Publication Ethics

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PUBLICATION ETHICS

  • Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their work and ideas.
  • UPJOHNS follows International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s (the Journal is indexed in ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
  • We recommend and appreciate it if authors read these recommendations prior to their manuscript submission.
  • UPJOHNS has applied for membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and aims to adhere to its guidelines and core practices.

AUTHORSHIP

We advise the authors to understand UPJOHNS stick to ICMJE definition of author and contributor; authors are advised to follow its four criteria as follow:
1. “Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND “
2. “Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND”
3. “Final approval of the version to be published; AND”
4. “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 appro
and accept the ethical policy especially:
1. Declaration of interests — it is important to declare the funding that made the research possible.
2. Registering clinical trials — clinical trials should be registered in publicly accessible registries.
3. Respecting confidentiality — protecting patients from being recognized if used in research and in publication.
4. Protecting research subjects, patients and experimental animals.


Ethical declarations that authors should provide at the stage of article submission

Ethical declarations in research form an integral part during the submission process of a manuscript to a journal. During the process of submission, there are several questions and statements that you as the author need to respond.

Pre-submission considerations related to authorship

Before you submit your manuscript to the journal, you need to take into consideration some important aspects of authorship listed below:

  • Ensure that all the authors mentioned in the manuscript have agreed for authorship, read and approved the manuscript, and given consent for submission and subsequent publication of the manuscript. (The authorship criteria should be based on the UPJOHNS guidelines which follow ICMJE definition of author and contributor). All the authors need to agree on the name(s) included in the Acknowledgement section.
  • The order of authorship must be agreed by all named authors prior to submission.
  • Full names, institutional affiliations, highest degree obtained by the authors, e-mail address,ORCiD ID need to be clearly mentioned on the title page.
  • Author identification: Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
  • The corresponding author, who takes full ownership for all the communication related to the manuscript, should be designated and his/her detailed institutional affiliation (including the postal address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address) should be provided
  • Corresponding author is responsible for the integrity of the manuscript (including ethics, data handling, reporting of results, and study conduct), would communicate with the journal if any technical clarifications related to the manuscript are required, and would handle similar responsibilities.
  • The Corresponding Author is responsible for providing disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate

Manuscript submission related declarations:

When submitting your manuscript to UPJOHNS, you need to follow the policies and guidelines of the journal. UPJOHNS expect authors to declare the following:

  • The manuscript in part or in full has not been submitted or published anywhere i.e. the authors should ensure that the manuscript is not a duplicate publication.
  • The manuscript will not be submitted elsewhere during the publication process.
  • If any part of the manuscript contains previously published content (figures/tables), authors should submit a statement of permission to reproduce the material signed by the author(s) and publishers concerned.
  • Authors should declare any previous or pending publication of the manuscript’s content in any conference proceedings, letters to journals and brief communications, or as pre-prints on repositories.
  • He must ensure that if the current study’s Abstract has been published in any conferences, it is either not under a copyright or that the embargo period is over. If the Abstract is under copyright protection from the publishers, permission should be sought for re-using the material.
  • In case the manuscript is a secondary publication i.e. it is a subsequent republication that will be published in two or more journals (in the same or another language), the authors should explicitly declare this. Moreover, they should obtain mutual consent of the journal editors.
  • Kindly maintain transparency in cases if the manuscript is based on a dataset that has been the basis of another manuscript. They should declare that by referencing previously published article in the manuscript.

Statements of ethical approval for studies involving human subjects and/or animals / minors

  • Authors publishing results from in vivo experiments involving animals or humans should state whether due permission for conduction of these experiments was obtained, from the relevant ethics committees, in the Materials and Methods section.
  • Kindly confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013.
  • Kindly state whether written informed consent was obtained from the participants of the study (and the relevant document(s) will be provided when requested by UPJOHNS). If verbal informed consent was obtained, the reason(s) for the absence of written consent must be provided.
  • Research involving Vulnerable populations require special protection during research. Researchers need to consider additional ethics concerns or issues arising from working with potentially vulnerable persons. In cases where research involves potentially vulnerable groups, for example children, older persons or adults with learning disabilities, every effort should be made to secure freely given informed consent that participants or their legal representatives have actively provided; if verbal informed consent was obtained, reasons for this must be mentioned.
  • Considering patient’s right to privacy, identifying information (including patients’ images, names, initials, or hospital numbers) should not be included in recordings, written descriptions, or photographs, unless the information is essential for scientific purposes. In any such case, written informed consent from the patient must be obtained for publication. Kindly do not submit without consent.

