FOR AUTHORS AND RESEARCHERS

FOR EDITORS

FOR PEER REVIEWERS

FOR PUBLISHERS

 

FOR AUTHORS AND RESEARCHERS

Authors and researchers should follow the guidelines listed below.

1. Requirements to manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
2. COPE Code of Conduct.
3. Recommendations of the World Association for Medical Editors (WAME).
4. Recommendations of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).
5. Singapore Statement on Research Integrity.
6. Council of Science Editors.

 

• AUTHORSHIP

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors defines the authorship as follows , “The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria: 1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) Final approval of the version to be published; 4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.”

Mere financial support, data acquisition or general leadership of the research team does not confirm someone’s authorship. All authors should bear responsibility for quality and accuracy of the work performed, as well as for ethical issues.  In addition to being accountable for the part of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work.  While submitting a paper to the Clinical Oncohematology journal, authors should indicate each co-author’s contribution.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) lists the following examples of undeserved authorship.

A “ghost author” is someone who is omitted from an authorship list despite qualifying for authorship.

A “guest author” is someone who is listed as an author despite not qualifying for authorship. Guests are generally people brought in due to their reputation or estimated influence to make the list look more impressive.

“Gift authors” are usually not qualifying for authorship, but they have been brought in due to personal relations and for mutual CV enhancement (i.e. including colleagues on papers in return for being listed on theirs).

In case of any authorship disputes, the editor-in-chief of the Journal will investigate the issue in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Contributors who do not comply with the authorship criteria, i.e. meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria should be acknowledged with their written consent. Those who can be acknowledged include people providing acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, proofreading, patient care, etc. Their role and contribution should be specified. However, authors should not mislead readers by acknowledging people who has not been involved or who has provided no support.

When a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group should decide who will be an author before submitting the manuscript for publication.  This person should meet all of the above criteria.

All authors should express their consent for including their names into the authors’ list and should approve the version of the paper proofread and submitted for publishing, as well as the order of listing their names in the article. Any changes in the authors’ list should be approved by all authors in the written form, including those excluded from the list. The author in charge acts as a contact person and a mediator between the publisher and other authors. He or she should inform co-authors and involve them in the decision making related to publishing issues (e.g. in case of response to reviewers’ comments).

• DUPLICATE SUBMISSION OF A MANUSCRIPT FOR PUBLISHING

The editorial board of the Journal does not consider articles submitted to other journals for publication.  A paper cannot be sent to several journals except for cases of joint publishing. At the same time, the editorial board of the Journal does not exclude consideration of a paper rejected by other journals. If a duplicate submission is suspected during the peer reviewing stage or after the paper has been already published, the Journal will act in accordance with an algorithm provided by COPE.

• DUPLICATE PUBLICATIONS

In accordance with recommendations prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, multiple (or duplicate publication) is defined as publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published (in printed or electronic form), without clear, visible reference to the previous publication.

The editorial board of the Journal does not consider papers, most of which contents has been already published as an article or has become a part of another paper submitted or accepted for publishing by any other printed matter or electronic mass-media. At the same time, the editorial board of the Journal does not exclude considering  a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting but was not published in full or a complete report submitted after publication of raw data, i.e. synopsis or poster presentations presented during professional conferences.

If authors use any findings published previously, including numerical data, figures or images, these materials must contain references to the previous publication. At the same time, authors should not copy references from other papers, if they have not got familiarized with them.

• PLAGIARISM

Office of Research Integrity (ORI) considers plagiarism to include both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work. Based on this definition, the Clinical Oncohematology journal will define plagiarism as verbatim copying of sentences and larger text portions, as well as images, tables, schemes, and plots without mentioning the authorship, references to the source, and quotation marks; inappropriate paraphrasing of someone’s else work without a corresponding reference to the source. Materials taken from other sources by the author should not be presented as materials belonging to the author of the paper. Materials protected by the copyright (e.g. tables, numerical data, figures or substantial quotations) may be reproduced only by permission of their owners. The copyright owner should be mentioned in subscriptions under images protected by the copyright.

