Editorial Independency

All of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences Journals benefits from editorial freedom. Our Journals’ editorial policy is consistent with the principles of editorial independence presented by WAME.

http://wame.org/editorial-independence

Editorial and Peer Review Process

Articles submitted to SUMS journals are primarily evaluated by statisticians and internal screeners who check the articles for any methodological flaws, format, and their compliance with the journal’s instructions. Then a submission code will be allocated and all the future contacts should be based on this code. Through a double-blind review process, the articles will be reviewed by at least two external (peer) reviewers. Their comments will be passed to the authors and their responses to the comments along with the reviewers’ comments will then be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief, and a final reviewer who can be a member of the Editorial Board. The final review process will be discussed in regular editorial board sessions and on the basis of the comments, and the journal’s scope, the Editor-in-Chief will decide which articles should be published.

Ethical Considerations

All of our journals are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE’s flowcharts and guidelines are approached in confronting any ethical misbehavior. Our Journals also follow the guidelines mentioned in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals which issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/#privacy).

   Human & Animal Rights Statement

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board).

Manuscripts describing any experimental research on animals should include a statement of approval by the Ethical Committee of the institute where the work was done, mentioning that the study was carried out according to the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority. Before papers describing animal studies are accepted for publication in the Journals, the authors must convince the editors that the work conformed to appropriate ethical standards. The care and use of experimental animals should comply with acceptable international animal welfare guidelines and policies. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the Guideline for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals in Iran. For reports of such studies, authors should refer to the ARRIVE guidelines checklist.

Informed consent

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. Our Journals reserve the right to request the related documents.
 

Conflict of Interest

We request all the authors to inform us about any kinds of “Conflict of Interest” (such as financial, personal, political, or academic) that would potentially affect their judgment. Authors are preferably asked to fill the uniform disclosure form available through:

(http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf)

Plagiarism

The authors are not allowed to utilize verbatim text of previously published papers or manuscripts submitted elsewhere. All of our journals adhere to COPE flowcharts in case any plagiarism is detected.

Copyright

If a manuscript contains any previous published image or text, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain authorization from copyright holders. The author is required to obtain and submit the written original permission letters for all copyrighted material used in his/her manuscripts.

The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern

Correction of Errata

Our Journals will publish erratum when factual error in a published item has been documented.

Retraction Policy

Our journals use the COPE flowchart for retraction of a published article to determine whether a published article should be retracted.

Advertising Policies for print and web publications

Our advertising policy is consistent with the principles mentioned in the Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals which issued by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

http://wame.org/recommendations-on-publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals#Advertising