Guidelines for Editors

The person in charge of overseeing an academic journal's manuscript publication procedure is called a journal editor. Editors decide which article should be published and which should be rejected. They manage the review process and make sure that the publications add to the standard of quality of the journal.

Since we assign the manuscripts based on the editors' areas of competence and interest, we greatly rely on their judgement regarding each paper or manuscript.

Editors are accountable for everything that is published in the journals. They should take care of the following:

• An effort should be made to satisfy writers' and readers' requirements.
• It should be ensured that the articles published are of the highest possible quality.
• Attempts to make constant improvements to the journals should be ensured.
• The work’s integrity should be preserved.
• The right to free speech should be maintained.
• The compromise of intellectual standards due to corporate needs should be prevented.
• It should be made certain that the authors have shared the information regarding the donor who has provided funding for the study and the role he/she plays in the research, with the readers.
• They should be willing to release retractions, explanations, and corrections, if and when required.
• It should be made certain that the procedure for the peer review process has been followed.
• The decision of whether to accept or reject an article for publication should be taken only on the basis of the relevance of the study to the journal's mandate, its significance, originality, and clarity.
• Articles to be published should be chosen based on merit and suitability instead of any personal benefit/interest of the owner/publisher of the journals, or of authors.
• It should be verified that the journal has a clearly stated process in place for authors to challenge editorial decisions.
• It should be made sure that the journal publishes instructions for authors outlining all expectations. This guideline should be updated on a regular basis.
• Acceptance decisions and other prior Editor's decisions should not be reverted unless grave issues are found with the submission.
• Reviewer guidelines should be provided outlining all expectations. These guidelines need to be updated frequently and to make reference to or provide a link to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) best practices.
• Procedures should be established to make sure that the anonymity of reviewers is maintained.
• Procedures should be established to guarantee that the content submitted to the journal is kept confidential while it is being reviewed.
• Complaints should be dealt with by following the process outlined in the COPE flowchart.
• It should be ensured that strong and convincing critiques of articles published in the journals are published unless editors provide strong justifications for not doing so. Authors should be provided with a platform to share their responses, if their work has been questioned.
• Studies with negative findings should be included as well.
• It should be verified that the research published in the journals complies with globally recognised ethical standards. The Editors should ask for confirmation that every study has been authorised by the relevant authority (such as the institutional review board or the research ethics committee). They should understand, though, that this approval does not imply that the research is ethical.
• Privacy of personal data (such as that acquired via a patient-doctor relationship) should be reserved. As a result, getting patients' or participants’ written informed consent is nearly always required for using patient photos and case reports. If the report is significant for public health (or in some other way), obtaining consent would be exceptionally difficult, and a reasonable person would be unlikely to object to publishing, it might be permissible to publish without explicit consent (all three requirements must be met).
• Proper action should be taken if any kind of misconduct is observed. All papers, published and unpublished, are subject to this obligation. Papers that raise questions about potential misconduct should not be rejected straightaway. The Editors have a moral obligation to investigate any such claims. The accused should be contacted first to get their response. The Editors should ask the relevant employers or another suitable body to look into the matter if they are not pleased with the response. They should exert every reasonable effort to guarantee that a thorough investigation is carried out; in the event that this isn't accomplished, they should exert every reasonable effort to find a solution.
• The academic record's integrity should be assured. If a major error, false statement, or incorrect report is discovered to have been published, it needs to be quickly and prominently corrected. Following a proper investigation, if an article turns out to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction ought to be easily discernible to both indexing systems and readers.
• The PDFs of any advertisement received for the journals are shared with the Editors for their approval regarding the relevance of the advertisement in the journals. The Editors should reject deceptive advertisements and be open to publishing criticisms based on the same standards as the rest of the journals. Reprints should be released as they appear in the journals, except in the case of any correction.
• Procedures should be established for handling conflicts of interest involving their employees, writers, editors, and reviewers.