The World Journal of Medical Education and Research is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal which is published on a quarterly basis, with the aim of promoting academia and research amongst all members of the multi-disciplinary healthcare team, including doctors, dentists, scientists, and students of these specialties from all around the world. Its policies were created to outline the Editorial Board’s position on the fundamental issues that underpin it.
A competing interest is an aspect that can influence one’s research outcome. It could be financial, commercial, legal, or relational.
All contributors must declare any competing interests that are relevant to, or may be considered to be important to, the research. All elements, including financial and non-financial interests that could directly or indirectly impact the outcome of the research or prejudice the analysis and interpretation of the data, will be viewed as competing interests.
The World Journal of Medical Education and Research endorses complete transparency and expects any competing interests to be declared by the authors. The authors must declare any financial or personal relationships that could be seen as potential competing interests.
When an author submits a manuscript to the World Journal of Medical Education and Research, he/she must provide every detail regarding any competing interests. It is then at the Editorial Board’s discretion to decide whether or not such disclosures should be made public. For editors, peer reviewers, and readers to entirely scrutinise the conclusions of scientific research, transparency is required.
Financial Competing Interests may include:
If there are no financial or non-financial competing interests to report, a statement should be provided by the authors upon submission of the manuscript to confirm this.
A declaration on behalf of all authors must be provided by the corresponding author to outline any competing interests. Reviewers will be given a brief statement that declares the existence of any financial or non-financial interests during the peer-review process to prevent the authors’ identities being revealed. The full disclosure of any competing interests will be submitted to the reviewers at the time of acceptance of the manuscript.
We appreciate that confidentiality agreements may apply to some authors. In such circumstances, we request the author to declare the following: “The authors declare that they are constrained by confidentiality agreements that prohibit them from disclosing their competing interests in this work.”
The World Journal of Medical Education and Research will not tolerate any forms of misconduct. Necessary actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines to protect the integrity of any research. The following shall be duly considered as misconduct.
Plagiarism, Falsification and Fabrication
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged copying of ideas, words or outcomes, or the attempt to misattribute original authorship. The World Journal of Medical Education and Research takes plagiarism extremely seriously. Works that have been plagiarised will not be accepted for publication.
Fabrication is the act of falsifying data or outcomes and reporting them as authentic. It creates, adds and forges data, observations or characterisations that have never occurred in data collection or experimentation. Fabrication causes assertions to be made based on insufficient or assumed data.
Falsification is when study results are changed or omitted to support statements, hypotheses and other data. The manipulation of research instrumentation, materials, and/or procedures is an example of falsification. Falsification can also be defined as the manipulation of pictures or representations in a way that distorts the data.
Text-Recycling
Authors are expected to cite their own previously published work, but they should not reuse large portions. Authors must be transparent about their previously published work by providing accurate citations. When reusing previously published work, authors must ensure that they follow any copyright policies.
Inaccurate Authorship
To provide transparency and credit to those who have contributed significantly to the work, authors are obligated to give an honest explanation of authorship. Authors who refuse to comply on purpose are considered to be engaging in misconduct.
There are various types of Authorship.
'Gift Authorship' occurs when one or more of the listed authors did not contribute significantly, or did not contribute anything at all, to the published work.
'Authorship for Sale', refers to situations in which an author has 'sold' or a researcher has 'purchased' an authorship slot on a paper.
'Ghost Authorship' occurs when an author contributes significantly to a work but is not given credit.
Author Affiliation Misrepresentation
The affiliations must accurately represent where the study was approved, supported, and/or conducted. The affiliation for non-research papers should be the location where the author(s) worked at the time of submission. Misrepresentation of affiliation is a form of misconduct, and the World Journal of Medical Education and Research will investigate such misconduct by contacting the relevant universities.
Image or Data Manipulation/Fabrication
This relates to photographs or data that have been purposefully manipulated or fabricated. This is a significant form of misconduct since it is intended to deceive others and harm the scholarly record’s integrity, with far-reaching implications and long-term effects.
Duplicate Submission/Publication
The authors must state that their paper is not under review elsewhere when they submit it to the World Journal of Medical Education and Research. A duplicate submission or publication is usually seen as a deliberate act of misconduct.
Prior Publication
A manuscript is examined on the basis that it contains original material and that the manuscript and its contents have not been published and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part, in any language. The authors additionally certify that any and all subsequent work in preparation, submitted, in press, or published that may overlap with the data presented or the conceptual approach is contained with the original submission. Any information in the manuscript that has previously appeared elsewhere must be cross-referenced, and permission to use or alter the material from the copyright holder must be obtained in writing.
Peer review is the process of having experts in the field evaluate a research paper. Its goal is to assess the quality and suitability of a manuscript for publication.
All articles, letters, reports, analyses, reviews, and perspectives submitted to the World Journal of Medical Education and Research are peer-reviewed. Correspondence and any type of published corrections may be peer-reviewed at the editors’ discretion.