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal undergo obligatory checking for possible duplicate publication and plagiarism via the ANTIPLAGIAT system.

Each author bears the responsibility for the information presented by hem/her in the paper. However, if plagiarism is suspected, an appropriate investigation will be carried out in accordance with an algorithm proposed by the COPE.

• INFORMATION VALIDITY, ANALYSIS OF DATA AND INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS

The article received by the Journal should be correct and objective; it should contain enough information and references for possible verification of data presented in it.

Researchers should check their papers carefully at all stages in order to ensure that all their methods and results were described accurately. The results should be presented clearly, honestly, without fabrication, falsification or dishonest manipulation with data. Study reports should be complete, i.e. they should contain results of all clinical trials. They should not omit information about unexplained facts, conflicting data and data contradicting authors’ or sponsors’ theories and hypotheses. New results should be linked to previous studies. Reviews and conclusions of existing studies should be complete and contain data whether they support authors’ hypotheses and interpretations or not.

The methodology of the statistical analysis should be determined in the beginning of the study; the plan for data analysis to obtain raw data should be prepared beforehand; and the procedures should be followed closely. Researchers should seek to describe their methods and present their discoveries clearly and unambiguously. Data and reports on the performed trial should be kept and available for familiarization upon request.

Editing of published images (e.g. micrographs, X-ray images, and electrophoresis images) should not look like an attempt of misleading of readers.

If authors find a mistake in any paper submitted, accepted for publishing or already published, they should notify the editor-in-chief immediately.  If juggling with facts is suspected during the peer reviewing stage or after the paper has been already published, the Journal will act in accordance with an algorithm provided by COPE.

• CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors defines a conflict of interest as follows, “A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain).”

Any situation (financial relationships, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, etc.) that may affect author’s opinion, assessment, and interpretation of results and lead to information hiding and distortion or their misrepresentation may be considered a conflict of interest.

At submission of the manuscript, authors bear responsibility to disclose financial and personal relations which may affect their work.

The Journal invites authors to use a translation of the ICMJE conflict of interest disclosure form.

Authors should disclose the following types of information:

1. Financial relations associated with the paper to be published — data on financial support of the work related to the article to be published from development of the work concept and its planning till now (financial or material resources received either directly or indirectly (via the institution).

Authors should describe the role of the sponsor in development of the work concept, its accomplishment, data analysis and paper preparation; in the study structure, project preparation; in data collection, analysis, and  interpretation; in preparation of the report; in description of the study; in making decisions on submitting the description for publication (if such things take place). If the source of finance did not participate in the procedures mentioned above, the authors should specify it by signing a written statement that the authors had full access to data in this study and bore full responsibility for data integrity and accuracy of the analysis. The editorial board of the Journal has a right not to consider the article for publishing, if sponsor’s control over authors’ right to publication of the material becomes known. All funding sources (including direct and indirect financial support, provision of equipment or materials and other types of support, e.g. specialists’ assistance in statistical data processing or technical support) should be disclosed.

2. Financial relations unrelated directly to the article to be published — financial relations with companies working in the field of biology and medicine that may affect results in the paper to be published.

All sources of revenue received by the author or by the institution addressed to the author within 36 months prior to submission of the paper (honoraria, payment for consultations, membership, travelling allowance, employment).

3. Other relations:
4. a) personal and professional relations with companies and individuals (unpaid position in the governing or consultation body in a commercial company);
5. b) blood relations (when a family member has financial or non-financial relations);
6. c) authors should also submit information that may be relevant for publishers, reviewers and readers. This includes any relations between the author and the Journal.

Authors should provide the list of persons to whom the manuscript should not be sent for peer reviewing due to conflict of interests.

If there is a conflict of interests in one or several authors, it is not a reason for rejecting the paper.

If hiding of a conflict of interest is revealed, it may be a reason for rejecting a manuscript.

