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Editorial Policies

CONTENTS


The Alnoor University affiliated BioMed Visions Journal (BMVJ) is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in scientific publishing. BMVJ follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles to the letter, guaranteeing honesty, openness, and moral behavior through the publication process.

Moreover, BMVJ all the recommendations set forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) regarding the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals are endorsed by the aforementioned journal. By aligning with these esteemed recommendations, BMVJ reinforces its commitment to excellence and professionalism in medical publishing.

The BMVJ also complies with Good Publication Practice 3 (GPP3) authoring requirements. As a result, a set of precise and thorough guidelines for identifying authorship and properly crediting contributions is given. BMVJ guarantees equity and openness in acknowledging authors' contributions to published research by following GPP3.

In summary, as a member of COPE and an endorser of ICMJE recommendations and GPP3 guidelines, BMVJ upholds the highest ethical standards and best practices in scholarly publishing. Authors, reviewers, and readers can trust in the credibility, integrity, and transparency of research published in BMVJ.

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The journal does not accept adverts from third parties.

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Affiliations

The authors are required to cite all pertinent affiliations in order to provide proof of the approval, sponsorship, and/or conduct of the research. Authors are required to indicate their current institutional affiliation for non-research pieces. If an author relocates before the piece is published, they should indicate the new affiliation where the work was done, along with their current affiliation and contact information, in the acknowledgment section. If an author satisfies the authorship requirements, their change of affiliation is not a good enough cause to remove them from the publication. You should declare your independent status if you do not currently belong to any relevant institutions.

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Appeals and complaints

The journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process. The Editors-in-Chief should be contacted with any complaints, concerns, or appeals regarding authorship issues or the peer-review process, including concerns raised after publication. They will look into the claims by first requesting information from all parties involved and then suggesting a course of action that complies with the values of academic ethics as stated by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE; https://publicationethics.org). Until the problem is fixed, submissions may be stopped throughout the review or publication process. When complaints include Editors-in-Chief, the members of the Editorial Board, under the direction of the senior member, look into the allegations and suggest a course of action.

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Acknowledgment

It is appropriate to give credit to those who helped with a manuscript's creation but who are not authors. It's important to recognize the organizations that contributed money or other resources. The article must expressly recognize any contribution made by AI tools (such as big language models) and other comparable technical tools used in the creation of content. Authors bear the obligation of guaranteeing the authenticity, uniqueness, and consistency of the content they write.

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Authorship

It is highly recommended that authors verify that the author group, corresponding author, and author order are proper at the time of submission. After a paper is accepted, changes to the order of authors, additions or deletions of authors, and/or modifications to the Corresponding Authors are not accepted. Although it is usually not allowed, there are situations when it might be justified to add or remove authors during the revision process. It is necessary to provide an explanation for these changes in authorship. Editor-in-Chief approval of the amendment is at his or her discretion. The following information must be sent by the appropriate author to the Editor-in-Chief in order to propose such a change:

  1. (a) the rationale behind the author list modification and
  2. (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal, or rearrangement. In the case of the addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

If author affiliation changes between the time that the research is conducted or the paper is written and the time of publication, the author's current affiliation should be listed, and where appropriate, the previous affiliation acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section at the copy-editing stage.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:

  1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
  2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope, and the number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

Contribution Details

Contributors ought to list the specific contributions they each made to the manuscript. Concept, design, the definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review are the categories into which the description should be divided, as appropriate. The article will be printed with the inputs of the writers. 'Guarantors' are those writers who, from the beginning to the end, accept accountability for the work's integrity.

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Citations

Research and non-research pieces must cite timely, pertinent, and verified literature—where applicable, peer-reviewed—to back up any assertions they make. Author groups should not prearrange to improperly cite each other's work or engage in excessive and inappropriate self-citation as this might be regarded as citation manipulation. Go over the COPE citation manipulation guidelines. If you are the author of a non-research item (such as a review or opinion), you should make sure the references you list are accurate and give a fair and impartial summary of the status of scholarly work or study on the subject at hand. It is not appropriate for your references to unduly promote a specific publication, organization, or research group. If you are unsure about whether to cite a source you should contact the journal editorial office for advice.