Other important declarations related to funding, conflicts of interest, and more

Apart from the declarations discussed, there are others that authors need to consider like:

1. Acknowledgments: Anyone who does not meet the authorship criteria but have provided technical help, institutional/department head who provided general support, or medical writers who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content, should be acknowledged. If the authors have no one to acknowledge, kindly mention “Not applicable” in this section in the manuscript and write. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.

2. Funding: All sources of funding for the research work and their role (if at all) in the design of the study and collection, analysis, interpretation of data, and in writing the manuscript should be declared. If the study did not receive any funding, report the same.

3. Competing interests/conflict of interest: Authors are advised to abide by the UPJOHNS Conflict of Interest policy.

4. Changes to authorship: Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

5. Authorship issues or disputes: In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.

7. Confidentiality: Authors should treat all communication with the UPJOHNS as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal Editors unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

Noted: It is mandatory and important that the authors declare all the above-mentioned statements to avoid un-submission of the manuscript. These declarations ensure ethical publication practices involving transparency and integrity in the publication of the manuscript.


PLAGIARISM

All the submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism before starting the review process (Crossref Similarity Check and Duplicheker).

ORIGINALITY: By submitting Author(s) manuscript to UPJOHNS it is understood that it is an original manuscript and is unpublished work and is not under consideration elsewhere.
Plagiarism is unauthorized appropriation of other people’s ideas, processes or text without giving correct credit and with intention to present it as own property. Appropriation of own published ideas or text and passing it as original is denominated self-plagiarism and considered as bad as plagiarism. “Self-plagiarism is considered as dishonesty but not intellectual theft.” Plagiarism, including duplicate publication or self Plagiarism of the author's own work, in whole or in part without proper citation is not tolerated by the journal. All the Manuscripts submitted to the journal are checked for originality using anti-plagiarism software. We are currently using Duplichecker Plagiarism software for the same.

UPJOHNS identifies following forms of Plagiarism as unacceptable
1. Taking the exact content from the other source. Purposely using portions of another author's paper
2. Taking portions of another author's paper, such as figures, tables equations or illustrations without citing the source.
3. Using text downloaded from the internet.
4. Taking figures, photographs, pictures or diagrams without acknowledging the sources.
5. In the case of a publication being submitted that was originally published in another language, the title, date and journal of the original publication must be identified by the authors, and the copyright must be obtained. The editor may accept such a translated publication to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.
6. In case author wants to use material from the other work then it is mandatory to cite the same in references. Else the author needs to change the language completely and use his/ her own language.
7. Self-Plagiarism As suggested by Roig (2002) there can be four types of self-plagiarism:
• Duplicate publication of an article in more than one journal;
• partitioning of one study into multiple publications, often called salami-slicing;
• Text recycling; and
• Copyright infringement


When Does the Plagiarism Check Done?

All the submitted manuscripts for publication are checked for plagiarism after submission and before starting review process.

PLAGIARISM POLICY

1. Before Publication:

UPJOHNS will judge any case of plagiarism on its limits. If plagiarism is detected by the editorial board member, reviewer, editor etc., in any stage of article process- before or after acceptance then we will alert the same to the author(s) and will ask them to rewrite the content or to cite the references from where the content has been taken.

2. After Publication:

If a case of plagiarism comes to light after a paper is published in UPJOHNS journal, the editorial board will conduct a preliminary investigation. In cases of proven plagiarism consequences may include:
• The author is informed about the same and is obliged to withdraw the disputable manuscript which is already published or in different pre-publication stages.
• In the event of co-authorship, the co-author must approve of publication withdrawal, even if the misconduct is not related to them.
• Publications proved to be false by the Board are erased from author’s bibliography or marked appropriately.