The information about the conflict of interests is published in any article.

The Journal follows the COPE guidelines in investigation of an undisclosed conflict of interest.

• HUMAN RIGHTS, PERSONAL SECRET, CONFIDENTIALITY

If the study is performed in humans, authors should obtain patient’s written consent for participation in the trial. If there are doubts concerning the procedure of obtaining the consent, further information will be requested from authors about how this consent has been obtained.

Patients have a right to confidentiality that cannot be disclosed without their consent. The BMJ provides the following definition of anonymity, “Anonymisation means that neither the patient nor anyone else could identify the patient.” Any information that may permit to identify the patient’s personality, including surname, initials, and hospital and case history number should not be published in written descriptions, photos, and genealogies. Such images as X-ray, laparoscopic, and sonographic photos, slides with abnormalities or images of body parts without distinct features may be used without obtaining a preliminary consent, because they comply with confidentiality requirements due to removal of all distinctive features; they also are not accompanied with a text permitting to identify the patient. A black band covering patient’s eyes on photos is not a sufficient guarantee of anonymity. An article containing data that permit to identify the patient require obtaining patient’s written consent for publishing prior to publication of the paper. Authors should show the article to the patient and inform him/her that the material permitting to identify him/her will be available in a printed form and in the Internet. If the consent for distribution of the information has been obtained, this fact will be mentioned in the article published. When photos obtained from agencies are used as illustrations for other articles, it is presupposed that agencies and photographers has obtained necessary permissions from persons depicted on these photos. If it is impossible to obtain the consent because of inaccessibility of the patient, the article may be published, only if the information complies with anonymity policy completely. If the patient is dead, authors should obtain permission from his/her relatives. If relatives are inaccessible, the scientific relevance of the study, the possibility of identification, the possibility of a crime in case of identification will be taken into consideration at making decision whether to publish the article or not. In exceptional cases, publication in the field of public healthcare without patient’s consent may be justified, if the permission has been impossible to obtain despite all efforts, and the value of the paper overweighs the possible damage.

If the patients are babies, authors should obtain the consent from their parents or custodians. However, authors must assess, whether the child may regret about the publication of his or her identification data, when he or she grows up. If children are capable of making decisions, authors should obtain their personal consent. If the patients are handicapped people, a person responsible for making decisions on behalf of the patient may give his/her consent. In any case, the decision should be made taking into account patient’s interests. Even if the permission has been obtained, any personal information should be hidden in accordance with the anonymity policy or it should not be published at all.

The signed Informed Consent Form is to be kept in patients’ medical records and is not sent to the Journal (for maximum protection of data and confidentiality).

If there are doubts that patient’s consent for publication has been obtained, the Journal reserves the right to reject the material on its own discretion.

• HUMAN STUDIES

At submission to the Journal, an article reporting on results of medical human studies should be accompanied with a statement confirming that the Ethics Committee has permitted this trial and this trial complies with accepted standards:

– Declaration of Helsinki,

– European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice.

It should be noted, whether the study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee and the name of the appropriate company, its location, protocol number and date of the committee meeting, as well as the registration study number should be indicated. All clinical trials should be registered; researchers should mention the registration study number in all papers related to these trials.

Corresponding approvals, licenses, and registrations should be obtained prior to the initiation of a trial, and this information should be included in the study report.

If there are doubts, additional requests for further evidence of the corresponding permission for trials and ethical grounds for trials will be sent to authors.

• ANIMAL STUDIES

The editorial board encourages authors to use study methods without involvement of animals. If it is impossible, authors should apply methods which reduce the number of animals used in the trial and improve the state of the animals involved. While composing reports on animal studies, authors should follow the guidelines for editors and peer reviewers published by the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science.

Prior to initiation of the trial, authors should obtain approval of the institutional expert council and the committee for study ethics to use animals in the trial. The study protocol should be approved by the Ethics Committee (and the name of the appropriate company, its location, protocol number and date of the committee meeting should be indicated).

