Policies

Peer Review Policy

Articles published in Fountain University Journals (FUJ) must be peer-reviewed. Individual journals may employ one of the following peer-review models:

Double-anonymous peer review, in which both authors and reviewers are unknown to each other;
Single-anonymous peer review, in which reviewers are unknown to authors
Open peer review, in which both authors and reviewers are acquainted with one another

The peer review model used in FUJ is described on journal webpages and in guidelines for authors and reviewers. Typically, every manuscript requires at least two independent reviews. Reviewers must always disclose any real or perceived conflicts of interest. Journal editors decide how to modify specific submissions based on peer reviewer comments. Suppose a journal editor has a conflict of interest with a manuscript or its authors. In that case, the manuscript will be assigned to a different editorial team member, such as a deputy editor, an associate editor, or an editorial board member.

FUJ endorses COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviews: https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers.

Research and Publication Ethics

The Fountain University Journals (FUJ) ensures that all works published in our journals are of the highest quality and subjected to the strictest ethical scrutiny. We expect editors, reviewers, and authors working on and contributing to FUJ to be equally committed to upholding these high ethical standards. Our ethical standards and procedures outline general expectations for authors, editors, reviewers, publishers, and social partners. The Fountain University Journals adhere strictly to the copyright laws and practices established in the Open Access Policy.

Ethical Standards

Publishers and editors are required to:

Establish and uphold journal policies, such as those governing publishing ethics, handling conflicts of interest, and handling appeals, corrections, and retractions
Develop clear guidelines for authors and peer reviewers.
Provide authors with clear information regarding article processing charges, if applicable.
Take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred.
If the editor or publisher becomes aware of any claim of research misconduct, they will handle it appropriately.
Never encourage or knowingly allow misconduct to occur.
Provide accurate contact information for the publisher, editorial offices, and editorial board members on the publisher's website.

The publisher is required to:

Manage conflicts of interest with integrity
Protect intellectual property, information systems, and private journal data
Avoid using organizational names that might mislead potential authors and editors about the ownership of the journal;
Support editors during inquiries into claims of misconduct;
Provide support to editors during investigations into allegations of misconduct; Manage conflicts of interest with integrity

Editors are required to:

Determine and accept responsibility for all content published in the journal
Value and ensure the integrity and accuracy of content published in the journal and publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions when necessary.
Follow and uphold the journal's submission, peer review, and publisher policies.
Have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are acknowledged experts in the field(s) discussed in the publication
Assist authors and reviewers throughout the submission, review, and publication processes.
Ensure their journal's peer review procedure is fair, timely, and impartial.
Inform the publisher if there are any possible violations of intellectual property laws
Maintain a neutral stance and do not have a vested interest in the acceptance and publication of a manuscript
Address reported ethical breaches in a timely and neutral manner (see Procedures for Addressing Unethical Behaviour for more on this process)

Authors must:

Meet the COPE definition of authorship, identify each contributing author's role(s), and ensure that all co-authors have approved the publication.
List all authors who contributed to the manuscript.
Certify in writing that neither the submitted article nor a version of it (in any language) has been published, is publicly available online, is being considered for publication elsewhere, or will be submitted elsewhere for publication consideration while the manuscript is under review by the journal. Articles that are extensions must be labelled as such when submitted. These will be evaluated on an individual basis.
Attest that they wrote the manuscript entirely from scratch and that it contains only original and accurate information.
Ensure that all research is conducted fairly and ethically. Articles presenting human subjects research must either name the ethics committee that approved the study or confirm that no approval is required.
Respect patients' privacy rights when publishing articles involving human subjects. Unless necessary for scientific purposes, any identifying characteristics or information that could reveal a patient's identity, such as names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, x-rays, MRIs, charts, and pedigrees. For articles containing detailed information about a patient, the patient (parent, guardian, or estate) must provide written informed consent for publication. Authors should inform these patients if any potentially identifiable material or information is available after publication on the Internet and in print. Patient consent should be documented and archived with the authors, and confirmation that informed consent was obtained will be requested with manuscript submission.
Register clinical trials in publicly accessible databases.
List all sources of financial support and declare any potential conflicts of interest.
Ensure that permissions for all third-party images, graphics, and supplementary materials have been obtained before publication
Participate in the peer review process
Immediately notify the journal editor of any errors, inaccuracies, or misrepresentations discovered within the manuscript after submission
Provide retractions or corrections of mistakes
Adhere to Journal Instructions for authors

Peer Reviewers must:

Disclose any potential or immediate conflict of interest in the review of a submission and recuse themselves, if appropriate;
Maintain confidentiality during the peer review process, even in an open peer review process;
Review manuscripts objectively, impartially, unbiasedly, and timely;
Advise the editor if there are any concerns about the originality of the submission or other ethically problematic issues in the manuscript; and
Adhere to the rules of the journal.

