscript is submitted or published, The Journal of Renal Injury Prevention investigates allegations of COI and depending on their nature, appropriate actions will be taken if the allegations were found to be true. If a manuscript has been published and COI surfaces later, the journal will publish the results of the investigation as a correction to the article and ask the author to explain, in a published letter, why the COI was not revealed earlier.

 Disposal of Material

Once published, all copies of the manuscript, correspondence and artwork will be held for at least one year before disposal.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement in the Journal of Renal Injury Prevention 

Publication and authorship

1. All submitted manuscripts to the Journal of Renal Injury Prevention are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers and one local reviewer that are experts in the area nephrology. 
2. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language. 
3. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
4. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
5. Rejected manuscripts will not be re-reviewed.
6. The manuscript acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
7. No research can be included in more than one publication.

Authors' responsibilities

1. Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
3. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
4. Authors must participate in the peer review process.
5. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
6. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
7. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
8. Authors must notify the editors of any conflicts of interest.
9. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
10. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the editors.

 Please complete authors’ agreement form provided on the journal website and send    through email to the journal

Reviewers' responsibilities

1. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
2. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
4. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
5. Reviewers should also call to the editor- in-chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
6. Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

For more information please look at the checklist for review provided on the journal website.

Editors' responsibilities

1. Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
2. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
4. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
5. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
6. Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources.
7. Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
8. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
9. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
10. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
11. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
12. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
13. Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.

Plagiarism

All articles published by Journal of Renal Injury Prevention are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere, nor is under review elsewhere. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.

Duplicate Submission

Papers that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published study, or  study that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous paper and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Citation Manipulation

Submitted papers that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s article, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Submitted papers that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Improper Author Contribution or Attribution

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the study in the paper and approved all its claims. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

Redundant Publications