JFMC Journal Policy

JFMC strives to follow the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines on best practices to reach high standards in publication ethics.

The vision at the core of Journal of Federal Medical College is to contribute to the path towards a healthier world by fostering collaboration, innovation, and excellence in medical research. We strive to be a guiding beacon for the healthcare professionals, researchers, and students towards cutting-edge discoveries and advancements in the field of medicine.

Our mission is to provide a platform for the dissemination of groundbreaking research, insightful perspectives, and transformative ideas that will shape the future of healthcare. Through our dedication to integrity, quality, and inclusivity, we aim to inspire and empower the local and global medical community to drive positive change and improve patient outcomes.

Join us on this journey as we embark on a mission to contribute to excellence and innovation in medical sciences through knowledge and compassion. We pledge our commitment to knowledge for all by offering open access publishing.

JFMC follows the rules of publishing manuscripts according to the instructions of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Details of ICMJE and COPE are available at www.icmje.org and http://publicationethics.org/.

According to ICMJE guidelines authorship should be based on the following four criteria:

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.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.

The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer-review, and publication process.

The corresponding author typically ensures that all the journal's administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and disclosures of relationships and activities are properly completed and reported, although these duties may be delegated to one or more co-authors.

The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer-review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication.

Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are the acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, proofreading, statisticians who did statistical analysis, etc.

Authors who use AI-assisted technologies in their research study or as aids in the writing or presentation of the manuscript should disclose this in the cover letter and the acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

This journal would not be responsible for any dispute related to the authorship of a submitted paper. Any change in the authorship (such as the addition or deletion of author(s) or change in the sequence of the author list) should be intimated to the editorial office through a letter signed by all authors before publication of the paper. In the absence of any signed letter, approval of 'Galley proof' by the corresponding author will work as a 'certificate of final agreement of authorship'. Generally, any change in the authorship after final publication is not entertained and COPE guidelines are followed for any dispute.

JFMC will follow the COPE guidelines in cases of allegations of misconduct. According to COPE guidelines, editors have to act if they suspect misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.

In case of an allegation of research misconduct, JFMC will request the authors to explain their point of view and provide evidence.

In case of an unsatisfactory response, the publication process may be suspended and institutions of the author/relevant regulatory bodies will be informed to deal with the matter.

In case of an allegation of misconduct on a published article, an expression of concern will be issued which can alert readers to a potentially unreliable publication, it may later be converted into a retraction or correction, or itself be retracted, depending on the outcome of the investigation.

All authors must sign and disclose any potential conflict of interest while the manuscript submission is made to the journal. These may be financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony) or non-financial (personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition).

Authors employed by pharmaceutical companies or other organizations that sponsor clinical trials must declare this as a competing interest. The funding source of the study must be disclosed.

JFMC routinely screens the submitted manuscripts for plagiarism as we aim to publish original high-quality research work. Submission of a manuscript to this journal indicates that the study has not been published anywhere or has not been submitted elsewhere for publication. Plagiarized manuscripts would not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is found in any published paper after an internal investigation, a letter for explanation will be immediately sent to all the authors, their affiliated institutes, and funding agencies, and subsequently, the paper will be retracted.

JFMC is committed to open research sharing, facilitating faster and more effective research discovery by enabling reproducibility and verification of data, methodology, and reporting standards.

The journal encourages authors to share the data supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors may provide a data availability statement, including a link to the repository they have used. Shared data should be cited. However, re-submission of the full article or any part for publication by a third party would require prior permission from the JFMC.

Data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.

As per COPE guidelines, ethical oversight includes "but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices" (COPE website).

All authors are required to verify that appropriate ethical procedures have been followed.

JFMC is the owner of all copyrights to any work published by the journal. Authors transfer the copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.

According to JFMC policy, the copyright belongs to the JFMC upon manuscript submission. However, if the authors want to withdraw the manuscript during its processing, an email has to be sent notifying their intention. A final letter from the editorial office for the withdrawal of the manuscript will be sent to confirm the withdrawal.

To maintain the integrity of scientific research, the JFMC welcomes the concerns raised by authors and/or readers on published articles through letters to the editor. However, authors are always allowed to respond to all complaints/comments. Journal may require reviewers to go over the original data and consult with experts involved, to solve and conclude the investigation. The following actions may be taken depending on the severity of the issue:

• A correction may be published.
• An Editorial Expression of Concern may be published.
• The article may be retracted.