Procedures for Dealing with Unethical Behavior

Identification

Unethical behaviour can be identified and reported to journal editors and/or the publisher (FUJ) at any time.
Unethical practices may include but are not limited to, violations of any of the above-mentioned Ethical Expectations (e.g., plagiarism, falsification or fabrication, authorship falsification, redundant publication, undeclared conflict of interest, etc.).
To conduct an investigation, the person reporting the ethical breach must provide sufficient evidence. Until a conclusion is reached, all allegations are treated equally and seriously.

Investigation

The journal's editor will investigate in consultation with FUJ. In the case of allegations against a journal editor, the investigation will be conducted in consultation with FUJ by a different member of the journal's editorial board, such as a deputy editor. The investigation into allegations against FUJ will be conducted by the journal's editor in consultation with other members of the journal's editorial board.
To avoid defamation, evidence gathering will be done so that allegations are only shared with those who need to know.
The investigation will be completed within a reasonable time after the allegation is made (s).
The accused party will be notified and allowed to respond to the allegation as part of the investigation (s).
If the allegation(s) are valid as part of the investigation, the severity of the breach will be determined.
Cases beyond the editor's and FUJ's investigative capabilities (e.g., data fabrication or theft) will be referred to the author's institution with a request for an investigation.

Minor Ethical Violations

The journal's editor and FUJ will handle minor infractions.

Major Ethical Violations

In cases of serious misconduct, the accused's employer may be required to be notified. The editor will decide whether this is warranted in consultation with FUJ, the editorial board, and/or the society governing body.

Consequences

When an ethical violation is confirmed, one or more of the following actions will be taken.

Informing the author or reviewer of the misconduct breach in cases where there appears to be a misunderstanding of ethical standards;
Sending a strongly worded letter to the author or reviewer outlining the breach and warning against future behavior
Publishing an erratum notice outlining the ethical breach
Sending a formal letter to the author's or reviewer's employer or funding agency;
Undertaking a formal retraction or withdrawal of the work in question from the journal, as well as informing indexing services and readers of the misconduct;
Imposing a formal embargo on submissions from an individual for a fixed period; and
Reporting the misconduct to a regulatory association for review and action.

Additional Ethical Guidelines

Plagiarism and Duplication

All articles must be unique. No version of an article (in any language) should be published or made publicly available online, and it should not be considered for publication elsewhere, nor will it be submitted for publication elsewhere while the journal is reviewing the manuscript. Articles representing expansions must be identified at the time of submission. They will be considered on an individual basis.

Authors must also certify that they wrote the entire manuscript and that it contains only original and accurate information before peer review. Fountain University Journals employs plagiarism detection software. Plagiarism-infected manuscripts will be rejected outright.

Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose any commercial associations or other arrangements (e.g., financial compensation received, patient-licensing arrangements, the potential for profit, consultancy, stock ownership, etc.) that may pose a conflict of interest with the article.

Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves from evaluating papers in which they may have a conflict of interest.

Appeals

Authors have the right to appeal decisions. All appeals will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by journal editors. The journal editors will recuse themselves depending on the nature of the appeal, and the appeal will be reviewed by a different member of the journal's editorial team.

Corrections

Authors must notify the journal's editor and FUJ of any factual errors they discover or are informed of in a published article. When corrections are required, they are made quickly and are accompanied by an errata notice that describes the correction.

Retractions

The editors consider retractions when there is evidence of untrustworthy data or findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research. If an article is under investigation, we may consider an expression of concern notice. If it is determined that a retraction is required, a retraction notice will be added, along with an explanation of the retraction and the original article metadata. The original text will still be available.

In exceptional circumstances, the original article may be removed for legal reasons. In such cases, the metadata will be kept, while the original text will be replaced with the retraction note and a note explaining why the article was removed for legal reasons.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Suppose doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. In that case, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Authors of manuscripts describing experimental studies on either humans or animals must state that the study was approved by an institutional review committee or ethics committee and that the subjects gave informed consent. Such approval should be described in the Methods section of the manuscript. In addition, for studies conducted with human subjects, the method by which informed consent was obtained from the participants (i.e., verbal or written) also needs to be stated in the Methods section.

For studies with human subjects, please include the following sentence:

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients to be included in the study.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

If any identifying information about patients is included in the article, the following sentence should also be included:

Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.

For studies with animals, please include the following sentence:

All institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

For articles that do not contain studies with human or animal subjects:

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

Research involving human participants, their data or biological material

Ethics approval

When reporting a study that involved human participants, their data or biological material, authors should include a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee) and certify that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Suppose doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards. In that case, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach and demonstrate that an independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. If a study was granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the reasons for the exemption).

Retrospective ethics approval

Suppose a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing. In that case, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained,, and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.

