Human and Animal Ethics

Authors reporting studies involving human participants must provide ethical approval statements and confirm informed consent and compliance with ethical principles such as the Declaration of Helsinki.

Research involving animals must follow all standards outlined in laboratory animal care guidelines.

Patient Consent

Participant rights must be strictly protected. Any manuscript containing identifiable personal information requires patient consent before publication.

• All participants must voluntarily sign informed consent forms.
• Identifying information must be anonymized whenever consent cannot be obtained.
• For deceased patients, permission from relatives should be obtained when possible.
• Anonymous medical images may be published without consent if all identifying information is removed.

Competing Interest Statement

Conflicts of interest may include financial relationships, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, or institutional affiliations.

Authors, reviewers, and editors are required to disclose competing interests during submission or review processes.

Further information:

ICMJE Recommendations
COPE Competing Interests
WAME Conflict of Interest Policy

Withdrawal, Corrections and Retractions

SKUMS Publications follow COPE Core Practices regarding manuscript withdrawal, corrections, and retractions.

Withdrawal Policy

• Pre-review withdrawal is permitted without justification.
• During review or pre-publication, compelling reasons are required.
• Post-publication withdrawal is not permitted.

Corrections

Corrections are issued when errors affect metadata or create potential misunderstandings without invalidating research findings.

Retractions

Retractions may occur due to plagiarism, data fabrication, unreliable results, unethical research, copyright violations, compromised peer review, or undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Plagiarism Policy

Submitted manuscripts are screened using iThenticate plagiarism detection software.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• Copied text
• Modified but reused published content
• Copied images, data, or ideas
• Self-plagiarism from previously published works

Detected plagiarism may result in rejection, correction requests, or retraction.

COPE Core Practices

Ethical management across all journals follows COPE Core Practices including:

• Allegations of misconduct
• Authorship and contributorship
• Complaints and appeals
• Conflicts of interest
• Data availability and reproducibility
• Ethical oversight
• Intellectual property protection
• Journal management standards
• Transparent peer review processes
• Post-publication discussions and corrections

Open Access and Copyright

SKUMS Publications operate as Platinum Open Access journals under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Authors retain copyright ownership while permitting unrestricted distribution, adaptation, and reuse provided proper citation is given.

All article abstracts and PDF files are freely accessible immediately after publication.