What can someone do if he comes across a case of Plagiarism in UPJOHNS

If someone come across a case of plagiarism in UPJOHNS, please do inform the editorial office(s) on upaoijournal@gmail.comgiving them the title of manuscripts, name of authors, volume number, issue number, year of publication and any other information that you have. The editorial offices will handle the cases as per the policy of the Journal.

Note for Authors

UPJOHNS does not encourage any form of Plagiarism and duplicate submissions. Hence, we strongly recommend our authors to thorough check of the article content before submitting it to our Journals for publication. We request our Authors to use "Plagiarism Checking software’s" to check plagiarism prior to submission as a preliminary step, although they are not completely reliable.

DUPLICATE SUBMISSION AND REDUNDANT PUBLICATION

Duplicate Submission UPJOHNS considers only original content, i.e. articles that have not been previously published.

  • Articles based on content previously made public only on a preprint server, institutional repository, or in a thesis will be considered.
  • Manuscripts submitted to UPJOHNS must not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration and must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere.
  • If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work.
  • Reuse of the authors’ own words outside the Methods should be attributed or quoted in the text.
  • Reuse of the authors’ own figures or substantial amounts of wording may require permission from the copyright holder and the authors are responsible for obtaining this.
  • UPJOHNS will consider extended versions of articles published at conferences provided this is declared in the cover letter, the previous version is clearly cited and discussed, there is significant new content, and any necessary permissions are obtained.

Redundant publication - the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), may result in rejection or a request to merge submitted manuscripts, and the correction of published articles. Duplicate publication of the same, or a very similar, article may result in the retraction of the later article and the authors may incur sanctions.

CITATION MANIPULATION

Authors whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions.
Researchers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

FABRICATION AND FALSIFICATION

The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS POLICIES

UPJOHNS FOLLOWS A DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW PROCESS

UPJOHNS strives hard towards the spread of scientific knowledge, and the credibility of the published article completely depends upon effective peer reviewing process.
Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers’ expert in the field who are not part of the journal's editorial staff; that also ensures the quality of a manuscript before it is published online.
UPJOHNS takes help from its reviewer board who are independent professionals/experts/researchers in the field of Otorhinolaryngology from across the country; they help the editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal or not.
Reviewing Manuscripts is an important first step in our publication process.

What we follow?

UPJOHNS journal uses double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the each other throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity. To help with this author are advised to submit two open word files as below:
FILE-1:– Title Page
FILE-2: Contain the Manuscript
Information to help prepare the Title Page
This file must contain Title of the Research paper, names of all the authors with their affiliations, details of contribution by each author, details the Corresponding author with mail id / mobile number and ORCHID ID

Information to help prepare the Blinded Manuscript
Besides the obvious need to remove names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript, there are other steps that need to be taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double-blind peer review. To assist with this process the key items that need to be observed are as follows:

  • Manuscript should not reveal the identities of the authors or the place where study was conducted.
  • Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have shown before” with “… has been shown before [Anonymous, 2007]”.
  • Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those reviewing the submitted paper.
  • Cite papers published by the Author in the text as follows: ‘[Anonymous, 2007]’.
  • For blinding in the reference list: ‘[Anonymous 2007] Details omitted for double-blind reviewing.’
  • Remove references to funding sources
  • Do not include acknowledgments
  • Document properties must be anonymized.

How we do the Double-Blind Peer Review process work?
  • The review process begins when authors submit a manuscript to a journal.
  • The editorial workflow gives the Editors the authority to reject any manuscript because of inappropriateness of its subject, suitability to journal, lack of quality, or incorrectness of its results.
  • The article is then subjected to Plagiarism check as per the UPJOHNS policies detailed above and action taken accordingly.
  • The journal’s editor decides whether a paper is a good fit for the journal and decides whether to send it to reviewers.
  • The Editor does not assign himself as an external reviewer of the manuscript. This is to ensure a high-quality, fair, and unbiased peer-review process of every manuscript submitted to the journal.
  • The Editor / Editorial board members decide the reviewer / reviewers to whom the article should be sent
  • The editor will keep your identity and the identity of reviewers hidden.
  • Reviewers may see the paper’s title and introduction, but they do not know who wrote the paper.
  • The reviewer will then go through your paper, send comments and recommendations to the editor, and return the paper to you with their comments.
  • Authors are responsible for making any necessary changes based on the reviewer’s comments and then resubmitting the paper.
  • The editor will then send the paper to back to the reviewer, who may or may not be the same person as the first reviewer.
  • These steps are repeated until reviewers agree that the paper is ready for publication.
  • The double-blind peer review process aims to prevent bias in the review process.
  • In case the author declines to make changes or the changes do not meet the expectations of the reviewers after 2-3 reviews; the paper is returned back to the author with details of the reasons why it was not published.


