Policies and Procedures

The following are the official policies and procedures of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention.

Operational Guidelines

Journal Operational Guidelines

These principles will apply to the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, herein referred to as the Journal; as governed by the Plantrician Project, herein referred to as the Society. The Editorial Office will be housed virtually.

Mission

The Society is the primary sponsor of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. The mission of the Journal is to promote the advancement of plant-based research and education, and the use of nutrition and lifestyle medicine in clinical practice. The Journal will be published at regular intervals as determined by the Editorial Advisory Board.

Vision Statement

A world where the whole-foods, plant-based diet has been embraced by the masses and leading the way is the focus of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. We envision an influential, internationally acclaimed peer-reviewed journal of the highest integrity that will

  • inspire and document research proving disease reversal through nutrition and lifestyle;
  • act as a vehicle to provide an integrated platform for publishing and publicizing research;
  • be a publication that will lead to a change in medical practice standards of care, influencing thought leaders globally, and, most importantly, saving lives;
  • provide the the utmost ethical standards and draws leading researchers to seek publication with the IJDRP

The Journal will have a user-friendly platform for accurate dispensing of knowledge on a variety of levels, including researchers, physicians, and other healthcare providers, hospitals, government agencies, and corporations.

Ownership and Control

The Society shall own the Journal and its title, including all trademark rights and copyrights. The Society through its appointed Editor in Chief and Editorial Advisory Board will have exclusive control of the editorial policy and the editorial content of the Journal.

Editorial Independence

The Society and the Journal will maintain high standards of academic freedom and objectivity. In order to promote an editorial process that is free of external influences and bias, the relationship between the Society's Editorial Advisory Board and the Editor in Chief of the Journal will be as follows:

  1. The Editor in Chief shall have final authority on all decisions regarding editorial practices, editorial decisions, and the content of the Journal.
  2. The Society, through its Editorial Advisory Board, may provide advisory comments on editorial practices, editorial decisions, or content of the Journal, but such comments are not binding.

Operations

Financial and business affairs will be managed at the Society headquarters. The Society will provide all the personnel, equipment, and supplies necessary to conduct the editorial processes of the Journal.

Members of the Editorial Review Board

Editorial Review Board members will be responsible for reviewing and editing material submitted for publication in the Journal and may be assigned to special projects relating to the Journal at the request of the Editor in Chief.

Ethics

The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention (IJDRP) follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for guidance on policies and procedures related to publication ethics. The policies listed below have been adopted from these three advisory bodies and, where necessary, modified and tailored to meet the specific content, audiences, and aims of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention and the Plantrician Project.

Study Design

In accordance with the recommendations of WAME, research submitted to the IJDRP should be well justified, well planned, and appropriately designed so that it can properly address the research objective of the study described in the manuscript. Statistical issues, including power analysis, should be described to avoid futile studies that produce subject risk without enrollment sufficient to address the research objective. Outcomes should be specified at the start of the study. Research should be conducted to high standards of quality control and data analysis. Data and records, including the original versions of manuscripts, figures, and other files and supporting materials, must be retained by authors for a period of 7 years and must be able to be produced for review, if requested by the editors. Fabrication, falsification, concealment, deceptive reporting, or misrepresentation of data constitutes scientific misconduct.

In addition, and in line with WAME's recommendations, IJDRP requires documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (institutional review board or ethics committee) for all studies involving people, medical records, and human tissues. For those investigators who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. If the study is judged exempt from review, a statement from the committee is required; authors should provide this statement at the time of manuscript submission. Informed consent by participants must be attained. If not possible, an institutional review board must decide if this is ethically acceptable; review board approval must be attested to and described in the comments to the editor upon manuscript submission and in the Research Design and Methods section of the manuscript itself.

Studies and experiments using animals require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements.

IJDRP requires the reporting of gender for cells, tissues, and experimental animals and humans (i.e., male and female) where appropriate and suitable for the experimental design of the research effort; studies should report whether gender was considered a factor in the statistical analysis of the data.

