Publication Ethics

Jurnal Kedokteran Syiah Kuala (JKS) adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to ensure that the publication process and outcome are ethical, following the best publication practice in all processes of publication. Please review the brief description of core practices at JKS. For more detailed information, please refer to COPE official website https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.

Allegations of Misconduct

Our journal welcomes any valid allegation made against authors, reviewers and editors. The handling of allegations of misconduct at our journal can be divided into two situations. First is allegation against author and second is an allegation against a reviewer or editor. If an author has been alleged of potential misconduct such as plagiarism or its article has already been published elsewhere hence independent investigation will be conducted towards the allegation. Shall the allegation is found to be valid, the alleged author will be blacklisted and his/her article will be withdrawn from our publication. The alleged author will also be required to provide a formally-written statement of apology which will be posted in our announcement platform on our website.

Similarly in the case of allegation against a reviewer or editor, an independent investigation will also be performed accordingly. Shall the allegation against the reviewer and editor is found to be true and valid, the said reviewer and editor will no longer be participating in any of our journal activities.

Authorship and Contributorship

The author must state the contribution of each author in a cover letter accompanying the manuscript when it is submitted to the journal, and it has to state that no deserving authors have been omitted from authorship. If there is a change in the authorship, the journal must be notified, and such changes must be explained in detail. The change in authorship will not be entertained after the final revision is submitted unless it can be clearly justified to be reviewed attentively, and all authors must consent to this change. A final revision is the revised version based on which the paper is accepted to be published. The number of authors for one manuscript published in the journal must not be more than seven authors. The journal only allows the following contributions to be listed as an author: data acquisition, data analysis, data interpretation, article writing, article critical reviewing, and final approval of the version to be published.

A corresponding author is an author with whom the journal communicates related to the publication process. The corresponding author cannot be changed except by force majeure (including mental illness, severe disease, and death of the current corresponding author) and authorship withdrawal of the present corresponding author. 

Complaints and Appeals

Our journal are committed to treat any complaints and appeals fairly, promptly and independently. For instance, reasonable complaints against reviewer will be handled by chief editor and any complaint against chief editor will be handled by publisher.

Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs when the authors, their supervisors or their sponsors have certain relationships with other persons or organizations which can influence their research. All potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed by the authors when submitting the papers. The authors must also report a conflict of interest which might occur after the paper is submitted if it happens before the paper is officially published. JKS adheres to COPE in handling potential undisclosed conflicts of interest raised during the review process or after the paper is published. For more information about conflict of interest, read this article https://publicationethics.org/news/cope-education-subcommittee-focus-conflicts-interest

Upon receiving a report regarding potential undisclosed conflict of interest from editors or reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief notifies authors and expresses their concern. In the case that the authors deny the conflict of interest, the Editor-in-Chief explains the journal policy and definition of conflict of interest, and the authors need to sign a statement regarding all relevant conflicts of interest. Necessary revision is made and informed to the editors or reviewers.

If a reader raises a conflict of interest after the paper is published, the Editor-in-Chief contacts the authors to obtain an explanation. The Editor-in-Chief determines whether the conflict of interest exists. The authors’ organization is contacted when necessary. If a potential conflict of interest is found, the article will be re-assessed to determine whether the conflict of interest has potentially affected the research or review process. If the conflict of interest does not affect the article and the review process, a correction will be made. If it does, the article will be corrected or retracted, depending on the seriousness of the effect. The action made by the journal is informed to the reader who reported the case.

Data and Reproducibility

Authors are responsible to provide accurate and detailed data when they are requested.

Ethical Oversight

Authors are required to maintain the confidentiality of data published in their papers. The journal also upholds the utmost importance of data confidentiality and ethical conduct of research subjects either human, business, or marketing practices. 

Intellectual Property

JKS is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Journal Management

Jurnal Kedokteran Syiah Kuala (JKS) is not a member of COPE. However, JKS follows COPE Core Practices on authorship, contributorship, peer review processes, and publication process. The journal also follows COPE Core Practice in responding to suspected ethical breaches by authors, reviewers, and editors. In addition, the journal has an open access policy following DOAJ guidelines and adheres to the principle of transparency.

Peer Review Processes

All submitted articles will be reviewed in double-blind system for peer review; both reviewers’ and authors’ identities remain anonymous.  The submitted manuscript will be reviewed by at least two experts: one editorial member as well as one external reviewers. The review process may take four to twelve weeks.

Post-Publication Discussions

Our journal allows debate post publication through letters to the editor and mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles after publication is through announcement feature on our website.