Advantages of Double-Blind Peer Review
  • The double-blind peer review process aims to prevent bias in the review process.
  • It also protects the author’s reputation, as they don’t know who the reviewers are. For example, if you have published papers with a journal before, then that journal will know who you are and what research areas you specialize in. That makes it easier for them to select your article for publication since they already know your work.
  • A double-blind peer review process ensures that reviewers are as unbiased as possible and will not be influenced by the reputation of the author.
  • It also ensures that reviewers do not base their opinion on the reputation of the journal, which could lead them to reject papers from top-ranked journals that do not fit their personal criteria.
  • Double-blind peer review also encourages reviewers to be constructive and thorough with their feedback, which can be helpful to authors who want to improve their papers.
  • This also makes the process fairer for both the reviewer and the author.
  • Double-blind peer review ensures that the results of your research are as accurate as possible and that they are published in a reputable journal.
  • The Peer review flowchart is given below:


Peer Review Time

We strive to provide authors with an efficient review process with "submission to first decision" time being seven days and 3 weeks from submission to first post review decision. We request the reviewers to help us in reducing the decision time as much as possible by providing the reviews on time.

Manuscript Review Form

  • When a manuscript is sent to the reviewers for evaluation it will be accompanied by a Manuscript Review Form.
  • The reviewers are requested to use the form for reviewing the manuscript. Using a form will save time to review the manuscript and ensure a more structured and accurate review.
  • The Manuscript Review Form has two sections - 'Comments for authors' and 'Confidential comments for Editors'.
  • Anything written in the "Comments for authors" will be sent to the authors. The reviewers can use the section "Confidential comments for Editors" to send any confidential comments to the editors, which will not be transmitted to the authors.

UPJOHNS ARTICLE REVIEWER’S BOARD

INSTRUCTION TO REVIEWERS:

Peer reviewers should:
  • Respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal
  • not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others
  • declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant conflict
  • not allow their reviews to be influenced by the nationality, religion, political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the study, or by commercial considerations
  • be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or derogatory personal comments
  • acknowledge that peer review is largely a reciprocal endeavour and undertake to carry out their fair share of reviewing, in a timely manner

On being approached to review - Peer reviewers should:
  • respond without unnecessary or intentional delay
  • decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review
  • only agree to review a manuscript if they are fairly confident they can return a review within the proposed time-frame
  • follow journals’ policies on exclusions to review
  • declare if they have been involved with the work in the manuscript or its reporting and provide details of their input
  • not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review
  • excuse themselves if asked to review a manuscript that is very similar to one they have in preparation or under consideration at another journal

During review - Peer reviewers should:
  • notify the journal immediately and seek advice if they discover a conflict that wasn’t apparent when they agreed to the review, or anything that might prevent them providing a fair and unbiased review
  • read the manuscript, ancillary material and journal instructions thoroughly, getting back to the journal if anything is not clear and requesting any missing or incomplete items they need to carry out a full review
  • not involve anyone else in the review of a manuscript without first obtaining permission from the journal
  • keep all manuscript and review details confidential
  • contact the journal if circumstances arise that will prevent them from submitting a timely review, and provide an accurate estimate of the time they will need to do a review if still asked to do so
  • notify the journal if they become aware of the identity of the author(s) during double-blind review
  • notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns confidential and not personally investigate further unless the journal asks for advice
  • ensure their review is based on the merits of the work and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases
  • ensure the names of any individuals who have (with the permission of the journal) helped them with the review are included with the returned review so that they are associated with manuscript in the journal’s records and can also receive due credit for their efforts

When preparing the report - Peer reviewers should:
  • bear in mind that the editor is looking to them for subject knowledge, good judgement, and an honest and fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the work and the manuscript
  • be objective and constructive in their reviews and not make derogatory personal comments or unfounded accusations
  • be specific in their criticisms, and provide evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements such as, ‘this work has been done before’, to help editors in their evaluation and decision and in fairness to the authors
  • remember it is the authors’ paper and not attempt to rewrite it to their own preferred style if it is basically sound and clear
  • not prepare their report in a way that reflects badly or unfairly on another person
  • not make unfair negative comments or include unjustified criticisms of any competitors’ work that is mentioned in the manuscript
  • ensure their comments and recommendations for the editor are consistent with their report for the authors.

