Ethics

Publication Ethics

Responsibilities of authors

General:

The authors must confirm that the submitted manuscript is the original work of the authors and not published/sent for publication/submission elsewhere.
The authors must confirm that the manuscript will not be submitted elsewhere until the editorial process is completed.
Competing interests/conflict of interest: The authors must declare all financial and non-financial competing interests. Non-financial competing interests include a declaration of political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests. Authors from pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials should declare these as competing interests on submission. They should adhere to Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies (GPP3) in medical publications.
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 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.
The author(s) of a manuscript agree that if the manuscript is accepted for publication, the published article will be copyrighted using a Creative Commons "Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike" license. This license allows the author(s) to retain the copyright but also allows others to freely copy, distribute, and display the copyrighted work and derivative works based upon it under certain specified conditions.

Authorship:

- made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
- been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
- given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.
The order of authorship must be agreed by all named authors prior to submission.
Full names, institutional affiliations, e-mail addresses, and ORCiD ID need to be clearly mentioned during the submission step; however, this information should be avoided from the manuscript file as we follow double blind peer review.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an 'acknowledgements' section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Source of fund for the study must be clearly mention in this section.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Peer review is a fundamental role in maintaining the publication's integrity. We recognize reviewers' vital role by publishing reviewer acknowledgments in January-February each year. The publisher/journal follow the double blind peer review. Double-blind peer review is a model of peer review which reduces bias by allowing reviewers to judge the manuscript based on content alone, un-biased by knowledge of who the authors are.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential document, and must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the journal editor.
The reviewers will perform the work on volunteer basis.
Reviewers are free to decline invitations to review particular manuscripts at their discretion. They should also not accept manuscript review assignments for which they feel unqualified.
Reviewers who have accepted manuscript assignments are normally expected to submit their reviews within three weeks (20 days).
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer's own research without the express written consent of the author.
If a reviewer suggests that an author includes citations to the reviewer's (or their associates') work, this must be for genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of increasing the reviewer's citation count or enhancing the visibility of their work (or that of their associates).

Key features of a review include:

An outline of the conceptual advance over previously published work.
A specific recommendation.
The reasons for that recommendation.
A summary of the specific strengths and weaknesses of the paper. In this regard, we encourage referees to comment on the quality and presentation of the figures as well as the validity of the statistical methods used to interpret them. (If necessary, the editors can obtain primary data from the authors for referees' use in these more detailed evaluations.).
We also encourage reviewers to indicate if the supplementary information is well organized and directly relevant to the main points of the paper.

Points to be considered in review:

Is the question posed original, important and well defined?
Are the data sounds and well controlled?
Is the interpretation (discussion and conclusion) well balanced and supported by the data?
Are the methods appropriate and well described, and are sufficient details provided to allow others to evaluate and/or replicate the work?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods?
Can the writing, organization, tables and figures be improved?
Are there any ethical or competing interests issues you would like to raise?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods?
Any other recommendations to improve the clarity and quality of the publication?

Responsibilities of Editors

Veterinary World adopts the World Association of Medical Editors' definition of editorial freedom. According to this definition, editorial freedom, or independence, is the concept that editors-in-chief have full authority over the editorial content of their journal and the timing of publication of that content. Journal owners should not interfere in the evaluation, selection, or editing of individual articles either directly or by creating an environment that strongly influences decisions.
The editors will be guided by COPE's Guidelines for Retracting Articles when considering retracting, issuing an expression of concern about, and issuing corrections pertaining to articles that have been published (https://publicationethics.org/node/19896/revisions/66386/view).
The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely.
Articles must be reviewed by at least two external reviewers.
The editor shall select reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field.
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sex, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
The editor should use the journal's electronic submission system for all journal communications.
The editor must not attempt to influence the journal's ranking by artificially increasing any journal metric.
The editor must protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
The Editorial Board takes responsibility for making publication decisions for submitted manuscripts based on the reviewer's evaluation of the manuscript, policies of the journal editorial board and legal restrain acting against plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement.

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

If your study involves human subjects and/or animals, you need to provide the following:

Authors must provide the name of the ethical approval committee/Institutional Review Board they have obtained consent from along with approval number/ID.
Authors should specifically mention if a waiver was obtained for the study and the reason for the waiver. They should confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with Declaration as revised in 2013.
Authors must state that written informed consent was obtained from the study participants (and the relevant document(s) must be provided when requested by the journal). If verbal informed consent was obtained, the reason(s) for the absence of written consent must be provided.
Since patients have a 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 case, written informed consent from the patient must be obtained to publish these graphics in print and electronic form. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including illustrations) must be removed before submission.