The Journals published by SKUMS approved the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors policies (WAME), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

As stated in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations, credit for authorship requires:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception and design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data,

2. The drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content;

3. Final approval of the version to be published;

4. Providing agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the article are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the four components mentioned above. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship.

The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors. In addition, any changes must be explained to the Editor/Editor-in-Chief. In line with COPE guidelines, our journal requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submission(s) or published item(s). This approval must be via direct email from each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors agree with the suggested changes. It is not the journal editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes. A change in authorship of a published article can only be amended via publication of an Erratum or Correction.

Authors should follow "the international standards for authors" recommended by COPE.

To respect the authorship right of authors and uphold scientific honesty, the authorship of the publications should be compiled as follows:

1. Author names should not be added, removed, or changed in the order after submitting the manuscript.

2. Each article could have one corresponding author.

3. Authors are not recommended to be co-first authors. Authors in the same institution could not be the co-first authors.

Note: The publications reserve the right of final explanations to the Authorship standards.

Based on the ICMJE recommendations a clinical trial is defined as “any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the cause-and-effect, relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. In agreement with the ICMJE’s recommendations, The publications would consider publishing clinical trials that have been registered with a clinical trial registry that allows free online access to the public. As per our policy, registration of all trials in a public registry approved by the ICJME -- a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform available from the following link:

Authors are encouraged to use the EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines for the study type:

• Randomized controlled trials (RCTs): CONSORT guidelines

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines and MOOSE guidelines

• Observational studies in epidemiology: STROBE guidelines and MOOSE guidelines

• Diagnostic accuracy studies: STARD guidelines

• Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE guidelines

• Case reports guidelines: CARE guidelines

As a follower of the COPE, publications adhere to the “Code of Conduct” the “Best Practice Guidelines” and "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing".

Withdrawal is an action that takes the manuscript out of the review process and places it back into the author’s dashboard. In general, we do not suggest article withdrawal, since it wastes valuable manuscript processing time, money, and works invested by the publisher.

• Pre-Review is a period that an author(s) submit(s) her/his article until it is sent for review.

• Peer-Review: is a period the manuscript is submitted completely to the website and included in the review process.

• Final Decision is a period from the acceptance of an article until it is sent for publication if the article meets the journal standards.

• Pre-Publication: when a paper is accepted for publication or published as an “ahead of print (In Press)” paper but has no volume/issue/page number.

• Post-Publication: when a paper is published and placed in a volume/issue with the page number.

• Pre-Review: The author(s) can withdraw their papers at this step without posting compelling reasons.

• Peer-Review, Final Decision, and Pre-Publication: The authors should have compelling reasons to withdraw their papers.

• Post-Publication: Withdrawing at this step is not possible at all.

When a withdrawal occurs, our publisher will remove the article content (HTML and PDF) and replace it with an HTML page describing that the article has been withdrawn according to the Publisher’s policies.

See COPE Cases for details.

The publications will consider the publication of a correction when a mistake may jeopardize the conclusions of an article or contains incorrect information regarding the metadata of an article such as author names, affiliations, title, etc.) but does not undermine the validity of the findings. A note linking to the correction will be placed on the original article page.

Duplicate or redundant submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to different journals at the same time. In such a case, we will follow the COPE guidelines.

Note: ICMJE recommends that translations are acceptable but MUST reference the original. Based on our policy, translations of the original article can be considered as an online supplementary file. Editors may consider publishing a correction rather than a retraction/notice of duplicate publication in such cases.

In keeping with COPE's Retraction Guidelines, a retraction will be considered by our editors if:

• It has clear evidence indicating the results are unreliable, either because of major errors (eg, miscalculation or experimental error, data fabrication, image manipulation, …)

• It has plagiarism.

• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper citation to previous sources, permission to reproduce, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)

• There is a copyright infringement or other legal issues

• It reports unethical research

• It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process

• The author(s) failed to declare a major conflict of interest

Authors or editors of the journal may retract a paper. However, the final decision is made by the editors for retracting the material. If none of the authors will approve publishing a retraction, the editor/s may request such a retraction from the investigating institution, or the editor may ask for a retraction on behalf of the journal. In each condition, the editor should inform the author(s) or institution affiliated with the author(s) for publishing a retraction.

• Note: After publishing a retraction, the HTML version of the document will be removed from the site. Additionally, The PDF file of the article is retained unchanged; only a watermark showing the “retracted” label is placed on each page of the PDF. Finally, a link is made to the original article.

Publications are powered by the iThenticate software, a plagiarism detector service that considers the originality of content submitted before publication. When plagiarism is identified, we act based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE.

• Directly copying text from other sources

• Using an idea from another source with a little altered language

• Copying ideas, images, or materials/data from other sources

• Reusing text from your previous publications

• If plagiarism is identified during the peer review stage, the manuscript may be rejected.

• If plagiarism is identified after the publication of the article, we reserve the right to request a correction or retract the paper based on COPE guidelines.

Publications expect the highest ethical standards from their authors, reviewers, and editors when conducting research, submitting papers, and throughout the peer-review process.

Publications adhere to the policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations Thus, The publications expect all authors, reviewers, and editors to consider COPE, ICMJE and Equator Network’s reporting guidelines in scientific writing.

Authors reporting experimental studies on human subjects must include an ethical approval statement on the Title page indicating (a) informed consent was taken from all patients enrolled in the study and (b) the study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki as reflected in a priori approval by the institution's human research committee. For protecting the safety of individuals who participate in the study, academic and funding organizations

require any study including human participants be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) or ethics review committee. In studies involving animal experimentations, all criteria highlighted in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" should be addressed.

The protection of a patient's right in a scientific publication is essential. Any article submitted to the journal including personal medical material about an identifiable living individual needs patient’s consent before it can be published. Therefore, all participants are required to sign an informed consent form after reading the study’s information sheet. Before signing a consent form, the purpose of all procedures and their possible harms must be completely clarified to all patients who participate in the study. Participants should voluntarily agree to such participation. Nevertheless, informed consent forms should be sent online for advance review.

If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be traced in a study, then publication will be possible only if the information can be sufficiently anonymized. Anonymization means that neither the person nor anyone else could identify the individual with certainty.

If the patient is dead, the authors should track permission from a relative. If the relatives are not contactable, the journals will balance the worthwhileness of the case, the likelihood of identification, and the likelihood of an illegal act in the decision to publish a submitted paper.

Images—such as x-rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, pathology slides, or images of undistinctive parts of the body—may be used without consent so long as they are anonymized by the removal of any identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that could reveal the patients’ identity.

In the medical publication, a conflict of interest (COI) happens when an author has financial or other relationships influencing the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. COI may occur in various forms such as financial ties, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, and institutional affiliations. In managing COI, The publications abide by the policy statement of the WAME. All authors should declare their COI, if any, during the manuscript submission. Additionally, reviewers and editors are requested to announce their COI when they agree to take a manuscript for reviewing and handling, respectively. Reviewers and Editors with COI will be excepted from the manuscript process. All authors must declare all competing interests on their title page. Further information can be found at the following links:

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/

https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests and the World Association of Medical

Associate editors are responsible for the peer-review process and ensuring the publication of high-quality papers. They would help the lead editor in terms of different aspects related to the works of publication and the peer-review process.

The Editorial Board Members must be familiar with the peer-review process, publication ethics, and code of conduct as well as standards for high-quality publications. Academic merit/competency and having a high H-index are two main criteria for selecting editorial board members.