Policy and Ethics

Informed consent is a process where in the health care provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits and also of any alternatives for a given procedure or intervention. The patient must be competent to make a voluntary decision. The Informed Consent is ethical as well as a legal obligation for medical practitioners. The Informed Consent Form is signed by the patient where in the entire procedure/intervention details are outlined. All authors/Researchers submitting original research work which discusses about patient case studies, should obtain their consent prior to submitting the research work for review. The detailed set of consent form(s) as the case maybe should be submitted along with the manuscript. Each consent form should contain the clause of voluntarily consenting for the Procedure/intervention/making their case available to public as the case maybe. It should also bear the Patient Name, Address and other contact details along with their age.      

A Declaration of Conflicting Interests policy refers to a formal policy a journal may have to require a conflict of interest statement or conflict of interest disclosure from a submitting or publishing author.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) states in its Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003) that:

‘Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.’

Many scholars, researchers and professionals may have potential conflicts of interest, that could have an effect on – or could be seen to – have an effect on their research.  

A potential conflicting interest might arise from relationships, allegiances or hostilities to particular groups, organizations or interests, which may influence excessively one’s judgments or actions. The issue is particularly sensitive when such interests are private and/or may result in personal gain.

Additional Information

You may find the following useful resources to refer to for more information on Conflict of Interest policies, existing codes of practices and more general good practice in relation to journal publication ethics:

View the Guidelines published on good publication and the Code of Conduct by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).

View the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

View a Common Standard for Conflict of Interest Disclosure published by Center for Science in the Public Interest.

While reporting experiments on human subjects, you should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration (Policy – WMA – The World Medical Association). Do not use names or initials of patients or hospitals and/or hospital telephone numbers especially in illustrative material. While reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether you adhered to the guidelines of an institution or national research council governing the care and use of laboratory animals. 

SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcare (SALT JSRH) is an open access journal, freely  accessed by authors and members. 

There are no submission fees, publication fees, article processing charge or page charges for  SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcare.  

There is no Charge/Fee for submitting manuscripts to SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcare.  

In order to ensure maximum reach of SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcare (SALT JSRH) on contents, we have adopted the open access policy, meaning that;  All the articles published in SALT JSRH are made freely accessible online immediately after publication in an easily readable format, without any subscription or registration barrier. All the published articles are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Articles can be shared and adapted, provided the attribution for the work is given. 

All the manuscripts submitted to SALT JSRH will be subjected to double blinded peer review process; The manuscript will be reviewed by two suitable experts in respective subject area. The reports of both the reviewers will be considered while deciding on acceptance/revision or rejection of a manuscript. Editor-In-Chief will make the final decision, based on reviewer's comments. Editor-In-Chief can ask the one or more advisory board members for their suggestions upon a manuscript, before making the final decision. Associate editor and review editors provide the administrative support to maintain the integrity of peer review process. In case, authors challenge editor's negative decision with suitable arguments, the manuscript can be sent to one more reviewer and the final decision will be made based upon his recommendations.

 We follow the open access policy and license our content under Attribution-Non Commercial- No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) which in simple terms means:  

You are free to: 

• Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:  

• Attribution - You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. 
• Non Commercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• No Derivatives - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures The license prohibits application of effective technological measures, defined with reference to Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty.
  More info. that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:  

• You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
• No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

All the articles published in SALT JSRH are distributed under a creative commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) and the author(s) hold the copyright of their work. This journal permits and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal on personal websites or institutional  repositories after publication while providing bibliographic details that credit its publication in this journal.    

The SALT JSRH is an electronic Double Blind peer reviewed journal upholding the highest standards. Articles not in accordance with publication ethics and malpractices will be removed from publication if detected at any time. Plagiarism and research fabrication such as making up of data, manipulation of existing data, tables etc. and ethical clearance on the use of humans or animals for the study will also be checked. The journal reserves the right to use plagiarism detecting software to screen submitted papers at any time and suspected plagiarism or duplicate publishing will be reported immediately.      