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Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests

Conflicts of interest (COIs), also referred to as "competing interests," arise when there are non-research-related concerns that could plausibly compromise the impartiality or neutrality of the study or its evaluation. Declaring potential conflicts of interest is necessary to enable informed decision-making, regardless of whether they truly have an impact. This declaration will not necessarily prevent someone from participating in a review process or work from being published, in most situations.

Declare a possible interest or speak with the editorial office if you're not sure. Unreported interests could result in penalties. Submissions that later come to light and have unreported conflicts may be rejected. Publications may need to be reevaluated, corrected, or, in extreme circumstances, withdrawn.

Conflicts include:

  • Financial – funding and other payments, goods, and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Affiliations – being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Intellectual property – patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
  • Personal – friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
  • Academic – competitors or someone whose work is critiqued

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Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions

It could occasionally be required to make changes to an article after it has been published. The Editor will carefully review this to make sure that any necessary adjustments are made in compliance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.

A post-publication note that is permanently linked to the original article will accompany any necessary modifications. This may take the shape of a withdrawal, an expression of concern, a correction notice, or, in extreme cases, a removal. Ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record is the aim of this permanent and transparent change process.

A Correction notice will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission that can impact the interpretation of the article, but where the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact. Examples include mislabelling of a figure, missing information on funding or competing interests of the authors. The journal utilizes two types of correction notice; a Corrigendum will typically be issued for errors introduced by the authors, whereas an Erratum is typically issued for errors introduced by the publisher.

A Retraction notice will be issued where a major error (e.g. in the analysis or methods) invalidates the conclusions in the article, or where research misconduct or publication misconduct has taken place (e.g. research without required ethical approvals, fabricated data, manipulated images, plagiarism, duplicate publication etc). The decision to issue a retraction for an article will be made in accordance with COPE guidelines. Authors and institutions may also request the retraction of their articles if their reasons meet the criteria for retraction.

A Removal notice will be issued in very rare circumstances where the problems cannot be addressed by a Retraction or Correction notice. Examples include where the content in the article is defamatory or infringes on other legal rights or is subject to a court order. In the rare case of an article being removed from the journal Online, a removal notice will be issued in its place.

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Consent for Publication

Written informed consent for the publication of any details pertaining to a specific individual (or, in the case of minors under 18, their parent or legal guardian) must be sought for all manuscripts that include such details. Permission to publish their information under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 is required in order for it to be publicly accessible online. In the event that the person has passed away, the next of kin must give permission for publication. A statement stating that written informed consent was acquired for publication must be included in the manuscript.

Authors can use the consent form to obtain consent for publication, or a consent form from their own institution or region if appropriate. The consent form must state that the details/images will be freely available on the internet and may be seen by the general public. The consent form must be made available to the Editor if requested and will be treated confidentially.

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Confidentiality

A manuscript that has been submitted is private information. Academic journals only reveal submitted articles to those involved in processing and preparing the work for publication (should it be accepted). Editors, corresponding authors, prospective reviewers, real reviewers, and editorial staff are some of these people. On the other hand, in circumstances where misconduct is suspected, a manuscript might be disclosed to members of the ethics committees of academic journals as well as to institutions or organizations that would need it to address the wrongdoing. Academic journals must, when applicable, adhere to the relevant COPE flowcharts.

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Who Can Submit?

Anybody who either owns the copyright to the work being submitted or has permission from the owner or owners of the copyright to submit the manuscript may submit an original work for consideration for publication in BMVJ. Before their works are published, authors are the original owners of the copyrights to them (though there may be an exception to this in the non-academic world if the authors have agreed to transfer copyright to their employer as a condition of employment).

User Rights

BMVJ is an open-access journal. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles under the following conditions: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright statement stated here and embedded in each published article

Open Access Policy

The journal is an open-access journal that provides immediate access to its published contents. Articles published are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0) which permits re-use (download, read, print, search, copy, distribute the link, etc.) of open access articles, as long as the original author and source are properly attributed.