Expectations post review - Peer reviewers should:
  • respond promptly if contacted by the journal about matters related to their review of a manuscript and provide the information required
  • contact the journal if anything relevant comes to light after they have submitted their review that might affect their original feedback and recommendations
  • read the reviews from the other reviewers, if these are provided by the journal, to improve their own understanding of the topic and the decision reached
  • try to accommodate requests from journals to review revisions or resubmissions of manuscripts they have reviewed

Your completed review should include the following recommendation:

Accept without changes: this applies to outstanding papers that can be published as it is or revised papers that have successfully addressed all concerns raised during previous reviews;

Accept pending minor revision: this applies to high-quality papers that require minor improvement on methodology, clarification and improvement on presentation details, which can be realistically addressed.

Resubmit/ Major revision and new external review required: this applies to papers with good quality but require substantial changes to rectify technical problems, introduce additional results, and improve paper structure and presentations.

Reject: this applies to papers that should be rejected without further consideration.


Peer Review Confidential

The review process is a confidential communication between the Reviewers Editors and the Corresponding author. UPJOHNS does not discuss any manuscript received for review, with anyone not directly involved in the review process.


COPY RIGHT POLICY

The copyright to the submitted manuscript is held by the Author, who grants the UPJOHNS a nonexclusive license to use, reproduce, and distribute the work, including for commercial purposes.


OPEN ACCESS POLICY

This journal provides ‘Gold’ immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. ‘Gold’ open access means the immediate, permanent, and free to access availability of the published version of record on the publisher’s website.
All published articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This permits anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transmit and adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited (see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

There is no need to contact the publisher for "reprint permission" requests because by default this permission has already been given by authors (under the condition of attribution of the original source) and the publisher does NOT own the copyright for the material published, rather, the authors keep the copyright.


PRIVACY STATEMENT

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.


DIGITAL ARCHIVING

This journal utilizes the SCOPES system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.


AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING

UPJOHNS allows and encourages authors to deposit both their pre- and post-prints in Open-Access institutional archives or repositories (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website). The primary benefit of pre- and post-print self-archiving is reaching a larger audience which enhances the visibility and impact of your research. UPJOHNS does not apply an embargo to self-archiving.

Preprints:Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. If accepted for publication, we advise authors to link the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
Author's Accepted Manuscripts: Authors are free to share 'Author's Accepted Manuscript' on any institutional or subject repository.
Published articles (Version of Record)” All authors and users are free to use, reproduce, or distribute the works published in UPJOHNS in any way they prefer on the condition that the reproduced/redistributed material acknowledges that it was originally published in UPJOHNS with all relevant publication details. When sharing works published originally in UPJOHNS on other platforms, we advise using the final version made publicly available on UPJOHNS website.


I4OC standards

UPJOHNS comply with I4OC standards for open citations.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

  • Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into a published article.Conflicts of Interest may involve Financial / Affiliations / Intellectual property/ Personal / Ideology / Academic.
  • UPJOHNS states that if the author is unsure, he is advised to declare a potential interest or discuss with the editorial office. Submissions with undeclared conflicts that are later revealed may be rejected.
  • The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.
  • Authors must declare current or recent funding, goods or services that might influence the work.
  • All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared.
  • Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article. UPJOHNS do not stop work from being published or prevent someone from being involved in the review process in cases of Conflicts of interest. However, they must be declared.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The editorial office is obliged not to use the unpublished information from the manuscript which was submitted to UPJOHNS. No materials provided by authors will be used for any personal gain and will be kept strictly confidential. UPJOHNS editors will not process manuscripts in which there is a risk of any conflict of interest, e.g. competitive activity, links with any of the authors or institutions.