They must ensure that work is original, Must not have been published elsewhere, Other authors, contributors or sources should be appropriately credited, They are responsible for language editing before submission, Their work has not been copied or plagiarized in whole or part from any other work, The financial support and conflict of interest for the project/research work if any should be disclosed, They are obliged to notify the editor if any error or inaccuracy is discovered and co-operate with the editor to correct the same, Articles should be submitted using online procedures. Simultaneous publication in more than one publication is a breach of publication ethics.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) during the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010 has developed the below mentioned guidelines. Informatics Journals, as a publisher follows COPE, WAME and ICMJE and has adopted COPE’s best practice guidelines for dealing with ethical issues in a journal. The Journal Members (Advisory Board, editors and the journal manager) have consented to adopt the COPE as it meets the purpose and objective of the Journal.

The following is a summary of COPE’s international standards for authors of scholarly research publications and describes responsible research reporting practice.  

The Research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation. Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others. Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere. Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work. The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting. Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed. 

They must ensure that the submitted manuscript undergoes Double - blind peer review before publishing. They will strive to prevent any conflict of interest between the author and editorial and review personnel. All the information related to the submitted manuscript is kept confidential prior to publishing. 

They must ensure that reviews of the manuscript is completed and provides suitable comments for improvement. Promptness in notifying the editor about his inability to review the manuscript. Maintains confidentiality about the manuscript obtained for review, by not discussing with others. Standards of Objectivity preserved by reviewing the manuscripts objectively with clear views and supporting arguments and without any personal criticism. Acknowledgement of Sources. All References not cited by author should be removed. All citations should be accompanied with any previously reported observation, derivation or argument. The editors should be intimated for any overlap of the reviewed manuscript with any other published paper. Disclosures and Conflict of Interest - manuscripts having conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or any other relationships or connections with institutions connected to the paper will not be considered. In case, plagiarism is detected during review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately and we can also consider other steps depending upon the seriousness of the case. If the plagiarism is proven after publication, such manuscript(s) will be removed from our website and appropriate announcement will be placed in this regards.

Further, SALT JSRH can bring such instants in notice of author's funding agencies, author's institutes (where they works) and to the original authors whose work has been plagiarized. Please report the plagiarism to  

saltjsrh@gmail.com 

Authors must abide by these policies after submission of their manuscript. Authors must provide their consent to publish their manuscript prior to peer-review process. Withdrawing an already confirmed manuscript after it has been accepted would attract a minimal article handling charge. If the author withdraws the article after acceptance of the manuscript and payment has also been made, there will be NO REFUND of the Article Processing Charge (APC) already paid. If a Manuscript is withdrawn over indexing issues, NO REFUND will be made.

The author(s) of each article appearing in this Journal is/are solely responsible for the content thereof; neither the SALT JSRH nor its editors or publisher or anyone else involved in creating, producing or distribution assumes any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in the Journal, nor shall they be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages arising out of the use of SALT JSRH. 

For every Journal, the peer review process is at the heart of the success of publishing. As part of our commitment to the protection and enhancement of the peer review process, The SALT JSRH would like to ensure that all published articles are within the accepted level of plagiarism. The Journal uses the very well and widely accepted Plagiarism Detection tool, iThenticate. All submitted Manuscripts are first subjected to Plagiarism check and then the Publishing cycle begins.

In case, plagiarism is detected during review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately and we can also consider other steps depending upon the seriousness of the case. If the plagiarism is proven after publication, such manuscript(s) will be removed from our website and appropriate announcement will be placed in this regards. Further, "SALT JSRH" can bring such instances in notice of author's funding agencies, author's institutes (where they work) and to the original authors whose work has been plagiarized. Please report the plagiarism to saltjsrh@gmail.com.

Either the Publisher or the author of the article can withdraw the same. An article can be withdrawn at any point in time before it is formally published online in its final form with complete information about volume, issue, page numbers, DOI and article ID. If the article withdrawal request has been initiated by an author, they need to submit a signed letter to the Editorial Office prior to article withdrawal. Publisher can withdraw an article if it is found to violate the ethical publishing guidelines, like Duplicate publication, Plagiarism, Fraudulent usage of data, Multiple Submissions, Bogus claims of authorship. In both the cases, the article PDF will be removed and a note that the article has been withdrawn will be displayed.