Author Rights

As further described in our submission agreement in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to BMVJ all copyright in the article. The publisher will be granted publishing and distribution rights. This journal uses a non-exclusive licensing agreement.

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Data falsification/fabrication

where intentional steps have been taken to falsify or improperly manipulate data. This is regarded as a significant wrongdoing that aims to deceive others and compromise the credibility of the academic record, with far-reaching and permanent repercussions.

Authors are required to make sure all information in their paper is accurate and accurately portrays their work before submitting it to the journal. Authors should keep all raw data included in their manuscripts to aid the journal in reviewing their submissions.

Retraction or denial of acceptance of a manuscript or published paper may occur if the original data is not available upon request.

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Data sharing policy

If an original article includes any data that are not publicly available, the authors are required to choose regarding sharing the data with the journal by filling sharing statement form, which should be submitted alongside with their manuscript. If the article is accepted for publication, authors will be given the choice for the Data Availability Statement (form) to be published online alongside the article or just kept in the journal’s records. The data sharing statement form can be downloaded here.

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Desk rejection policy

  1. The topic / scope of the study is not relevant to the field of the Journal.
  2. There are publication ethics problems, non-adherence to international standard guidelines, and plagiarism (set at a similarity index of higher than 20 percent).
  3. The topic does not have a sufficient impact, nor does it sufficiently contribute new knowledge to the field.
  4. There are flaws in the study design.
  5. The objective of the study is not clearly stated.
  6. The study of the organization is problematic and/or certain components are missing.
  7. There are problems in writing or series infelicities of the style of grammar.
  8. The manuscript does not follow the submission guidelines of the Journal.

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Duplicate submission/publication

Since authors must state that their work is not being considered by another journal at the time of submission, it is usually assumed that any duplicate submission or publication was made on purpose. This covers works that have already been published in another language. According to ICMJE guidelines, authors must obtain permission from the original article's publisher and copyright holder for acceptable forms of secondary submissions or publications (such as an English translation of the article) and notify the receiving journal's editor of the original article's history. Additionally, readers must be informed that this is a translated version of the article and be given a link to the original one.

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Funding

In their paper, authors are required by the journal to disclose all funding sources, including financial support. The sponsors' involvement, if any, in any phase of the investigation—from study design to manuscript submission for publication—should be detailed by the authors. If the sponsor(s) had no such participation, that should also be stated. Please make sure that this data is correct and meets the requirements of your funder.

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Images and figures

You should only use images and figures in your article if they are relevant and valuable to the work reported. Please refrain from adding content of this type which is purely illustrative and does not add value to the scholarly work. As a warranty in the Journal Author Publishing Agreement, you make with us, you must obtain the necessary written permission to include material in your article that is owned and held in copyright by a third party, including – but not limited to – any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, musical notation, and any supplemental material.

Any images or figures that have been obtained from another published source can only be re-used if the authors have obtained the appropriate permissions for re-use from the copyright owner. A statement to confirm this must be included within the figure legend. The original source of the image must be cited, even in cases where the image or figure is not under copyright, or if re-use is allowed under a license that permits unrestricted re-use.

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Misconduct

The journal takes all forms of misconduct seriously and will take all necessary action, in accordance with COPE guidelines, to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to):

  • Affiliation misrepresentation
  • Breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions
  • Citation manipulation
  • Duplicate submission/publication
  • “Ethics dumping”
  • Image or data manipulation/fabrication
  • Peer review manipulation
  • Plagiarism
  • Text-recycling/self-plagiarism
  • Undisclosed competing interests
  • Unethical research

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Citation Manipulation

Citation manipulation sanctions will apply to submitted publications that contain citations whose main goal is to boost the number of citations to the work of a certain author or to articles published in a specific journal.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Submitted manuscripts that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Improper Author Contribution or Attribution

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

Redundant Publications

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.

Image Manipulation

When a conscious effort has been made to incorrectly alter or create a picture. This is a significant form of misconduct since it aims to deceive people and compromise the credibility of academic research, both of which have far-reaching and permanent repercussions.