Originality and Prior Publication

The IJDRP publishes only original work that has not been previously published. All authors of manuscripts submitted to the IJDRP must attest that neither the manuscript nor any part of it, regardless of the language in which it was originally written or published, has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. The IJDRP does not consider previous presentation of a study at a meeting, previous publication of an abstract affiliated with the proceedings of meetings, or prior posting of a study on a recognized preprint server (e.g., bioRxiv) to constitute prior publication. To be clear, the IJDRP will still consider papers for publication if they are previously presented in these formats. At the time of submission and in the Acknowledgments section, authors should disclose whether the study described in the manuscript has been previously presented at a meeting, published in abstract form in the proceedings of a meeting, or posted on a preprint server.

Any reference to or use of previously published material protected by copyright must be explicitly acknowledged in the manuscript, and it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission(s) where applicable. Posting of submitted material on a website may be considered prior publication and should be noted in the comments to the editor upon submission. Redundant publication—when multiple papers, without full cross-reference in the text, share the same data or results—is not permissible. At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers they have authored, even if authored in a different language; similar papers in press; and any closely related papers previously published or currently under review at another journal.

Authorship and Contributions

The IJDRP subscribes to the requirements stated in ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals that authorship implies:

  • Substantial contributions to conception and design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
  • Final approval of the version to be published; and
  • 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 work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All authors should meet these above conditions, and the IJDRP requirement for all listed authors to list their contributions to the study and/or manuscript in a section titled "Author Contributions" on the title page of the manuscript. If the article is accepted for publication, this information will be included after the main text in the published version of the manuscript.

In addition, the IJDRP has adopted the following ICMJE recommendations related to authorship and contributions:

  • When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above, and these individuals must complete the mandatory Manuscript Submission Form, which requires authors to outline contributions and relevant conflict of interest.
  • When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name; other collaborators should be listed in the Acknowledgments. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.
  • Acquisition of funding, collection of data, collection of patient and/or samples from other species, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
  • All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
  • Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
  • All authors must take responsibility in writing for the accuracy of the manuscript, and one or more authors, such as the corresponding or lead author, must be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole.

Acknowledgments

The role of or contribution by any individual or entity included in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript must be clearly defined. Editors may contact authors to clarify the roles or contributions of any person or entity acknowledged in the manuscript, particularly if that person or entity provided "editorial assistance" or help with "preparing" or "drafting" the manuscript. Authors should avoid vague or broad descriptions of contributions of acknowledged individuals or entities; descriptions of contributions should be clear, specific, and precise.

The IJDRP requires that authors list the employer or institutional affiliation of any individual mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. If this information is not included at the time of submission, editorial staff will request the corresponding author to submit a new version of the manuscript that includes the required information.

Conflicts of Interest

The IJDRP requires all participants in the peer review and publication process to disclose all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest. Editors may use information disclosed in conflicts of interest and financial interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions.

All authors should refer to the IJDRP Policy Statement on Duality of Interest and submit relevant conflicts of interest statements with IJDRP’s mandatory Manuscript Submission Form. In lieu of completing the conflicts of interest section on the Manuscript Submission Form, authors may submit ICMJE's Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest.

In addition, for all manuscript submissions, regardless of article type, all authors should include conflicts of interest statements in both the comments to the editors at the time of submission and within the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript itself. If authors have no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose, this should also be indicated in both sections.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest include

  • Employment, membership on the board of directors, or any fiduciary relationship with a third party entity engaged in the development, manufacture, or sale of pharmaceutical or medical devices, supplies, or information;
  • Ownership of stock or receipt of honoraria, travel or meeting expenses, or consulting or review fees from a third-party entity, as described above;
  • Receipt of financial support or grants for research from a third-party entity, as described above;
  • Holding patents or receiving royalties related to the development of pharmaceutical or medical devices, supplies, or information;
  • Receipt of writing assistance, medicines, equipment, or administrative support from a third-party entity, as described above;
  • Membership on a scientific advisory panel or other standing scientific/medical committee;
  • Receipt of payment or honoraria for author contributions or author designation;
  • Any other relationships that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, the content of the submitted work.

Investigators must disclose potential conflicts of interest to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so.