If an error is discovered in an already published article, Erratum, Corrigendum or Addendum will be published in an issue once the proposed changes are in agreement with Publisher and Author. Only significant corrections will be published such as – Inaccurately published information etc. Minor corrections like spelling mistakes or grammatical errors which do not alter the understanding of the paper will not be corrected. When a correction is published, the original article reference will be given in the corrected PDF and vice-versa. Only the corrections will be mentioned. Charges will be decided while corrections are made depending on the number of corrections etc.

Original article will not be modified, but correction link will be available on the article page. This will help readers to download both the PDFs. An Errata will be published only when mistakes are recognized in the published article which went unnoticed during Editing and Layout setting in Figures, Tables etc. Corrigenda is published when authors realise that errors in the published article could affect the validity of the scientific content, or its accuracy. If a reader detects an error in a published article, they can submit the same as a letter to the editor. The author, editor and a reviewer would then assess the validity of the error pointed out. Corrigenda will then be published with reference to the letter and the answers provided by the author.

Addenda is published if authors have omitted a significant information inadvertently during manuscript submission and would like to add this content to the article after publication. The information provided for addendum will undergo peer-review prior to editorial acceptance. Addendum publication is very rare and will be allowed by Editorial team only if the information is very much essential to understand a significant portion of the published article.

As per the  COPE guidelines, SALT Journal of Scientific Research in Healthcare would consider post-publication retraction under the following factors:

• There is  evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of a major  error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of  fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
• It constitutes plagiarism
• The  findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper  attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission  to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
• It contains material or data without authorisation for use
• Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)
• It reports unethical research
• It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process
• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a.  conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have  unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by  editors and peer reviewers.

The journal will issue a retraction notice  by clearly identifying the article which will be linked to the  retracted article wherever possible. The retraction will be freely  available to all readers and will include who retracted the article and  the reason for retraction.
 

Retractions are published in circumstances like, if the conclusions of a paper is found to be based on faulty logic or computation by new information made available after the paper has been published; if the paper is based on falsified or fabricated data, if plagiarized data has been published or if duplicate publications exist. The retractions are decided on a case by case basis by the editor in consultation with the authors and the reviewers of the article. A signed statement from the authors will be required to be submitted to the Editorial Office before an article can be retracted. Agreement of all authors of a paper is required before a retraction can be published. If some co-authors do not agree to the retraction of the article, the retraction will be published as decided by the editor, clearly identifying the dissenting co-authors. When a retraction is published it will be linked to the article being corrected and a link to the retractions page will also be placed on the article published earlier. On the webpages of the retracted article the bibliographic information will be retained on all the pages, however, the article text will be replaced by a note stating that the article has been retracted from the journal. The PDF version of the article will be retained to preserve the integrity of record, but will be marked to show that the article has been retracted. In cases of partial retractions, the retraction notice will be labeled as 'Partial Retraction' or 'Retraction in Part'.
 

In exceptional circumstances an article may be removed from the journal. This may happen if any legal issues arise or are expected to arise in context of the article, the distribution of the article is stopped by an court order, the contents of the article may pose a serious health risk if acted upon by others, the article violates copyright of others, or if the article is found to be defamatory or infringing on other's legal rights. When an article is removed from the journal the bibliographic information and the PDF file will also be removed. The article text will be replaced by a note stating that the article has been removed from the journal and the reason for removal. 

If an article is found to contain false or inaccurate data which may pose a serious health risk if acted upon by others, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the article and replace it with a corrected version. In this case, the article will be retracted, following the procedure of retraction of an article, with the difference that a link to the corrected re-published article will be placed on the HTML and PDF versions of the paper and on the page with the retraction notice. 

Authors should register all the clinical trials in a Primary Clinical Trial Registry. The Registration number must be given in Materials and Methods section. Authors can register in following trial register: 

• http://www.ctri.in 
• http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ 
• http://isrctn.org/ 
• http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr 

• ICMJE – International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publications
• EQUATOR network: Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of health Research
• CONSORT – Transparent Reporting of Trials/
• STROBE - Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology
• NLM Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives: By Organization
• COPE – Committee on Publication Ethics/
• WAME – World Association of Medical Editors
• Council of Science Editors
• ALPSP – Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
• UGC Care

• Author Aid – supporting developing countries research in publishing their work/
• A practical guide for health researchers
• Virtual Health Sciences Library
• Global Index Medicus