The Journal of Palembang Nursing Studies follows guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in facing all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

All studies must be conducted to a high ethical standard and must adhere to local regulations and standards for gaining scrutiny and approval. The work described in your article must have been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; EC Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments. 

JPNS has implemented the COPE guidelines to ensure that ethical standards are met by editors, authors, and reviewers at a high level of quality. The importance of publication ethics cannot be overstated, as it is essential to enhancing the quality of research on a global scale. 

 

Authors, Editors, and Reviewers' Responsibilities

For Authors

Reporting Standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention: Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources: Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or another substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor to retract or correct the paper.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

 

For Editors

Fair Play: An editor at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality: The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and editor, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Publication Decisions: The editor board journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Review of Manuscripts: The editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. The editor should organise and use peer review fairly and wisely. Editors should explain their peer review processes in the information for authors and also indicate which parts of the journal are peer-reviewed. The editor should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.

 

For Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness: Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process

Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

 

Authorship & Contributorship

Authorship

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations 2018) recommend that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or 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.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

We include only one corresponding author per article. Any further contribution details (eg, equal contribution) must be included in the contributors or acknowledgment sections at the end of the article.

The JPNS requires that all those designated as authors should meet all four ICMJE criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. We recognise only natural persons over 18 years of age as authors. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet the criterion. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work, making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses. The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more co-authors. 

When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will be an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript, and they should be able to take public responsibility for the work and should have full confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the work of other group authors. They will also be expected as individuals to complete conflict-of-interest disclosure forms.

At JPNS we want authors to assure us that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. In addition we want assurance that there is no one else who fulfils the criteria but has not been included as an author. When we encounter disagreements among authors we follow guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—see here and here.

Contributorship

JPNS  list contributors (some of whom may not be included as authors) at the end of the paper, giving details of who did what in planning, conducting, and reporting the work. This is a good place to include contributions by patients or members of the public who have assisted as research volunteers, giving their names and specific roles. We encourage authors to fully acknowledge the contribution of patients and the public to their research where appropriate.

One or more of these contributors are listed as guarantors of the paper. The guarantor accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish. See Maintaining the integrity of the scientific record.

Researchers must determine among themselves the precise nature of each person's contribution, and we encourage open discussion among all participants. See Authorship is dying; long live contributorship.

Alteration to authorship or contributorship

Any change in authors and/or contributors after initial submission must be approved by all authors. This applies to additions, deletions, change of order to the authors, or contributions being attributed differently. Any alterations must be explained to the editor. The editor may contact any of the authors and/or contributors to ascertain whether they have agreed to any alteration.

Group authorship

If there is a very large number of authors we may ask for confirmation that everyone listed met the ICMJE criteria for authorship. If they did, we may then require that the authors form a group whose name will appear in the article byline.

 

Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

JPNS's ditor are committed to taking reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no case shall JPNS or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that JPNS's editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in this journal, the editors are committed to following COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations.

 

Appeals and complaints

Peer review appeals and complaints from authors

The Journal of Palembang Nursing Studies (JPNS) follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal's editorial management of the peer-review process.

Editor decisions

We welcome genuine appeals to editor decisions. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments. This is important given a majority of JPNS scholarly articles are reviews and original research, reliant on accurate scientific data.

For scholarly articles of an opinion nature, an appeal is less likely to overturn an editor's decision. These can include viewpoints and opinion pieces where editorial judgment about readability and relevance weighs most heavily. In any case, all opinion-led articles should be evidence-based and fully referenced. For opinion-led articles, you should always present your evidence and explain how it led you to form your opinion.

Editors don’t expect frequent appeals and they rarely reverse their original decisions. Therefore, if you receive a decision to reject your manuscript, you are strongly advised to submit to another journal. The decision to reject a manuscript for publication will often involve the editor’s judgment of priority/ importance. These are things which authors usually cannot address through an appeal. However, if you believe that there is a case to be made for a genuine appeal please follow the instructions below.

I want to appeal an editorial decision

If you wish to appeal a journal editor’s decision, please submit an appeal letter to our online editorial office at editorial@jpns-journal.com. Please address this to the editor and explain clearly the basis for an appeal. You should:

• detail why you disagree with the decision. Please provide specific responses to any of the editor’s and/or reviewers' comments that contributed to the reject decision.
• provide any new information or data that you would like the journal to take into consideration.
• provide evidence if you believe a reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of your manuscript.
• include evidence if you believe a reviewer may have a conflict of interest.

After receiving the appeal, editors may involve any associate editors who handled the peer review of the original submission and/or JPNS, depending on the nature of the appeal. Editors may confirm their decision to reject the manuscript, invite a revised manuscript, or seek additional peer- or statistical review of the original manuscript.

Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions on appeals are final. The timely review and decision-making process for new submissions will take precedence over appeals.

I want to comment on the editorial management of a journal

Where you, as an author, wish to comment on aspects of the journal's editorial management please submit an email to the JPNS editorial office – editorial@jpns-journal.com

It is important to note that JPNS cannot consider appeals where the subject matter is the focus of on-going legal proceedings. Similarly, we reserve the right to decline, suspend or to discontinue an appeal made under this policy in the event that legal proceedings commence, and the claim concerns the same subject matter as the appeal.

 

Data Sharing Policy

Data Sharing

Sharing the full data sets underlying the results in your article brings many benefits. It enables reuse, reduces research waste, and promotes collaboration. Greater transparency increases trust in research results by allowing results to be independently verified. These benefits lead to a more reliable evidence base and a healthier world. Authors submitting their research article to this journal are encouraged to deposit research data as a supplementary file during submission or in a relevant data repository and cite and link to this dataset in their article. If this is not possible, authors are encouraged to make a statement explaining why research data cannot be shared. Sharing your data helps you get credit for your work and make your data accessible and discoverable for your peers.

The policies on data sharing:

• We require that the data generated by your research that supports your article be made openly and publicly available upon publication of your article. Where it is not possible or viable to make data openly available (due to confidentiality or sensitivity issues), they should be shared through a controlled access repository.
• We strongly encourage that data generated by your research that supports your article be made available as soon as possible, wherever legally and ethically possible
• We require data from clinical trials to be made available upon reasonable request
• We require that a data sharing plan must be included with trial registration for clinical trials. Changes to the plan must be noted in the Data Availability Statement and updated in the registry record (to comply with ICMJE recommendations)
• We strongly encourage that data generated by your research that supports your article be made available as soon as possible, wherever legally and ethically possible.

Data Availability Statement

JPNS requires a Data Availability Statement for any submitted research articles. On submission, authors are asked to select at least one of the standardized Data Availability Statements text options below in bold as applicable and to supplement these statements with additional information as noted in the guidance below. Authors can select more than one statement if they have data under different conditions. The ICMJE recommendations provide further guidance on how to compose a rich statement.

These statements will be published under the header ‘Data Availability Statement’ within the footnotes section of the final published article.

• Data are available in a public, open access repository. Please state the repository name, the persistent URL, and any conditions of reuse (eg. license, embargo). All data that are publicly available and used in the writing of an article should be cited in the text and the reference list, whether they are data generated by the author(s) or by other researchers.

• Data are available upon reasonable request. Please state what the data are (e.g. deidentified participant data), who the data are available from, their publishable contact details (e.g. a generic lab email address or an individual’s ORCID identifier – please ensure you have permission) and under what conditions reuse is permitted. Is there additional information available (e.g. protocols, statistical analysis plans)?

• Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Please state what the data are (e.g. deidentified participant data), who the data are available from, their publishable contact details (e.g. a generic lab email address or an individual’s ORCID identifier – please ensure you have permission), and under what conditions reuse is permitted. Is there additional information available (e.g. protocols, statistical analysis plans)

• All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Please ensure this does not include patient identifiable data. Please state ‘Not applicable’ in the free text box

• Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. Please state ‘Not applicable’ in the free text box
• No data are available. Please state ‘Not applicable’ in the free text box

Data availability statements commonly take one of the following forms:

• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS].
• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
• All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).
• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to [REASON(S) WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
• Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
• The data that support the findings of this study are available from [THIRD PARTY NAME] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [THIRD PARTY NAME].

In the absence of specific instructions from a journal, editor authors can use or adapt the statement(s) above. Several statements may need to be combined depending on the nature of the research.

 

Ethical Oversight

If the research work involves chemicals, humans, animals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript in order to obey the ethical conduct of research using animals and human subjects. If required, the Authors must provide legal ethical clearance from the association or legal organization.

If the research involves confidential data and business/marketing practices, the authors should clearly justify this matter whether the data or information will be hidden securely or not.

 

Intellectual Property (Copyright Policy)

Journal policy about intellectual property or copyright is declared here.

 

Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections

JPNS accepts discussion and corrections on published articles by readers. In case the reader gives discussions and corrections toward a published article, the reader can contact by email to Editor in Chief by explaining the discussions and corrections. If accepted (by Editor in Chief), the discussions and corrections will be published in the next issue as Letters to Editor. Respected Authors can reply/answer the discussions and corrections from the reader by sending the reply to Editor in Chief. Therefore, Editors may publish the answer as a Reply to a Letter to Editor.