The publication requires that all photographs submitted with manuscripts be authentic and unaltered. It is forbidden to add, remove, alter, or blur any particular aspects from an image without providing sufficient notice of the change. If an image's brightness, contrast, or color balance are changed without obscuring, removing, or distorting information from the original, then the change is allowed. Grouping images from different parts of gels, western blots or microscope images must be made explicit in the arrangement of the figure or the text of the figure legend. If the original, unedited images cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or paper may be declined or retracted.

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Publication Ethics

The journal and its editorial board fully adhere to and comply with the policies and principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Duties of Editors

Publication decisions

The journal's editorial board is in charge of selecting which of the submissions for publication should be published. Board members are limited by laws pertaining to plagiarism, copyright infringement, and libel; therefore they consult and take reviewer recommendations into consideration while reaching their judgement. The manuscript's origins, as well as the writers' nationality, ethnicity, political views, race, or religion, have no bearing on the editorial judgements made.

Confidentiality, disclosure, and conflicts of interest

Editors are not allowed to share information about a submitted manuscript with anybody outside of the corresponding author, other editorial advisers, and reviewers or potential reviewers during the review process. Without the author's express written authorization, unpublished materials provided in a submitted manuscript may not be used in the research of an editor, reviewer, or other reader. The research or other scholarly work's funding should be disclosed to readers, along with any involvement they may have had in the research's development and publishing, if any.

Author relations

Editors strive to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased, and timely. The journal has established policies for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review. Author instructions provide guidance about the criteria for authorship.

Reviewer relations

The Journal encourages reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, and inappropriate data manipulation), and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Reviewers’ comments should be sent to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks. Contributions of reviewers to the journal are regularly acknowledged and cease to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality, or late reviews.

Quality assurance

Editors should realise that various sections have varied goals and standards, and they should take all possible measures to assure the quality of the information they publish. When one exists, editors should make sure the study they publish has been approved by the relevant body (such as an institutional review board or research ethics committee). Editors ought to remain vigilant on matters of intellectual property and collaborate with their publishers to address any possible infringements of laws and customs. Mistakes, untrue, or deceptive claims have to be quickly and prominently addressed.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

Qualification of reviewers

If a referee is chosen and feels unfit to examine the research presented in a manuscript or knows that reviewing it quickly won't be feasible, they should inform the editor and withdraw from the review process. Manuscripts containing conflicts of interest arising from competitive, cooperative, or other relationships or affiliations with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers should not be considered for consideration by reviewers.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Acknowledgment of sources

It is the responsibility of reviewers to locate pertinent published work that the authors have not cited. All references to other people's ideas must have the appropriate citation. If a reviewer notices any significant similarities or overlaps between the manuscript being considered and any other published paper that they are personally aware of, they should bring this to the editor's attention.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Report writers of original research should give a factual description of the work done and a dispassionate analysis of its importance. The paper should accurately present the underlying data. When submitting a manuscript, authors should be ready to make raw data available to the public and keep it for a minimum of two years beyond publication. It is unethical and unprofessional to make false or intentionally erroneous statements.

Originality, plagiarism, and concurrent publication

It is the responsibility of authors to make sure that all of their work is completely unique and that any borrowed words or works are properly cited. Any sort of plagiarism is improper and should be avoided as unethical publishing behaviour. It is unacceptable to submit nearly the identical work to multiple journals at the same time as this is considered unethical publishing behaviour.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Authorship of the paper

The corresponding author is responsible for making sure that all relevant co-authors are listed in the manuscript, that no unsuitable co-authors are included, and that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final draft of the paper before it is submitted for publication. As co-authors, everyone who has contributed significantly ought to be mentioned. It is appropriate to recognise or name other individuals as contributors if they have contributed to any significant parts of the research endeavour.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

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Peer review process

Every manuscript is put through a peer review process and must adhere to the highest levels of academic quality. The editor must first approve the text before the anonymous peer reviewers can begin evaluating the submissions. The reviewers will not know the authors' identities because the process is a double-blind peer review. The editorial board is in charge of deciding whether to accept or reject an article, and it does so by considering the suggestions made by the reviewers (a peer-reviewed procedure).

Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.

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Plagiarism

The publication has a strong anti-plagiarism policy that forbids utilizing another person's words, ideas, or creative output without giving proper credit. Submissions that contain self-plagiarism (in the same or a different language), duplicate and redundant publications, or plagiarism in whole or in part will be disqualified. There will be no recognition of the Preprint archive as a duplicate publication. With the ability to act on behalf of all co-authors, the corresponding author is in charge of the paper during and after the evaluation and publication process. Sophisticated plagiarism-checking software is used to examine all submitted publications for plagiarism. Manuscripts that are submitted and have an unacceptable similarity index due to plagiarism are rejected right away.

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Preprints policy

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc, etc. with their accepted manuscript.

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Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines:

  1. Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived. The consent forms are not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to editorial or publisher offices.
  2. If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity or a description that has an obvious indication of the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.

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Research ethics and consent

All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections, or sites, must include a written statement under an Ethics Approval section including the following:

  • The name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved.
  • The number or ID of the ethics approval(s).
  • A statement that human participants have provided informed consent before taking part in the research.
  • Research involving animals must adhere to ethical standards concerning animal welfare. All original research papers involving animals must:
    • Follow international, national, and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals.
    • Receive approval by the ethics review committee at the institution or practice at which the research was conducted and provide details on the approval process, names of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved, and the number or ID of the ethics approval(s) in the Ethics Approval section.
    • Provide justification for use of animals and the species selected.
    • Provide information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment, and steps taken to minimize suffering.
    • Provide mode of anesthesia and euthanasia.
  • Research that does not meet the above-listed requirements regarding ethical approval and animal welfare will be rejected.

Studies in Humans and Animals

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Informed Consent

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potentially identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived either with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws. Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.

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Special Issues

Special Issue topics are determined by the editorial team of BMVJ and are typically released if needed on special occasions. Special Issue submissions follow the same process and author guidelines as any issue submission. Potential authors are encouraged to review all submission guidelines and follow the process as outlined. Special issue topics are determined by the editorial team and a call for submissions for special issues is typically included in the current year's special issue release.

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Standards of reporting

Research should be communicated in a way that supports verification and reproducibility, and as such, we encourage authors to provide comprehensive descriptions of their research rationale, protocol, methodology, and analysis.

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Use of third-party material

Even if they aren't mentioned explicitly, the use of trade names, trademarks, general descriptive names, and other names in this book doesn't mean that they aren't covered by applicable laws and regulations. Any permissions required for the reuse of copyrighted materials included in the manuscript must be obtained by the submitting author. Although the advice and information in this journal were thought to be genuine and accurate at the time it went to press, none of the writers, editors, or publishers are liable for any mistakes or omissions that may have occurred. The publisher disclaims any warranties, implied or otherwise, with regard to the content on this page.

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Use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing

Please note the policy only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Authors who incorporate AI and AI-assisted technologies into their writing process should do so with the intention of enhancing readability and language, rather than substituting essential authoring tasks such as generating scientific, pedagogic, or medical insights, drawing scientific conclusions, or offering clinical recommendations. The application of this technology should always be under human oversight and control, and all work should be subjected to careful review and editing. AI has the potential to produce content that sounds authoritative but may be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Ultimately, authors bear the responsibility and accountability for the content they produce.

Authors must openly disclose their use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in their manuscripts, and a statement to this effect will be included in the published work. Such transparency fosters trust among authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors and ensures compliance with the terms of use for the relevant tools or technologies.

Authors should refrain from attributing authorship to AI or listing AI as a co-author. Authorship entails responsibilities and tasks that can only be fulfilled by humans. Each author is responsible for addressing inquiries regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work and for approving the final version of the work and consenting to its submission. The authors also have a duty to ensure the originality of the work, that the stated authors meet the criteria for authorship, and that the work does not infringe upon the rights of third parties.

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