Sanctions

If UPJOHNS becomes aware of breaches of our publication ethics policies, the following sanctions may be applied:
• Rejection of the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s).
• Not allowing submission for up to 1–2 years.
• Prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.


Investigations

Suspected breaches of our publication ethics policies, either before or after publication, as well as concerns about research ethics, should be reported to our Editorial Board on upaoijournal@gmail.com Claimants will be kept anonymous if requested, though claimants may also wish to use an anonymous email service such as ProtonMail or TorGuard.


CORRECTIONS IN PUBLISHED ARTICLES

When errors are identified in published articles, UPJOHNS will consider what action is required and may consult the authors’ / institution(s). Errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum and errors by the publisher by an erratum.
If there are errors that significantly affect the conclusions or there is evidence of misconduct, this may require retraction or an expression of concern. All authors will be asked to agree to the content of the notice.
An author name change after publication is discouraged but will be made to the article / articles published by UPJOHNS, following a request to the journal.


UPJOHNS ADVERTISING POLICY

• UPJOHNS does not promote any type of advertising / intrusive advertising.
• The entire cost of publication is born by Uttar Pradesh Chapter of Association of Otolaryngologists of India which is a registered society. (BAR/10427/2021-2022)


EPRINTS & REPRINTS

Professional quality Reprints service for published article(s) is available to authors for papers from UPJOHNS Journal. You can use your significant published article reprints in an excellent way to educate your readers, to enhance quality practice, commercial/promotional purposes of organizations, or for personal use, and also to provide valuable resource to scientific community.

We are providing two types of reprints:
Hard-copy reprints (Reprints): Reproductions of original journal articles printed on high-quality paper. We assure to deliver reprints with high quality with fast shipping to destinations globally. Shipping cost will be varying depending on the number of reprints required and destination.
Electronic reprints (e-Prints): e-Prints are encrypted; electronic copies of the article in PDF format which can be distributed via e-mail, posted on a website and shared with experts.
To Order Reprint Copies: Please contact our supporting team at upaoijournal@gmail.com for issues. We will be pleased to assist you.

ARTICLE RETURN / WITHDRAWL POLICY

Return Manuscripts

UPJOHNS maintains a consistent policy, manuscript submitted will be returned to author/will be kept on hold without initiating the review process, if any of the below concerns:
• Abstract/Reference format problems
• Figures/Tables missing/not included
• If Plagiarism is found.
• Manuscript language if other than English

The author is expected to revise and resubmit the manuscript at the earliest.

Guidelines for Retracting Articles

UPJOHNS take the responsibility to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record of the content for all end users very seriously. It follows the following guidelines for article retraction


Article withdrawal by the Author or by the Editor:

A) By Author:
Authors have choice of withdrawal of the manuscript after submission. They should submit a signed statement to the editorial office to request the withdrawal along with the strong reasons.
• Authors must have conclusive evidence to support their decision of withdrawal.
• Withdrawn procedure will be officially confirmed only by editorial board.

B) By Editor:
If the corresponding authors do not reply to communication even after multiple reminders, at any stage of the publication process; the Editorial board will be informed and the article will be withdrawn and Editorial board cannot be held responsible for consequences arising from it.

Article removal after publication and replacement:
Identification of false or inaccurate data representation which may pose a serious health risk and involves any means of scientific data tampering or other fraud will be treated with highest possible strictness & withdrawal of article.


COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS

A complaint in first instance is handled by the Editor of UPJOHNS who handled the paper; He analyses the complaint and replies to the complainant in the most appropriate manner.
If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the handling of their complaint, his complaint is then brought forward to the editorial board members who decide an amicable solution the complaint
All the complaints are treated on the recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s guidelines for dealing with the complaints


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) -ASSISTED TECHNOLOGY (AS PER ICMJE GUIDELINES)

  • At submission, the UPJOHNS require authors to disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work.
  • Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work, how they used it.
  • Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, and these responsibilities are required for authorship. Therefore, humans are responsible for any submitted material that included the use of AI-assisted technologies.
  • Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased.
  • Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author.
  • Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI.
  • Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.