While submitting the paper, authors should specify what ethic requirements and guidelines they followed during the study and how discomfort, suffering and physical pain were reduced. Authors must confirm that the animals have not suffered unnecessarily at any stage of the experiment and provide evidence that corresponding approvals, licenses, and registrations have been obtained prior to the initiation of trials. This information, as well as the protocol number and date should be included in the study report.

If there are doubts that the trials have been performed in accordance with ethic documents, the Journal may ask authors to provide further evidence of ethicality of the trial.

FOR EDITORS

Editors of the Clinical Oncohematology journal should follow the guidelines listed below.

1. Principles of the COPE Editor’s Code of Conduct .
2. Recommendations of the World Association for Medical Editors (WAME).
3. Singapore Statement on Research Integrity.
4. IСMJE recommendations (Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals).

• RESPONSIBILITY

Editors of the Journal bear responsibility for all materials published and must ensure their high quality and reliability. This includes high-quality peer reviewing and proofreading, timely publishing of corrections, explanations, disclaimers, article recalls, and apologies, when necessary.

• OBJECTIVITY AND INDEPENDENCE

The Journal considers all manuscripts received. The decision on publication of an article is made exclusively on the basis of its quality, importance for readers, its value, originality and clarity of the account, reliability of the information contained in it, and its compliance with the subject of the Journal. All editorial decisions are made without any publisher’s intervention and irrespective of financial, political or personal relations of the editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board. The decision is made without any bias to authors, irrespective of their nationality, religion, or official position.

The sponsored materials undergo the same control of peer reviewing quality as any other material in the Journal. The fact of sponsorship and sponsor’s role is clearly reported to readers. Any advertising material published in the Journal complies with the policy of the Journal and is placed apart from any editorial paper thus permitting readers to identify it easily. The editor-in-chief has full rights and deciding vote in approval of advertising materials.

• CORRESPONDENCE

Readers of the Journal may send their comments, questions, and notes related to articles published, as well as brief reports and comments unrelated to previously published articles. Readers’ letters are published in the Letters section. Authors’ responses are also placed there. Authors of letters should disclose any competing interests or conflict of interest.  The correspondence published undergoes proofreading (the size of the publication, correctness of grammar and style, tone of the letter or the response).

Editors have an exclusive right to select correspondence which is inappropriate, uninteresting or insufficiently grounded. At the same time they bear responsibility for providing the opportunity to present different viewpoints.

• CONFIDENTIALITY

The editorial board keeps all materials obtained during preparation of the manuscript for publishing confidential, including information obtained during the trials; at that, authors’ papers will not be discussed publicly and their ideas will not be disclosed prior to publication of the manuscript. The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board do not disclose information about the article, date of its receipt, its current status, the process of peer reviewing, critical notes, and the decision made to anybody except for the author and peer reviewers. Copies of manuscripts accepted for publishing are not stored in the editorial board of the Journal.

The editor-in-chief keeps confidentiality of personal data of peer-reviewers and does not disclose their names to authors.

If any violation of ethical principles made by authors, peer reviewers, and other editors is suspected, the editor-in-chief is to keep the investigation process in secret by involving the minimally required number of requests and persons.

• RELATIONS WITH AUTHORS

The editor-in-chief must inform authors about any comments about their work made by peer reviewers, if only they do not contain offensive or defamatory statements.

The editor-in-chief is ready to consider authors’ wishes concerning this or that person who should not peer review their works, if such request is justified and can be fulfilled.

Editors of the Journal pay attention to issues related to the intellectual property and check the papers (images, numbers, and tables) for violation of ethics (plagiarism, duplicate and multiple publication, authorship, etc.).

The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board see to it that authors provide the registration study number and specify, what ethic principles have been followed during the study on humans and animals; whether necessary measures have been taken to protect confidential information and Informed Consent Forms; whether approval by the ethics committee has been obtained (with the protocol number and registration specified). All necessary approvals, licenses, and registrations should be obtained prior to the initiation of a trial, and this information should be presented by authors.

