JEPT Editorial Policies for Authors

 Authorship Criteria, Contribution and Authorship Statement

Any author should have participated significantly and sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for the whole content. According to the guidelines of ICJME authorship credit should be based only on (a) significant contributions to conception and design; or acquisition of data; or interpretation and analysis of data, and (b) drafting the manuscript or revising it critically, and (c) final approval of the version to get published. Conditions a, b and c must all be met.
All contributing authors must complete and submit an Authorship Statement Form, Conflicts of Interest, and Financial Disclosure once submitting a manuscript to the JEPT. In addition, corresponding author is required to identify all authors’ contribution to the work described in the manuscript.
All persons who have made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (e.g., data collection, analysis, writing or editing assistance) but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria should be mentioned along with their specific contributions in the Acknowledgments Section of the manuscript. All contributing authors must verify that the manuscript represents authentic and valid work and that neither this manuscript nor one with significantly similar content under their authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere.

Role of the Corresponding Author

The corresponding author on behalf of all contributing authors will serve as the primary correspondent with the JEPT’s editorial office during the submission and peer-reviewing process. The corresponding author will check the proof edition, if the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author is responsible for confirming that the Acknowledgements Section of the article is complete.

Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosures

According to ICMJE guidelines, a conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer or editor has personal or financial relationships that influence (bias) inappropriately his/her action (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from those with negligible potential to those with great potential to influence judgment, and not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. The potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.
All contributing authors will be required to complete and submit JEPT’s Authorship Statement, Conflicts of Interest; Financial Disclosure and Copyright Transfer (see Sample Authorship Form). In this form, authors will disclose all potential conflicts of interest, including relevant financial activities, interests, relationships and affiliations (other than those affiliations mentioned in the title page of the manuscript).

Funding/ Support and Role of Sponsor

All contributing authors will be required to complete and disclose all funding or financial support received in the Authorship Form (see Sample Authorship Form). All funding, material or financial support for the work should be clearly and completely described in the Acknowledgements Section of the manuscript. Role of funding organisation or sponsor in each of the following stages of the research should be clearly defined: “design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of data; preparation, editing or approval of the work; and confirm to publish the manuscript”.

Duplicate/ Previous Publication or Submission

Manuscripts are assumed not to be published previously in print or electronic version and are not under consideration by another publication. Copies of related or possibly duplicated materials (including those containing significantly similar content or using same data) that have been published previously or are under consideration for another publication must be provided at the time of online submission.
For more information on ethical issues, please read the following COPE’s guidelines that might be helpful for authors as well as editors:
Suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript (Link)
Suspected redundant publication in a published article (Link)
Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript (Link)
Suspected fabricated data in a published article (Link)

Editorial Review and Publication

JEPT’s authors will be sent notifications of the manuscript’s receipt and editorial decisions by email. During the peer-reviewing process, authors can check the status of their manuscript via the Online Manuscript Submission System.
All submissions to the JEPT go through a double-blind peer-review process to ensure content quality. At the first stage, a technical editor checks format and style of manuscript to assure its compatibility with the JEPT’s guide for authors. If authors have not considered the guides, the manuscript will be sent back to authors for compatibility. The manuscript will be then assigned to section editors, based on the subject area and editor-in-chief decision, for a fast pre-review screening within 5 days. Section editors check the manuscript for content quality (with a focus on methodology, originality, and contribution to knowledge and practice) and use of English. The decision at this stage is fast reject, revise and re-submit, or assign to external reviewers for detailed evaluation process. Selection of external reviewers is based on their scientific background and experience, previous works, authors’ suggestion, and expertise. Every attempt is made at the JEPT to obtain at least 4 strong reviews on each manuscript (1 epidemiologist, I statistician and 2 subject expert). Editor-in-Chief receives the reviewers’ comments and sends them along with decision letter to corresponding author.
JEPT adheres to a double-blind peer-review process that is rapid, fair, and ensures the high quality of published articles. JEPT’s reviewers are required to declare their conflict of interests and maintain the confidentiality about the manuscripts they review.

• Reviewers' and authors' identities are kept confidential.
• The existence of a submitted manuscript is not revealed to anyone other than the reviewers and editorial staff.
• Reviewers are required to keep manuscripts and their information confidential.
• They should not use knowledge of the manuscript before its publication for their personal interests.
• The reviewers' comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.
• Reviewers should declare their potential conflicts of interest and decline review if one exists. Knowing the author(s) should not affect their comments and decision.

As JEPT is a rapid response journal, the review process takes between 2 to 3 months. JEPT decision letter determines the status of manuscript in five ways:

1. Acceptance: the manuscript could be published electronically. This process lasts between one to two weeks. Before electronic publication, corresponding author should verify a proof copy of the paper. JEPT supports the Advance Access initiative by which papers that have been copyedited and typeset but not yet paginated for inclusion in an issue of the journal are appeared online upon finishing with the review process. Advance accessed papers will be in a queue to be published in one of JEPT’s upcoming issues.

2. Minor Revision: authors will receive comments on their manuscript and will be asked to submit a revised copy (showing all changes they have made to the manuscript using Track and Change or highlighted colour) beside a response to reviewer file in which they need to respond to each and every comment of reviewer one by one (for each reviewer separately). Revisions should be submitted in 5 weeks after decision letter.

3. Major Revision: it means a chance to reorganize the manuscript to meet the required scientific criteria for another review process. Here also authors are asked to submit a revised copy (showing all changes they have made to the manuscript using Track and Change or highlighted colour) beside a response to reviewer file in which they need to respond to each and every comment of reviewer one by one (for each reviewer separately). Revisions should be submitted in 5 weeks after decision letter.
Revisions should be submitted in 7 weeks after decision letter. Otherwise, authors need to go through a resubmission process.

4. Rejection: in most cases, methodological and scientific concerns are the main origins of rejection. Causes of rejection will be sent to the authors to provide more chance for them for publication in other journals.

Editing

Accepted manuscripts will be edited according to the JEPT’s Guide for Authors (our journal provide English language service to non-English speaking authors too) and returned to the corresponding author for final approval. All contributing authors are responsible for all statements made in their manuscript during editing and production that are authorized by the corresponding author.

Corrections

Requests for publishing corrections should be sent to the editorial office. Corrections will be reviewed by editors and are published immediately and linked online to the original paper.