Double-Anonymous Peer Review
A double-blind peer review can reduce the possibility of unintended bias from reviewers who are aware of a paper’s authors’ seniority, gender, or nationality.
The World Journal of Medical Education and Research uses double-anonymous peer review. The reviewers are unaware who the authors of the manuscript are, and the authors are unaware who the reviewers are.
The World Journal of Medical Education and Research has the authority to request amendments, as well as to accept and reject submissions. A manuscript that passes peer review will be given an in-principle acceptance (IPA), which means that the manuscript will be published based on the successful completion of any requested corrections and/or amendments.
To support any claims stated in the manuscript, research and non-research publications must mention relevant, timely, and verified literature. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation, as well as pre-arrangements amongst groups of authors to inappropriately cite each other’s work, must be avoided, as citation manipulation is a form of misconduct.
Citation manipulation occurs when references are provided merely to gain citations and do not contribute to the work’s scientific substance. Any party which includes or seeks citations for the sole purpose of self-promotion violates publication ethics.
The authors must make certain that the references are appropriate for the content. If one is unsure whether to cite a source, one should seek help from the journal’s editorial office.
In general, a publication must show an increase in understanding that is likely to affect the field in question, as well as strong proof for its conclusions. There must be a compelling justification why the work should be published in the World Journal of Medical Education and Research. .
Editor’s Decisions
Legitimate appeals to the World Journal of Medical Education and Research are always accepted. In response to the editor’s and reviewers’ remarks, the author(s) will need to provide compelling evidence or additional data/information.
The editors do not anticipate many appeals, and they rarely overturn their initial findings. As a result, authors whose work has been rejected should strongly consider submitting their manuscript to another journal. The editor’s assessment of importance will often play a role in his/her decision to reject a submission, and this issue is often unable to be remedied through an appeal. However, if one has a valid case for an appeal, one should follow the steps outlined below.
Appeals Procedure
In the case of a legitimate complaint or appeal, the author(s) can write to the journal’s online editorial office. The letter must include:
Depending on the nature of the appeal, editors may enlist the help of any associate editors who worked on the initial submission’s peer review. Editors can either confirm their rejection judgement, welcome a revised article, or request extra peer or statistical evaluation of the original manuscript.
On published content, the World Journal of Medical Education and Research will issue corrections, retraction statements, and other post-publication updates such as Editor’s Notes and Editorial Expressions of Concern.
Our policy is to consider primary research paper refutations and publish them if, and only if, the author provides compelling evidence that a major claim in the original paper was incorrect.
Refutations are peer-reviewed, and they are sent to the same referees who reviewed the original paper whenever possible. A copy is usually sent to the original paper’s corresponding author for signed comments. The World Journal of Medical Education and Research publish refutations typically with a brief response from the original authors. Some submitted refutations are eventually published by the paper’s authors as retractions.
Complaints, disagreements over interpretation, and other issues should be directed to the journal’s editors. The World Journal of Medical Education and Research considers correspondence related to all articles. Criticisms of review articles are rarely considered. In such cases, editorial decisions are made based on reader interest, the novelty of the arguments, the integrity of the publication record, and fairness to the parties involved.
All published article content is subject to an editorial review procedure coordinated and overseen by the editor. If the authors want to add to their article after it has been accepted, they must make a request to the editor, and the additional information will be reviewed.
If the new material adds to the accepted article, it must be submitted for peer review as a new submission, with a reference to the original. If the new material should replace the accepted article’s original content, the editor may consider publishing an erratum or a corrigendum.
Erratum
An erratum is a correction to inaccuracies made by the publisher in the article. At the proof stage, any publisher-introduced modifications are highlighted to the author, and any errors are preferably discovered by the author and remedied by the publisher before final publishing.
Corrigendum
A corrigendum is a revision to an article that the author intends to publish at any time after it has been accepted. Authors should contact the journal’s editor, who will assess the impact of the modification and decide on the best course of action.
The World Journal of Medical Education and Research will initiate a corrigendum to a published article after having received approval and instructions from the editor.
All authors must complete an editorial policy checklist to ensure that their manuscript complies with the editorial policies of the World Journal of Medical Education and Research. Studies on humans must have been performed in accordance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.
Where applicable, prior to beginning the study, all protocols must have received ethical approval from the local institutional review board (IRB) or other suitable ethics body to ensure the study complies with national and international criteria for human research.
A statement confirming this must be included in the manuscript, together with the name of the ethical committee and any reference or permit numbers.
Non-interventional studies where ethical approval is not necessary, or where an ethics committee has given an exemption, should be indicated within the paper. Where an exemption has been obtained for a study, the name of the ethical commission that authorised it should be stated.
When defining diverse groups based on colour, ethnicity, age, sickness, handicap, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and so on, non-stigmatising and non-discriminatory terminology should be used. Human studies classified by such groupings should contain an explanation of the definitions and categories, as well as whether any human categorisation standards were mandated by the relevant funding organisations, if appropriate.