If the study was sponsored by a third party, authors should describe the role of the study sponsor in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing the report; and the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source had no such involvement, the authors should so state. At the time of submission, IJDRP requires that the submitting author of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the study should indicate that she/he had full access to all of the data in the study and takes complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. This author, unless otherwise specified, will be listed in the published version of the article as the "guarantor" of the study.

Please note that the editors may request a statistical analysis of all data by an independent biostatistician and will decline to consider an article if a sponsor has asserted control over the author’s (s’) right to publish.

Peer reviewers for the IJDRP are required to disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript. Likewise, the Editor and Review Editors are required to recuse themselves of any final decision on manuscripts for which they may have personal or professional biases. In such cases, a different member of the Editorial Team, or an "Ad Hoc Editor" (e.g., managing editor of the journal), will be appointed to adjudicate the review of the manuscript and render a decision on the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to provide editors with the names of persons they feel should not be asked to review a manuscript because of potential conflicts of interest. Authors should explain their concerns in their comments to the editor at the time of submission; the editors will take this information into account when determining who to invite to review the manuscript.

Data Access and Responsibility

The IJDRP has adopted the data access and responsibility policies developed by the Journal of the American Medical Association:

For all reports containing original data (regardless of funding source), at least one named author (e.g., the principal investigator), who is independent of any commercial funder or sponsor, must indicate that he or she is the "guarantor" of the study (i.e., he/she had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis). A statement identifying the guarantor should be included in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the manuscript. Modified statements or generic statements indicating that all authors had such access are not acceptable.

The statement should appear as follows:

C.K. (author’s initials) is the guarantor of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Modified statements or generic statements indicating that all authors had such access are not acceptable.

For industry-sponsored studies, the editors reserve the right to request an analysis of the data (based on the entire raw dataset and evaluation of the study protocol, and prespecified plan for data analysis) by an independent statistician at an academic institution, rather than by statisticians employed by the sponsor or by a commercial contract research organization. In such cases, the independent biostatistician must be a faculty member at a medical school or academic medical center, or an employee of a government research institute, that has oversight over the person conducting the analysis and that is independent of the commercial sponsor. Details of this independent statistical analysis, the name and institutional affiliation of the independent statistician, and whether compensation or funding was received for conducting the analyses should be reported in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript. The results of this independent statistical analysis should be the results reported in the manuscript.

Clinical Trials, Systematic Reviews, and Meta-Analyses

The IJDRP adheres to ICMJE’s clinical trials registration policy, which is summarized in section III-L of ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. ICMJE defines a clinical trial as "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes." All clinical trials submitted to the IJDRP journals must be registered with an ICMJE approved clinical trial registry (such as clinicaltrials.gov) prior to patient enrollment. If your manuscript is considered a clinical trial but has not been registered, it will not be considered for publication in the journal. The IJDRP accepts registration of clinical trials in any of the primary registries that participate in the World Health Organization International Clinical Trial Registry Platform. Authors must include the unique clinical trial number, the name of the registry, and the URL to the registration on the manuscript’s title page.

Authors of reports on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are required to complete the checklist outlined in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement. The instructions and checklist are designed to ensure that information pertinent to the trial is included in the study report. The IJDRP requires that the CONSORT checklist is submitted with RCT manuscripts; CONSORT information may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Authors of reports on systematic reviews and meta-analyses are required to complete the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The PRISMA Statement consists of a 27-item checklist and a 4-phase flow diagram that have been developed to help authors improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The IJDRP requires that the completed checklist and diagram are submitted with systematic reviews and meta-analyses; PRISMA information may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

The IJDRP requires the reporting of gender for cells, tissues, and experimental animals and humans (i.e., male and female) where appropriate and suitable for the experimental design of the research effort; studies should report whether gender was considered a factor in the statistical analysis of the data.

Common Forms of Scientific Misconduct

The most common forms of scientific misconduct, with minor modification from Analysis of Institutional Policies for Responding to Allegations of Scientific Misconduct by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity, are listed below.

