Ethics
- Publication Ethics
JKH adheres to the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for publishing and ethical standards. For more information on these guidelines, please visit COPE and the ICMJE and the WAME website . Additionally, any research involving human or animal subjects must adhere to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.
- Clinical trial registry
JKH requires that authors publish clinical trials that have been registered with a national or international clinical trial registry. Registration details must be provided by the authors.
- Informed consent:
Informed consent is an ongoing process that must occur before any clinical trial-related procedures are conducted. According to ICMJE guidelines, patients or research participants have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. The patient must be competent to make a voluntary decision about whether to undergo the procedure. Therefore, JKH would not publish identifying information, including patients\' names, initials, or hospital numbers without written informed consent. Additionally, all patients and participants of the research should be thoroughly informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects of the drugs and intervention. Written informed consent from the participants or their legal guardians is necessary for any such studies. The informed consent document must be fully approved by an institutional ethics committee prior to its use with trial participants, and it must have at least two signature and date lines. JKH reserves the right to request related documents.
- Authorship Criteria
Based on the newly released recommendations by the ICMJE, “an Author” is generally considered to be someone who meets the following conditions 4 criteria:
- Substantial contribution to the Concept or design of study; or acquisition of data, analysis or interpretation of data; and
- Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
- Final approval of the version to be published; and
- 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.
All authors should comply with the journal's policies on conflict of interest. The journal includes only one corresponding author per article, and any further contribution details must be included in the contributors or acknowledgement sections at the end of the article. The order of naming contributors should be based on their relative contribution towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted, the order cannot be changed without written consent from all contributors.
Before submitting a manuscript to JKH, the authorship list and order must be agreed upon by all listed authors and contributors, and they must also agree on who will take on the role of corresponding or contact author. Not all contributors necessarily qualify for authorship.
- Conflict of interest
When submitting a manuscript to JKH, authors must fully disclose any potential conflicts of interest, whether financial or non-financial, that they or their employer or sponsor may have with other organizations or individuals that could influence their research. This information can be included in the cover letter or on the manuscript submission form in the journal\'s online peer-review system. The corresponding author is responsible for confirming with all co-authors whether they have any conflicts to declare. If there are no competing interests to report, authors should include a statement to that effect in the article. Failure to disclose conflicts of interest may result in the publication of a statement indicating that no potential competing interest was reported by the authors. According to ICMJE guidelines, a conflict of interest may also arise when an author, reviewer, or editor has personal or financial relationships that could bias their actions. Any perceived associations that could be considered a conflict of interest must also be declared. Examples of non-financial conflicts of interest include access to drugs, equipment, data repositories, or archival resources. Maintaining transparency regarding potential conflicts of interest is essential to ensuring the integrity and credibility of published research.
- Plagiarism
To ensure the integrity of published research, JKH requires that all manuscripts be free from plagiarism. Authors are strongly advised to use plagiarism detection software to check for similarities in their work before submission. Editors at JKH use both Grammarly and iThenticate to check for plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Any manuscripts found to contain plagiarism will be immediately rejected, and if there is convincing evidence of plagiarism, COPE guidelines will be followed. Authors are responsible for ensuring that their work is entirely original and that the similarity level of their manuscript is less than 10%. Additionally, any detected references must have a maximum similarity of 1%. Textual similarity exceeding 10% will not be accepted.
- Copyright
The entire contents of JKH are protected under international copyrights. This Journal is for your personal noncommercial use. You can modify copy, distribute, transmit, display, or publish any materials contained on the Journal with the written permission.
- Misconducts
JKH strictly prohibits the publication of papers that involve research misconduct, which includes plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. The journal follows COPE\'s guidelines (or equivalent) in addressing any allegations of research misconduct related to a published article. JKH will not publish any papers where such misconduct has occurred and is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity.
- Ethics policies on post-publication corrections and retractions
The Journal of Knowledge & Health in Basic Medical Sciences will publish corrections, retractions, and other updates of post-publication, including editor's notes and expressions of concern about published content. The types of corrections and post-publication updates for peer-reviewed primary research, review articles, and specific non-peer reviewed article types are as follows.
Article content correction: As articles can be read and cited as soon as they are published (including Online First publication), any changes thereafter could potentially impact those who read and cited the earlier version. The journal provides authors with an opportunity to review article proofs prior to publication with the express goal of ensuring accuracy of the content. However, in some cases corrections may be required post-publication. These may be made at the discretion of the journal, with the understanding that not all requests for post-publication changes will be permitted.
The journal issues post-publication notifications to address any changes to the version of record, including errors or omissions that impact readability, indexing, or compliance with journal policy, as well as errors or concerns related to the validity or integrity of the article.
Author Correction: An Author Correction such as name change may be published to rectify significant errors made by the author(s) that impact the scientific credibility of the published article, the publication record, or the standing of the authors or the journal. Whenever possible, a correction notice should be drafted and approved by all authors of the original article. In rare cases where it is necessary to rectify an error made during the publication process, the journal may need to issue a correction without direct input from the authors. However, in such instances, the journal will make every effort to inform the authors.
Retraction: retraction of an article in the Journal of Knowledge & Health in Basic Medical Sciences occurs when errors in the conduct, analysis, or reporting of a study substantially undermine the integrity of the published work. Violation of publication or research ethics can also lead to retraction. The original article is labeled as retracted, but a PDF version is still accessible to readers, and the retraction statement is linked to the original published paper. Retraction statements usually include an acknowledgment or disagreement from the authors. The Journal of Knowledge & Health in Basic Medical Sciences follows COPE Retraction Guidelines and a retraction will be issued to alert readers to major errors or breaches of scholarly integrity. The journal has the authority to retract an article if, upon investigation and editorial assessment, the results or conclusions are found to be untrustworthy for any reason. Reasons for retraction may include genuine mistakes or errors due to research or publication misconduct, acceptance based on compromised peer review, authors' failure to adequately address concerns or queries about their article, or inability to verify authors' identities, provide underlying raw data and/or images, or demonstrate their direct involvement in the research.