• RELATIONS WITH REVIEWERS

Persons who can express a competent opinion and who has no conflict of interest related to this work are chosen as peer reviewers.

In order to ensure high-quality peer review, the editor-in-chief can grant access to publications related to the article to be reviewed (e.g. links to the articles cited and the reference retrieval).

If peer reviewers’ dishonest behavior is suspected, the editor-in-chief will investigate the case in accordance with the COPE guidelines. During the investigation, peer reviewers will be suspended from the reviewing process.

• CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

The editor-in-chief, as well as members of the editorial board who make decision on the manuscript should not have any personal, professional or financial interest in any issue they are involved in. Therefore, if they are working or have worked in the same institution and have cooperated with authors, possess holding of shares in a certain company or have personal relations with authors, they will not participate in making decisions on the manuscript.

The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board should disclose their financial and non-financial conflict of interest (see the Conflict of Interest form).

• PROCESSING OF COMPLAINTS REGARDING THE MATERIAL TO BE PUBLISHED

The editorial board of the Journal processes all complaints submitted. Editors bear responsibility for scientific data presented to the public, therefore, if misconduct is suspected regarding the material published, they act immediately in accordance with COPE guidelines.

If readers, peer reviewers or other persons rise questions about carrying out, reliability or publishing of a scientific paper, then the editor-in-chief will, first of all, contact authors and give them the opportunity to answer the accusations. If their response is not satisfactory, the issue is referred to the research institution with a request to hold an investigation. If suspicions are confirmed, the article will be rejected. If the paper has been already published, but it may affect the clinical practice or public healthcare, the editorial board of the Journal will inform readers about such suspicions by expressing doubts during the investigation.  When the investigation is completed, readers will be notified of its results.

The final editors’ decision and reasons for its making are clearly reported to authors, peer reviewers, and readers. If authors disagree with the decision, they give notice of appeal which will be considered (see Guidelines for Authors, p. IV).

• CORRECTIONS AND DISCLAIMERS

If in an already published article errors which do not invalidate the work but make a small part of the article invalid have been found; or errors in the list of authors or sponsors have been found; or any small part of the article has proved to be plagiarism; or if it has been found out that the author has published this article in another journal later, then introduction of amendments will be considered.

Corrections will be published in the Editor’s Comment section. In the comment, the original phrase from the article will be cited and a comment to it will be placed. The online version of the material will be corrected with the date of correction and link to the published list of typos provided.

If fabricated facts have been found in the articles published, then in the section Disclaimer, it will be clearly explained why the article is disproved (with the link to the article provided).

Disclaimer or Editor’s comment will be mentioned in the Table of contents and will include the name of the original article in the title.

If the author who submitted the fabricated material had published other papers in Journal earlier and the institution where the author worked had not provided evidence of their authenticity, then an announcement would be published that the authenticity of previous papers had not been confirmed.

• RETRACTION OF ARTICLE

If retractions are considered, then the Journal will follow COPE retractions guidelines.

If a serious mistake invalidating the paper or its significant part has been found in an article published (duplicate publication, plagiarism, unethical trial, fabrication of data, hiding of important conflict of interest, unintentional mistake (in calculations or experiments) that may affect conclusions, interpretation of data or recommendations concerning their application), the article will be recalled and the reason will be specified and a link to the original article will be provided.

The editor-in-chief makes a final decision about retractions, even if all or some authors refuse to recall the paper. In order to minimize citing of erroneous data from the paper, the retraction is performed as soon as the editor-in-chief has found convincing reasons for retractions.

In case of disciplinary proceedings or institutional internal inquiry of mistakes leading to potential retractions, and if results of such inquiry are not expected soon, or if it seems impossible to obtain convincing evidence, “expression of doubt” will be published in the Journal in order to warn readers.

When convincing evidence is obtained, the “expression of doubt” will be replaced by notification on the retraction or the statement of vindication.