  • Falsification of data: ranging from fabrication to deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, willful suppression and/or distortion of data, and inappropriate or fraudulent digital image manipulation.
  • Plagiarism: the appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another and representation of them as one’s own original work, or the duplication or re-use of one’s previously published work without proper acknowledgment.
  • Improprieties of authorship: improper assignment of credit, such as excluding others, misrepresentation of the same material as original in more than one publication, inclusion of individuals as authors who have not made a definite contribution to the work published; or submission of multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
  • Violation of generally accepted research practices: serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research, improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or improper reporting of results.
  • Material failure to comply with federal requirements affecting research: including but not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials.
  • Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct: including inappropriate accusation of misconduct; failure to report known or suspected misconduct; withholding or destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct and retaliation against the person involved in the allegation or investigation.
  • Deliberate misrepresentation of qualifications, experience, or research accomplishments: to advance the research program, to obtain external funding, or for other professional advancement.
  • Misappropriation of funds or resources: for example, misuse of funds for personal gain.

The IJDRP's plagiarism and image manipulation policies are further described below.

Plagiarism. Manuscripts submitted to the IJDRP will be uploaded to CrossCheck/iThenticate, plagiarism detection software, to scan the document for plagiarized text. Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and will be addressed as such.

According to WAME, "Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic)."

Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of his/her publications, without specifically and formally citing the previously published work. The IJDRP will allow authors to reuse only their own succinctly written literature reviews and brief descriptions of methodologies or patient characteristics from previously published work. Authors who do so should disclose this information in their comments to the editors at the time of submission, and any reused methodology descriptions from previously published work should be properly cited. As mentioned before, all manuscripts submitted to the IJDRP are required to submit a certificate from iThenticate software. To avoid possible concerns or peer-review delays, authors should make a concerted effort to reword or rewrite text borrowed from the methodology descriptions of their own work. "Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices," a resource developed by Miguel Roig, PhD, with funding from ORI, provides useful information on best practices related to ethical writing.

Digital Image Manipulation. The IJDRP has adopted the statement developed by the Journal of Cell Biology [J Cell Biol 166:11-15 (2004)] as its policy on the manipulation of digital images:

No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (i.e., using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image [that is, every pixel] and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds. Without any background information, it is not possible to see exactly how much of the original gel is actually shown. Non-linear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

For presented blots, noncontiguous lanes may be spliced together only when the lanes were run on the same gel at the same time. This alteration should be made apparent in the presented figure by inserting a thin dividing line between the lanes, and it should be clearly explained and described in the figure legend.

At the revision stage, all authors are required to submit, together with the revised manuscript, a zip file titled "Source_Files.zip" that contains the original, uncropped and unedited photographs of all figures that represent gels, Western blots, microscopic photos, etc. intended to be published in the final version of the article, if accepted. Each gel/blot should be labeled as "Full unedited gel/blot for Figure X," and the authors should highlight which lanes of the unedited gel/blot correspond to those shown in the cropped images presented in the manuscript. This zip file will be temporarily archived in the manuscript submission site if the paper is accepted; it will not be available to readers unless specifically requested by the authors to be published online. Failure to provide such original photographs will delay, or even preclude, publication of a manuscript in the IJDRP.

Cases of deliberate misrepresentation of data will result in revocation of acceptance and will be reported to the corresponding author's home institution and/or funding agency as appropriate.

For examples of what constitutes improper digital manipulation (as well as other forms of scientific misconduct), the IJDRP encourages authors to refer to the 2006 editorial by the Journal of Clinical Investigation titled "Stop misbehaving!" [J Clin Invest 116:1740-1741 (2006)].

In addition, authors are encouraged to refer to Adobe's white paper on using Photoshop in biomedical imaging. The paper provides useful information on maintaining image integrity, editing nondestructively, and the medical and scientific image workflow.

Peer Review

The IJDRP employs a single-blinded review process: authors are blinded to the identities of the editors and reviewers responsible for the independent peer review of their manuscripts, but not vice versa. Original Articles, Brief Reports, Perspectives and Review Articles, and Supplemental Articles are invited for peer review by the editors.

