Editorial Policy2018-09-20T04:02:43+08:00

Editorial Policy

Our transparent editorial policy requires all researches to conduct their work in an ethical and responsible manner, and in full compliance with all relevant international codes of experimentation and legislation.

Publication ethics

Peer-review policy

All ECDC Publishing journals seek to provide researchers with rigorous, constructive and timely peer review for their manuscript. The standard peer-review process for the ECDC Publishing Series is single blind.

All research articles submitted to JoMOR journals that are selected for peer review are sent to two or more independent reviewers, selected by the editors.

Appeals

Authors who believe an inappropriate decision has been made on their manuscript are able to make a single appeal. Authors should provide a detailed explanation as to why they believe the decision was made in error. The original reviewing editor will be approached in the first instance, to determine if they wish to change their mind in light of the additional information provided in the Appeal.

Competing interests

ECDC Publishing has a transparent publications policy and adheres in principle to the Conflict of Interest policy. We require that authors declare any relevant competing interests of a personal, professional or financial nature at the time of submission- for example, financial or personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work, or could be perceived to do so. It is the responsibility of authors to disclose affiliations with any organization with a financial interest, direct or indirect, in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript (such as consultancies, employment, paid expert testimony, honoraria, speakers bureaus, retainers, stock options or ownership, patents or patent applications or travel grants). All sources of funding for research should be explicitly stated. If uncertain as to what might be considered a potential competing interest, authors should err on the side of full disclosure.

Duplicate publication

Material submitted to a ECDC Publishing journal must be original and must not be published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

We are happy to consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis, which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification. The ECDC Publishing journals support prior publication on recognized community preprint servers for review by other scientists in the field before formal submission to a journal. The details of the preprint server concerned should be included in the cover letter accompanying submission. We will also consider manuscripts that were previously published as part of a conference provided the new work is substantively expanded and refined to fully satisfy the standards of originality.

Ethics and consent

All research reported in submitted papers should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All papers that report in vivo experiments or clinical trials on humans or animals must include a written statement in the Methods section. This should explain that all work was conducted with the formal approval of the local human subject or animal care committees (institutional and national), and that clinical trials have been registered as legislation requires. Authors who do not have formal ethics review committees should include a statement specifying that their study follows the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki

The ECDC Publishing Transfer Service

Why do we have a transfer service?

The global output of academic research is increasing exponentially, putting a growing strain on academic reviewers and editors, which in turn can impact the quality and/or speed of peer review for authors. Peer-review criteria can vary widely between journals.

Common reasons for rejecting a manuscript include:

  • Insufficient match with the aims and/or scope
  • Insufficient novelty, interest, importance or impact for the journal’s intended readership
  • Research is fundamentally unsound
  • Frequently, an article deemed unsuitable for one journal due to the first two of these reasons will find a home in another publication.
  • A manuscript may flow through multiple journals and rounds of review on its way to publication. Authors of work that goes on to be published can sometimes wait many months before publication, with efforts of reviewers and editors expended at each stage.

How does the transfer process work?

The transfer service operates without any changes to the existing peer-review process of any ECDC Publishing journal involved. Rather, journal editors can, at the point of rejection, simply identify if the manuscript may be suitable for publication elsewhere (i.e. it is not fundamentally unsound). The author will then be offered a transfer to a suitable ECDC Publishing journal, and has the choice whether or not to transfer their manuscript. If they agree, ECDC Publishing staff will transfer the manuscript on their behalf, with no re-formatting required. Of course, authors are entirely free to submit their manuscript elsewhere.

What happens after a transfer is made?

Editors of ECDC Publishing journals that receive transferred manuscripts would make an independent decision on whether further rounds of peer review are required to establish suitability for the journal, and the ultimate decision to accept or reject the manuscript is entirely at the independent discretion of the journal editor.

Any transferred reviews remain anonymous to the author and are only visible to the editors of the receiving journal.