Publication Ethics statement

Journal of Life and Social Sciences (J. Life. Soc. Sci.  eISSN: 3006-2675) is following the publication guidelines given by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also endorses the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions. Journal of Life and Social Sciences also endorses the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Submission of a manuscript to a Journal of Life and Social Sciences implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies. Journal of Life and Social Sciences remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. 

Ethics approval

Research involving human participants, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Further information and documentation to support this should be made available to the Editor on request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing, 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 chief Editor's discretion.

Duplicate publication

Any manuscript submitted to a JLSS journal must be original and the manuscript, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journal. In any case where there is the potential for overlap or duplication we require that authors are transparent. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission. Any overlapping publications should be cited. Any ‘in press’ or unpublished manuscript cited, or relevant to the Editor’s and reviewers' assessment of the manuscript, should be made available if requested by the Editor. BBASR reserves the right to judge potentially overlapping or redundant publications on a case-by-case basis.

In general, the manuscript should not already have been formally published in any journal or in any other citable form. If justified and made clear upon submission, there are exceptions to this rule. 

JLSS is a member of CrossCheck’s plagiarism detection initiative and takes seriously all cases of publication misconduct. Any suspected cases of covert duplicate manuscript submission will be handled as outlined in the COPE guidelines and the Editor may contact the authors’ institution (see Misconduct policy for more information). JLSS endorses the policies of the ICMJE in relation to overlapping publications.

Complete manuscripts

Cochrane systematic reviews

JLSS does not currently have a co-publication agreement with the Cochrane Library for its systematic reviews. JLSS will therefore only consider publishing novel Cochrane systematic reviews, or updated versions of articles in the Cochrane Library, if they provide substantial new information.

Co-publication in multiple journals

If transparent, and with prior agreement of the relevant journals and under the conditions specified in the ICMJE guidelines, co-publication in multiple journals will be considered at the Editor's discretion.

Health technology assessment

The reports of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme are freely accessible in full online. At the Editor's discretion, some JLSS journals will consider full or shortened versions of these articles for peer review.

Preprint servers and author/institutional repositories

Posting a manuscript on a preprint server or an author's personal or institutional website does not constitute previous publication.  Please see our preprint sharing and citation policy for further information. 

JLSS encourages self-archiving by authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in its journals.

Theses

JLSS will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis including those that have been made publicly available according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.

Translations into English

Authors should comply with the ICMJE guidelines and seek approval from the original publisher to check that they do not breach the copyright terms of the original publication and that the original publisher gives permission for publication of the translation under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 

Incomplete manuscripts

Abridged articles

At the Editor's discretion, some JLSS journal will consider manuscripts that are substantially extended versions of articles that have previously been published in another peer-reviewed journal. In such cases the prior publication of an abridged version of the article would therefore not preclude publication, provided the new manuscript represents a substantially novel contribution to the scientific record. If applicable, the authors should seek approval from the original publisher before submitting the extended version of the manuscript.

Abstracts/posters

Prior abstracts of up to 400 words and posters presented at, or published as part of, academic meetings do not preclude consideration for peer review of a full manuscript, as the full manuscript represents a formal advance to the citable scientific record. Published abstracts should be cited. Authors should be aware that many conference proceedings exceed the allowable word limit and constitute a citable form.

Datasets

Making scientific data sets publicly available before associated manuscripts are submitted will not preclude consideration by a JLSS journal. Because an increasing number of research funding agencies require that their grant holders share the 'raw data' research outputs, such data sharing is encouraged by BBASR, provided appropriate safeguards are in place to protect personal or sensitive information. See the policy on publication of clinical datasets (above) for more information.

Non-research articles

Authors of non-research articles (usually commissioned reviews and commentaries) can include figures and tables that have been previously published in other journals provided they confirm on submission that permission has been obtained from the original publisher (if applicable) and cite the original article. Documentary evidence to support this permission must be made available to the Editor on request.

In order to avoid the potential for self-plagiarism, inadvertently or otherwise, authors agreeing to write commissioned articles should notify the Editor of any recent publications or invitations to write on a similar topic.

Open science

If authors have previously discussed or posted their own data in venues such as blogs, wikis, social networking websites, or online electronic lab notebooks, they are still able to submit their findings to JLSS journal. However, given the rapidly evolving nature of these resources, where discussion of data or manuscripts posted to these venues has subsequently been incorporated into the manuscript, the Editor will make their own assessment as to whether there may be duplication in the submitted manuscript.

Study protocols

Publication of study protocols reduces the risk of non-publication of research findings and facilitates methodological discussion, and is encouraged by a number of JLSS journal. Therefore prior publication of a study protocol before submission of a manuscript reporting the results is not considered duplicate publication.

Communication of findings prior to publication

JLSS journal do not wish to hinder communication among researchers. We support open communications between researchers whether on a recognized community preprint server, through discussions at conferences or on online collaborative sites such as wikis or the author’s blog.  Neither conference presentations nor posting on recognized preprint servers constitute prior publication.

Researchers may respond to requests from the media in response to a preprint or conference presentation, by providing explanation or clarification of the work, or information about its context. In these circumstances, media coverage will not hinder editorial handling of the submission. 

Researchers should be aware that such coverage may reduce or pre-empt coverage by other media at the time of publication. We also advise that researchers approached by reporters in response to a preprint make it clear that the paper has not yet undergone peer review, that the content is provisional and that the conclusions may change. Authors are expected to keep details of the peer review and editorial processes confidential.

We believe it important that the peer-reviewed and published version of a paper should be publicly available when the work is discussed in the public media, allowing the press to provide informed comment based on this version. For that reason, we strongly discourage the direct soliciting of media coverage to appear ahead of publication of the final version of a paper.

If further clarification is required, please contact the press office by e-mail.

Text recycling

Authors should be aware that replication of text from their own previous publications is text recycling (also referred to as self-plagiarism), and in some cases is considered unacceptable. Where overlap of text with authors’ own previous publications is necessary or unavoidable, duplication must always be reported transparently and be properly attributed and compliant with copyright requirements. In collaboration with COPE, JLSS has created guidelines for Editors on how to deal with text recycling which provide further detailed information on when text recycling is or is not considered acceptable. If a manuscript contains text that has been published elsewhere, authors should notify the Editor of this on submission.