Ethics approval for retrospective studies

Although retrospective studies are conducted on already available data or biological material (for which formal consent may not be needed or is difficult to obtain) ethics approval may be required depending on the law and the national ethical guidelines of a country. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their country.

Ethics approval for case studies

Case reports require ethics approval. Most institutions will have specific policies on this subject. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their institution and seek ethics approval where needed. Authors should be aware to secure informed consent from the individual (or parent or guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable).

Cell lines

If human cells are used, authors must declare in the manuscript what cell lines were used by describing the source of the cell line, including when and from where it was obtained, whether the cell line has recently been authenticated and by what method.

If cells were bought from a life science company the following need to be given in the manuscript: name of the company (that provided the cells), cell type, number of the cell lines, and batch of cells.

It is recommended that authors check the NCBI database for misidentification and contamination of human cell lines. This step will alert authors to possible problems with the cell line and may save considerable time and effort.

Further information is available from the International Cell Line Authentication Committee (ICLAC).

Authors should include a statement that confirms that an institutional or independent ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee) approved the study and that informed consent was obtained from the donor or next of kin.

Research Resource Identifiers (RRID)

Research Resource Identifiers (RRID) are persistent unique identifiers (effectively similar to a DOI) for research resources. This journal encourages authors to adopt RRIDs when reporting key biological resources (antibodies, cell lines, model organisms and tools) in their manuscripts.

Examples:

Organism: Filip1tm1a(KOMP)Wtsi RRID:MMRRC_055641-UCD

Cell Line: RST307 cell line RRID:CVCL_C321

Antibody: Luciferase antibody DSHB Cat# LUC-3, RRID: AB_2722109

Plasmid: mRuby3 plasmid RRID:Addgene_104005

Software: ImageJ Version 1.2.4 RRID: SCR_003070

RRIDs are provided by the Resource Identification Portal. Many commonly used research resources already have designated RRIDs. The portal also provides authors links so that they can quickly register a new resource and obtain an RRID.

Clinical Trial Registration

The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a clinical trial is "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". The WHO defines health interventions as “A health intervention is an act performed for, with or on behalf of a person or population whose purpose is to assess, improve, maintain, promote or modify health, functioning or health conditions” and a health-related outcome is generally defined as a change in the health of a person or population as a result of an intervention.

To ensure the integrity of the reporting of patient-centred trials, authors must register prospective clinical trials (phase II to IV trials) in suitable publicly available repositories. For example www.clinicaltrials.gov or any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The trial registration number (TRN) and date of registration should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

For clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, authors are encouraged to register retrospectively to ensure the complete publication of all results. The trial registration number (TRN), date of registration and the words 'retrospectively registered’ should be included as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

Standards of reporting

Springer Nature advocates complete and transparent reporting of biomedical and biological research and research with biological applications. Authors are recommended to adhere to the minimum reporting guidelines hosted by the EQUATOR Network when preparing their manuscript.

Exact requirements may vary depending on the journal; please refer to the journal’s Instructions for Authors.

Checklists are available for a number of study designs, including:

Randomised trials (CONSORT) and Study protocols (SPIRIT)

Observational studies (STROBE)

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) and protocols (PRISMA-P)

Diagnostic/prognostic studies (STARD) and (TRIPOD)

Case reports (CARE)

Clinical practice guidelines (AGREE) and (RIGHT)

Qualitative research (SRQR) and (COREQ)

Animal pre-clinical studies (ARRIVE)

Quality improvement studies (SQUIRE)

Economic evaluations (CHEERS)

Summary of requirements

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a ‘Declarations’ section under the heading of ‘Ethics approval’. The Declarations section should be placed on a title page that is separate from the manuscript. Please use the title page as outlined in the Title Page section of these Instructions for Authors for providing the statements. Other declarations include Funding, Competing interests, Ethics approval, Consent, Data and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

Examples of statements to be used when ethics approval has been obtained:

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Medical University of A (No. ...).
This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of University B (Date.../No. ...).
Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of University C. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
The questionnaire and methodology for this study were approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of D (Ethics approval number: ...).

Examples of statements to be used for a retrospective study:

Ethical approval was waived by the local Ethics Committee of University A in view of the retrospective nature of the study, and all the procedures being performed were part of the routine care.
This research study was conducted retrospectively from data obtained for clinical purposes. We consulted extensively with the IRB of XYZ who determined that our study did not need ethical approval. An IRB official waiver of ethical approval was granted from the IRB of XYZ.
This retrospective chart review study involving human participants was in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Human Investigation Committee (IRB) of University B approved this study.

Examples of statements to be used when no ethical approval is required/exemption granted:

This is an observational study. The XYZ Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.
The data reproduced from Article X utilised human tissue that was procured via our Biobank AB, which provides de-identified samples. This study was reviewed and deemed exempt by our XYZ Institutional Review Board. The BioBank protocols are in accordance with the ethical standards of our institution and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Authors are responsible for the correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.