Publication Ethics and Malpractice

We aim to establish the highest ethical standards to ensure high-quality scientific publications and public trust in scientific findings. The Journal follows the roles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which should be taken into account by all the parties involved in the publication process.

1. For Editors:

1.1. Publication Decisions

All manuscripts are subject to peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. When it is approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors. The editorial board may reject a submitted manuscript without a formal peer review if the board considers it to be inadequate for publication or if it is out of the journal's scope. The handling of manuscripts submitted to the journal is managed by the Editor-in-Chief, who has the primary authority to reject the manuscript, return it to the author for revision, or accept it after thoroughly evaluating the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.

1.2. Peer Reviewing

The editorial board is obliged to give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for publication. The board will judge each manuscript professionally without any discrimination related to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, and/or institutional affiliation of the author(s). The editorial board will select reviewers who have adequate and relevant expertise in the field of the manuscript research. The selection will also consider any conflict of interest that could occur with the author(s) of the manuscript.

The Journal of the Faculty of Medicine Baghdad applies a peer review process involving 2-3 reviewers (national and international reviewers) for the submitted manuscript. It should ensure a lack of bias from the reviewer, as they do not know the identity or the institution or country of the author. It also makes it easier for the reviewer to be objective if they are not in awe of the author (or have a personal grudge).

1.3. Confidentiality

The information in the submitted manuscripts is treated with a high degree of confidentiality and would not be disclosed to anyone outside the concerned parties involved in the publication process, namely the author(s), the reviewers, the concerned editor(s), and the administrative staff of the journal.

1.4. Editor as an author in his own journal

The journal is making every effort to minimize any bias in the review process if the Editors want to publish their original articles in their own journal. The process will have another associate editor handle the peer review procedure independently of the editor.

The Editors are not involved in the peer review and editorial decision-making process for their own articles. The review process is made transparent and as rigorous as possible.

2. For Reviewers:

2.1. Decisions ought to be neutral.

2.2. There should be no conflicts of interest for reviewers about the study, its authors, or its funders.

2.3. Reviewers ought to draw attention to pertinent published material that hasn't been cited yet.

2.4. Reviewed articles ought to be kept private.

2.5. Reviewers will complete the task on time, and they should let the editor know if they are unable to finish it.

2.6. Editors-in-Chief make the ultimate decision about an article, although reviewers should provide guidance.

2.7. To raise the article's quality, reviewers ought to offer helpful criticism.

3. For Authors:

 3.1 Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into a published article.  If unsure, declare a potential interest or discuss it with the editorial office. Undeclared interests may incur sanctions. Submissions with undeclared conflicts that are later revealed may be rejected. Published articles may need to be re-assessed, have a corrigendum published, or in serious cases, be retracted. For more information on COIs, see the guidance from the ICMJE and WAME.

3.2. Citation manipulation

Authors whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work or to articles published in a particular journal may incur sanctions. Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

3.3. Fabrication and falsification

The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.

3.4 Authorship and acknowledgments

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript, approved its claims, and agreed to be an author. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution. We refer to the ICMJE guidelines. Author contributions may be described at the end of the submission, optionally using roles defined by CRediT. Submitting authors must provide an ORCID and we encourage all authors to provide one. Changes in authorship must be declared to the journal and agreed to by all authors. An author may change their name on a published article (see below).

Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation but is not an author should be acknowledged with their permission.

Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.

3.4. Patient consent forms

The protection of a patient's right to privacy is essential. Please collect and keep copies of patients’ consent forms on which patients or other subjects of your experiments clearly grant permission for the publication of photographs or other material that might identify them. If the consent form for your research did not specifically include this, please obtain it or remove the identifying material.

A statement to the effect that such consent had been obtained must be included in the ‘Methods’ section of your paper. If necessary, the Editors may request a copy of any consent forms.

4. Ethics committee approval

All articles dealing with original human or animal data must include a statement on ethics approval at the beginning of the Methods section. This paragraph must contain the following information: the name and address of the ethics committee responsible; the protocol number that was attributed by this ethics committee; and the date of approval by the ethics committee.

The paragraph could read, for example:
"Ethical approval for this study (Ethical Committee N° NAC 207) was provided by the Ethical Committee NAC of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, on 12 February 2007."

In addition, and as stated above, for studies conducted on human participants, you must state clearly that you obtained written informed consent from the study participants; please also look at the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki. Similarly, for experiments involving animals, you must state the care of animals and licensing guidelines under which the study was performed and report these following the ARRIVE (Animals in Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) statement. If ethics clearance was not necessary, or if there was any deviation from these standard ethical requests, please state why it was not required. Please note that the editors may ask you to provide evidence of ethical approval. If you have approval from a National Drug Agency (or similar), please state this and provide details; this can be particularly useful when discussing the use of unlicensed drugs.

An Ethical approval and consent form is provided in this Link 

5. Permission to reproduce previously published material

Permission is required to reproduce material (such as illustrations) from the copyright holder. Articles cannot be published without these permissions.

6. Hazards and Human/Animal Subjects

For any work that involves human subjects, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to make sure that the work does not pose any risk or threat to the human subjects and the work should be approved by the institutional ethical committee.

If the work involves the use of animals, the research must be carried out according to the consensus ethics relating to the use of these animals in scientific work and approved by the institutional ethical committee.  The author(s) are also obligated to sign on their responsibility of taking these ethics into account while conducting research on animal subjects.