The Editor in Chief assesses each submission to the journal to determine whether the content and subject of the manuscript is appropriate for the journal. Each manuscript that meets the criteria will then be given to the Managing Editor. The Managing Editor will invite expert researchers to peer review the manuscript. Based on the reviews of two to three peer reviewers, the Managing Editor will recommend a decision to accept the manuscript for publication, reject the manuscript, or suggest that the authors revise and resubmit the manuscript. The Editor in Chief is responsible for determining and conveying the final decision on all manuscripts. All correspondence related to the peer review of each manuscript is confidential.

The peer reviewers for the IJDRP are experts chosen by the Managing Editor to provide written objective assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of original research manuscripts, with the aim of improving the reporting of research and identifying the most appropriate, timely, and highest-quality research for the journal. Researchers are invited to review manuscripts submitted to the journals on the bases of their objectivity, scientific knowledge, and level of expertise. Reviewers for the IJDRP are required to disclose whether they have any competing interest related to the subject of the article or the authors (e.g., those working for a company whose product was tested, its competitors, or the same institution as the authors, etc.).

The IJDRP seeks reviews that are professional, honest, courteous, prompt, and constructive. Editors may edit reviews before sending them to authors, or simply not send them if they feel they are not constructive or appropriate. The desired major elements of a high-quality review, as outlined by the WAME, are as follows:

  • The reviewer should have identified and commented on major strengths and weaknesses of study design and methodology, and should identify the major strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript as a written communication, independent of the design, methodology, results, and interpretation of the study.
  • The reviewer should comment accurately and constructively upon the quality of, and the author's interpretation of, the data, including acknowledgment of its limitations.
  • The reviewer should comment on any ethical concerns raised by the study, or any evidence of potential scientific misconduct.
  • The reviewer should provide the author with useful suggestions for improvement of the manuscript when appropriate.
  • The reviewer's comments to the author should be cordial and constructively critical.
  • The review should provide the editor the proper context and perspective to make a decision on acceptance (and/or revision) of the manuscript.

Instructions for reviewers of the IJDRP can be found here.

After each review is submitted, the Managing Editor rates the quality and the timeliness of the review, and this information is recorded in the peer-review database. Ratings of review quality and timeliness are periodically assessed to assure optimal journal performance and, as such, contribute to decisions regarding ongoing review requests. Individual performance data are kept confidential.

The IJDRP recognizes that the submitted manuscript is a privileged communication, and reviewers are required to treat each manuscript as confidential. Reviewers are not allowed to retain, copy, or share manuscripts. Reviewers and editors are not permitted to make any personal or professional use of the data, arguments, or interpretations (other than those directly involved in its peer review) prior to publication unless they have the authors' specific permission or are writing an editorial or commentary to accompany the article.

If reviewers suspect misconduct, they are asked to notify the Managing Editor in confidence; reviewers should not share their concerns with other parties. In cases involving reviewer- or editor-identified suspected misconduct (e.g., possible duplicate submission, plagiarism, etc.) in a submitted manuscript to the IJDRP and a submitted manuscript to another publication, the IJDRP may provide a review copy of a submitted paper to an editor of another journal, with the understanding that the review paper could not be shared with any outside party, in order to efficiently and fairly appraise the validity and legitimacy of such suspicions. This step would only be taken if the author(s) did not satisfactorily respond to an initial letter of inquiry from the editor.

Editorial Decisions

In accordance with the recommendations of WAME, decisions about manuscripts submitted to the IJDRP are based on the manuscripts’ importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope and content. Editors are asked to give equal consideration to studies with negative results despite adequate power or those challenging previously published work.

If an author chooses to appeal a decision, the author should contact the Editorial Office. The corresponding author should clearly explain the reason for appealing the decision. Depending on the reason, the Editorial Office will forward the appeal to either the Editor in Chief (if, for instance, the author disagrees with the recommendations of the reviewer or Managing Editor).

Copyright, Reuse, Sharing, and Access

Copyright. The IJDRP holds copyright on all content published in the IJDRP, unless otherwise noted. Individual readers may use the content as long as the work is properly cited and linked to the version of record, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered. The IJDRP permission is required to post articles on third-party websites (unless otherwise specified below under “Article sharing and access”) or to include articles in educational materials that are sold to students or used in courses for which tuition or other fees are charged.