In case of retractions, a corresponding announcement will be placed in the Retractions with the shortest possible delay; the article title, authors, the person who have recalled the article (author, editor, publisher, owner of the Journal), and reasons for retractions will be indicated.

In case of partial duplicate publishing (when authors present several new conclusions in an article containing a significant amount of information published earlier), the editor-in-chief will make a decision on an individual basis taking into account readers’ interests and the amount of the duplicated information.

If the article had been recalled prior to release of a printed version of the Journal, the electronic version will be saved on the Journal web-site with clear notification about the recall and will be included in the bibliographic database, even if it does not appear in the printed version of the Journal and is not placed on the web-site.

• WITHDRAWAL OF ARTICLE

Withdrawal of an article is considered in the following cases:

– violation of the legislation, defamation and/or other legal restrictions;

– false or incorrect data, application of which will lead to serious health risks.

If it has been decided to recall the article, information about the reasons of the retraction with a link to the original article will be published in the Retractions section of the Journal.

FOR PEER REVIEWERS

Peer reviewers involved in reviewing articles of the Clinical Oncohematology journal should follow the guidelines listed below.

1. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines (Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers ).
2. Recommendations of the World Association for Medical Editors (WAME).
3. Singapore Statement on Research Integrity.
4. IСMJE recommendations (Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals).

If a peer reviewer disagrees with the policy of the Journal and it may affect the quality of the review because of fail to comply with the policy, he/she should refuse to review articles.

If a reviewer makes serious errors such as plagiarism, the editor-in-chief will notify the institution where the reviewer is working and will act in accordance with COPE guidelines .

• CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

Reviewers must inform the editor-in-chief about all conflicts of interests that may affect their unbiased opinion about the manuscript prior to give their consent for peer reviewing, and they should refuse to review certain manuscripts, if:

– they are its authors and/or co-authors;

– they have been involved in any work related to preparation of the manuscript or in trials described in it;

– the manuscript and another article from another Journal (being reviewed or submitted to be reviewed) are very much alike;

– they have relations with any authors, companies or institutions related to the manuscript (they are working ore are going to work in the same institution as one of the authors; they are or have been tutors of one of the authors, their students, close co-workers or joint grant recipient over the last 3 months; they have close personal relations with any of authors).

If they are not sure whether the situation can be defined as conflict of interest, then they should seek advice in the editorial board of the Journal. Peer reviewers should fill in the conflict of interest form.

If any conflict of interest overlooked by reviewers while agreeing to review the article has been found (or any other circumstances affecting jut and unbiased assessment of the article), reviewers should inform the editor-in-chief immediately.

• CONFIDENTIALITY

Information sent to peer reviewers is authors’ intellectual property and should not be disclosed.  Peer reviewers cannot discuss unpublished manuscripts with colleagues and use data contained therein for their personal benefit or benefit of other persons or institutions, or to inflict harm to other persons, or to discredit other persons. Peer reviewers must destroy the manuscript submitted for publishing and all related materials after completing the review.

• HONESTY AND OBJECTIVITY

Peer reviewers should give the editor-in-chief accurate and honest information about their personal and professional expertise and experience.

They must agree to review only those manuscripts which are inside their competence. If during peer reviewing they have found out that their knowledge is insufficient to assess all aspects of the manuscripts, they should inform the editor-in-chief as soon as possible without waiting for the date of review submission. If the review (upon the editor-in-chief’s request) dwells only on some aspects of the paper, it should be indicated at the very beginning of the review and list these aspects. Reviewers should not agree to review the manuscript in order to read it without any intention to peer review it.

Peer reviewers must assess:

– strong and weak points of the research structure and methodology;

– ethic aspects of the research performed;

– the quality of data interpretation;

– strong and weak points of the manuscript.

They should also provide advice to improve the article.

