Upon submission authors are also asked to abide by the principles of ethical publishing of the journal (Shewan LG, Coats AJS, Henein MY. Authors’ Responsibilities and Ethical Publishing. International Cardiovascular Forum Journal 2018;13:3-4, DOI: 10.17987/icfj.v13i0.525 updated periodically) and to agree that if any of the principles ceases to be true the journal article will be retracted. The corresponding author will be required to submit a declaration along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors that they agree to the policies of the journal and to cite that in the text.

The journal reserves the right to check the facts of true and justifiable authorship and the authors remain under an obligation to notify the journal if any material errors, falsehoods or authorship disputes should arise.

Any manuscript submitted must not have been published previously in part or in whole and must not be under consideration for publication at the time of submission or before a final editorial decision has been reached. Any figure, graph or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported as such and can only be accepted if appropriate copyright permission for reproduction has be obtained from the copyright holder, and correct citation of the original article is included.

PEER REVIEW 

The Journals of Barcaray International Publishing use peer-review by experts for all original research articles and correspondence.  On average three independent reports are received for each submission and these reports are used by the editorial board to inform their discussions.

Barcaray journal editors are required to select appropriate reviewers based on expertise and absence of conflicts of interest and to endure reviewers have access to all materials that may be relevant to the evaluation of the manuscript, including supplementary material for e-only publication, and to ensure that reviewer comments are properly assessed and interpreted in the context of their declared conflicts of interest. Specialist statistical review will be commissioned where relevant.

In the matter of manuscript acceptance or rejection the decision of the Editor-in-Chief is final.  Reviewers are encouraged to make their reviews open and honest.  All reviewers and editors are asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest (see conflicts policy section) and where present they will have no role in handling an affected manuscript.

Adherence to ICMJE recommendations on peer review is ensured by requiring potential reviewers to declare any conflicts of interest that could complicate their review. Any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions will lead to the reviewers be barred from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers are also instructed not to use knowledge of the work they have reviewed before its publication in any way.

EDITOR AND JOURNAL STAFF REVIEW, DUTIES OF CONFIDENTIALITY AND INDEPENDENCE

Adherence to ICMJE recommendations on editorial and journal staff review is ensured by requiring editors to recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have any conflict of interest or relationships relevant to the manuscript. All journal staff (including guest editors) who participate in any way in editorial decisions are required to provide the Editor-in-Chief with a current description of their interests and potential conflicts and recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial and journal staff are required to ensure they do not use information gained through working with manuscripts for their private gain.

Barcaray journals publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff. Editors of Barcaray journals are instructed not to share any information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers.

Barcaray journal systems also make clear that reviewers, editors and journal staff should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidental and destroy all copies of manuscripts whether paper or electronic copies after completing review and editorial consideration.  Barcaray journal systems will destroy all copies of rejected manuscripts, but will archive all material related to decisions for accepted or under review papers for at least 3 years.  Barcaray as the owner of the journals will appoint expert Editors-in-Chief, with a contract that ensures their editorial independence and states their rights, duties and responsibilities as well as the appeal mechanism in the case of any dispute. Barcaray journals clearly show their governance and relationships with sponsoring societies on their web-sites.

Barcaray journal Editors-in-Chief have the final say in decisions about the acceptance of any sponsored content, including supplements, and in the use of the journal brand or any commercial use of journal content. Barcaray journals all have independent editorial advisory boards to help the Editor-in-Chief establish and maintain editorial policy. Barcaray ensures that appropriate insurance is obtained to protect editors from any action related to the conduct of their journal duties.

POLICY ON HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS AND INFORMED CONSENT FOR PUBLICATIONS

Barcaray journals require all research reported in any submission to have adhered to all local, regional, institutional and national ethical guidelines for research on animals or on human subjects and had all necessary approvals and licences in place prior to the commencement of the research.

For all research involving human patients and volunteers, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from the participants (or legal guardian where the ethical committee requires this) and this statement must be made in the manuscript. Where images, material or specimens can be traced to individuals, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from the participants (or appropriate legal guardian or next of kin if deceased) prior to submission. Approval from the relevant ethics committee must have been obtained for all reports that involve human patients or healthy volunteers, unless an adequate explanation is given.

Research involving human subjects, 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 or have been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval - these must be verified upon request, so that the name of the appropriate committee and the registration number and title of the project must be provided on request.

Experimental research on animals must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee. The approving body and the legislated licence under which the work has taken place must be cited in the manuscript.

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION

Barcaray International Publishing encourages its editors to use iThenticate software (http://www.ithenticate.com) to detect instances of overlapping and duplicate text. The report from iThenticate will be made available to reviewers and editors and will be taken into account in the decisions regarding the manuscript.  No absolute number for decisions of an acceptable level of text similarity as each case is considered on its merits, for example a greater % similarity is allowed in Methods sections if standard methodologies are being described and a much lower tolerance exists for the Introduction or Discussion sections or in Editorials or Review articles.

In addition to overall text similarity the degree of similarity to text in any single article will be sought and a lower threshold for acceptable similarity will be applied.  Self-plagiarism will also be sought and excessive levels will be brought to the authors’ attention for correction.  All articles are reviewed for adequate citing of source material and any biases in favour or against original publication, either by individuals, research groups or nations will be investigated and may lead to the authors being warned or barred from future publication if repeated.

JOURNAL POLICIES ON CORRECTIONS, RETRACTIONS AND EDITORIAL EXPRESSIONS OF CONCERN

Barcaray International Publishing believes in the essential requirement to establish a reliable permanent record of scientific publications. If a correction is required the journal will publish a citable and indexed correction notice and will publish a new article version with details of the changes made and the date of the changes and will archive the previous uncorrected version. Errors serious enough to invalidate a manuscripts results or conclusions will lead to a retraction.

When scientific misconduct is alleged, or concerns are otherwise raised about the conduct or integrity of manuscripts, the responsible editor will follow the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in investigation and publication of the review findings, and in how the manuscript is then handled, including correction, expressions of concern, publication of allegations and author's responses or full retraction as appropriate.

COPYEDITING AND PROOFS

All manuscripts are assessed for comprehensibility and good English using clear and simple expression where possible.  Although we offer assistance in English expression at all stages of manuscript handling in an effort to improve comprehensibility we do not attempt to change the natural style of expression of different authors from different parts of the world as befits our nature to be a truly global series of journals.

APPEALS AND COMPLAINTS

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer it to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal. If a complaint has been made concerning the Editor-in-Chief the publisher will refer the matter to an experienced independent Editor-in-Chief of an unrelated journal for adjudication.