Reuse. Authors are permitted to reuse portions of their IJDRP-copyrighted work, including tables and figures, in their own work, including thesis proposals and grant applications, and to reuse portions or all of their IJDRP-copyrighted work for educational purposes, without submitting a request to the IJDRP, provided that the proper citation and copyright information is given.

Article sharing and access. Authors are permitted to post the submitted or accepted versions of their manuscripts on their personal website; in their funding body or institution's database, archive, or repository; in not-for-profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories; and on scholarly collaboration networks that subscribe to STM’s “Voluntary Principles for Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks."

Authors are encouraged to add a note about acceptance to the journal and to link to the final accepted version of the paper using the article digital object identifier (DOI) after the paper has been published. The deposited version may not be updated to look like the final version of record.

Authors are permitted to share the final, published version of their articles in private research collaboration groups, including those hosted on scholarly collaboration networks that subscribe to STM’s “Voluntary Principles for Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks.” Non-commercial subscribers may also share articles within private research collaboration groups convened for the specific purpose of researching a topic relevant to the article.

Errata, Retractions, and Addenda

Requests for submitting errata, retractions, or other updates should first be sent to the Editor in Chief or Managing Editor.

Errata. Errata refer to errors introduced to the article by the author(s) or the publisher. The IJDRP will publish errata notices to communicate necessary corrections to such errors. Errata should clearly cite and describe the reported error(s), including at what stage the error(s) was introduced; should clearly communicate the necessary correction(s) to the error(s); and address whether the errors originated with the IJDRP staff or with the author.

Author’s Notes. Articles are posted individually after proofs are returned from authors and before appearing in an issue. The "Author's Note" section gives the author an opportunity to correct this type of critical error before the article is put into an issue for printing and before it is reposted in an issue. The "Author's Note" section remains a permanent part of the article.

Retractions. The primary purposes of a retraction are to correct the literature, ensure its integrity, and alert readers to publications that contain erroneous and unreliable data or conclusions. The IJDRP will consider retracting a publication if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error); if the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification; if significant portions of the paper have been plagiarized; if the paper reports unethical research; or if the authors fail to disclose a major competing interest likely to influence interpretations or recommendations.

The editors of the IJDRP will refer to the COPE Retraction Guidelines when considering whether to retract an article from publication. The IJDRP will make every effort to ensure that published retraction notices are

  • linked to all electronic versions of the retracted article wherever possible;
  • clearly identify the retracted article by including the title and authors in the retraction heading;
  • clearly identified as a retraction to distinguish it from other types of corrections or comments;
  • published promptly to minimize the harmful effects from misleading publications;
  • freely available to all readers.

Authors of submitted retraction notices should ensure that all coauthors listed on the original paper are aware of the problems with the paper and the pending retraction request. In cases where coauthors disagree, the editors will determine the most appropriate type of amendment; dissenting author(s) will be noted in the text of the published amendment.

Retraction requests to the IJDRP should clearly state the following information:

  • the specific reasons and basis for the retraction (in order to distinguish cases of misconduct from those of honest error);
  • who is retracting the article (e.g., the author; the head of the department, dean, or director of the laboratory where the paper was produced; or the editorial team of the journal);
  • whether any coauthors do not agree with or support the request;
  • whether the issue was reviewed by the author(s)’ institution or funding agency. If a previously published retraction statement is itself misleading or does not properly or fully disclose issues of misconduct (e.g., plagiarism or the republication of data or figures from previously published articles), the IJDRP will consider requests from authors or their affiliated institutions to publish an update to the retraction notice in order to better clarify or identify the problems with the retracted paper.

Requests submitted by authors to update or emend retraction notices will be reviewed by the editorial team. Updates to retraction notices should meet the guidelines and standards listed above.

Addenda. Updates (addenda) communicate additional information to a paper, either by request of the author(s) or in response to readers' request for clarification. Addenda are rarely published. They will be reviewed by the editors to determine whether they are crucial to the reader's understanding of the published article.