The assessment should be accurate, honest, unbiased, and constructive, it should be well-grounded; national, political, and religious views or commercial interests that may affect the conclusion should be avoided. If the peer reviewer understands that he/she cannot perform just and unbiased assessment, he/she must refuse to peer review the article.

Reviewers are encouraged to cooperate with the editorial board closely, if any questions arise, and to request lacking information required for high-quality peer reviewing. In order to improve their comprehension of the topic or their conclusion on the paper, reviewers may examine assessments of other reviewers, if they have been provided by the editor-in-chief. Reviewers should express their views clearly and unequivocally, support them by facts and references, if necessary, in order to help editors to make correct assessment and decisions, retaining unbiased attitude to authors. All suggestions to authors should be based only on their scientific or technological value. If by agreement with the editor-in-chief the reviewer involves and alternative reviewer, he/she must make sure that the latter has not been chosen because of personal preferences or in order to obtain either positive or negative review.

Reviewer’s comments and recommendations addressed to the editor-in-chief should comply with the report addressed to authors; main information should be included to the report sent to authors. The peer reviewer should not contact the author directly without preliminary permission of the editor-in-chief.

• ASSESSMENT OF ETHIC ASPECTS OF ARTICLE TO BE REVIEWED

Peer reviewers should pay attention to the following ethic aspects of the article under the review associated with possible dishonest conduct:

– degree of originality of the trial, duplicate publication, plagiarism, reliability of study data;

– false authorship;

– unethical study program;

– hidden conflict of interest;

– insufficient data on patient’s consent or protection of human’s and animal’s rights involved in the trial;

– inappropriate methods of data processing or presentation.

If errors have been found or violation of ethic aspects has been suspected, the editor-in-chief should inform the editor-in-chief immediately and no individual investigation should be performed.

• CORRECTNESS IN COMMENTS

Peer reviewers are forbidden to use offensive, insulting, hostile, discrediting or humiliating expressions.  Any slander is unacceptable. The Journal will refuse to cooperate with reviews writing impolite reviews.

• TIME-FRAME OF PEER REVIEWING AND COMMUNICATION WITH THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE JOURNAL

Reviewers must answer editor’s invitation to write the review as soon as possible (within 2 days), especially if they are not going to write it, as well as in case of requests from the Journal associated with the manuscript.

If the reviewer wants to pass the peer reviewing of the article to his/her colleague, preliminary permission from the editor-in-chief should be obtained.  The reviewer should not involve anybody (including his/her assistants) to composition of the review without editor-in-chief’s permission.

Reviewers should agree to write a review, only if they are sure that they will be able to prepare a review within the expected or agreed period of time; they should inform the editor-in-chief in a timely manner, if they want to prolong this period. The period of peer reviewing cannot exceed 21 days. If there are circumstances that prevent them from preparing the review in due time, reviewers should inform the editor-in-chief; they should provide the exact time they need to complete the review, if the editor-in-chief does not appoint another reviewer.

Reviewers are expected to fulfill editor-in-chief’s request to review corrections in the manuscript or a new version of the article.

FOR PUBLISHERS

Publishers of the Clinical Oncohematology journal  seek to follow the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.

Publishers of Journal commit themselves:

– to inform authors, readers, and peer reviewers about the policy of the Journal;

– keep confidentiality regarding all unpublished data, as well as personal information of study subjects, authors, reviewers or other information obtained during editing;

– protect the intellectual property and the copyright;

– contribute to editors’ independence;

– ensure timely release of the Journal;

– inform readers about conflict of interest and study funding;

– cooperate with the editorial board of the Journal regarding complaints, claims related to manuscripts considered or articles published, as well as regarding corrections, disclaimers and retractions of negligent papers;

– take all necessary measures to recover violated rights;

– review the policy of the Journal from time to time, in particular, due to new COPE recommendations;

– publish only those advertising materials which complies with the Journal’s policy; at that, they should be placed apart from the editorial material, before and after articles, so that readers will be able to identify it easily;

– be independent and neutral regarding products, services or organizations mentioned in advertising materials published in the Journal.