Addenda should be signed by all authors. Addenda are listed in the table of contents and are linked online to the articles to which they pertain.

Advertising

The IJDRP has the right to reject any advertisement for any reason, which need not be disclosed to the party submitting the advertisement. Advertising submitted to the IJDRP publications should clearly identify the advertiser and the product or service being offered.

Advertising submitted to ADA publications should be distinct from editorial and should not appear to be editorial; advertising must not be deceptive or misleading or make false claims. Any advertisements that include indecent copy or contain negative content of a personal, racial, ethnic, medical, sexual orientation, or religious character will not be accepted.

Solicitation of advertising for the IJDRP publications will be carried out to fulfill the objective of supporting awareness among health professionals and consumers of useful products and services and to contribute to the financial support of the publications. Acceptance of advertising in the IJDRP publications shall not be construed, however, as an endorsement, approval, recommendation, warranty or certification of the products or services by the IJDRP or any group affiliated with it. Acceptance also does not imply responsibility on the part of the IJDRP to ensure that the advertiser has complied with laws and regulations applicable to the marketing of the products. Acceptance of advertising does not imply that the IJDRP has conducted an independent scientific review to validate product safety and efficacy or advertising claims. A company involved in an investigation or enforcement proceeding by a government agency with respect to claims made in marketing of a product to be advertised in an IJDRP publication must inform the IJDRP of such litigation.

Specific Provisions:

Products or services must be safe and effective in the practice of medicine or to individuals and their families. A company whose product submitted for advertisement in the IJDRP is being evaluated for safety and effectiveness must so inform the IJDRP.

Companies submitting new products for advertisement may be required to provide information about product safety and effectiveness. If there is any question of safety or effectiveness, the appropriate staff person should see a product sample before acceptance/rejection.

Advertisements for products that are subject to regulation by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) will be accepted in the IJDRP publications only if the products have met all FDA requirements to permit general marketing of the products.

Advertisements for products subject to FDA approval of both the product and the advertising may be accepted in IJDRP publications without further review.

Manufacturers whose products are subject to regulation by the FDA or Federal Trade Commission may be asked to submit a signed certification to the IJDRP attesting that they have scientifically valid data on file to substantiate product claims or comparisons to other products.

Companies submitting advertisements for IJDRP publications are required to indemnify the Association against claims based on the advertisements.

Supplements

Editorial Supplements that are developed by non-profit groups, but sponsored by a separate company, may be considered to be "under the cover of" the IJDRP if approved in advance by the Editor in Chief of the Journal. If approved, the Journal Editor may appoint a special supplement peer-review process.

Supplements proposals for the IJDRP should include a planned table of contents or, if based on a meeting or symposium, a planned agenda. The proposal should also address

  • the name of the organization(s) sponsoring and funding the supplement (not merely the name of the public relations agency handling its publication);
  • if the supplement is based on a symposium, where and when the symposium was held and how the speakers and papers were selected;
  • whether authors were or will be paid and, if so, how much.

All manuscripts are subject to the same peer review as other manuscripts in the Journal. In addition, the IJDRP has adopted the following principles from ICMJE, as outlined in section III-G of ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals:

  • The Journal Editor has complete control of the decision to publish all or any portions of the supplement. Editing by the funding organization is not permitted.
  • The Journal Editor retains the authority to send supplement manuscripts for external peer review and to reject manuscripts submitted for the supplement.
  • The Journal Editor must approve the appointment of any external editor of the supplement and take responsibility for the work of the external editor.
  • The sources of funding for the research, publication, and the products the funding source make that are considered in the supplement must be clearly stated and prominently located in the supplement, preferably on each page.
  • Advertising in supplements follow the same policies as those of the rest of the Journal.
  • Journal Editors and Supplement Editors may not accept personal favors or personal remuneration from sponsors of supplements.
  • Secondary publication in supplements (republication of papers previously published elsewhere) is not permitted.
  • IJDRP’s principles of authorship, potential conflict of interest disclosure, and other publication policies also apply to supplements.

Advertising Supplements may be accepted if they meet the following criteria:

  • They do not carry IJDRP’s name or logo.
  • They are clearly labeled as advertising.