Ethics in Research & Publishing
Conducting Ethical Research
Publishing Ethics
Human & Animal Rights
All medical studies involving human participants should follow ethical principles detailed in The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.
Research conducted on animals should adhere to the International Association for Veterinary Editors’ “Consensus Author Guidelines for Animal Use.”
Informed Consent
All participants must provide informed consent as detailed in the Declaration of Helsinki and ICMJE’s “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.” When applicable, a statement should be included in the manuscript noting how informed consent was obtained prior to experimentation with human subjects.
Participant & Patient Privacy
Every precaution must be taken to protect participant privacy and to maintain the confidentiality of participant or patient information, as detailed in the Declaration of Helsinki and ICMJE’s “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.” Identifying details may not be included in the manuscript unless including such details is essential for scientific purposes and written, informed consent of the identified participant or patient is obtained. Identifying details include any details which would allow a reader (including the participant or patient described or a healthcare provider) to identify the individual so described. It must be noted that campus-based EMS programs often operate within small communities and manuscripts often describe rare or unique occurrences. As such, it may be a challenge to fully de-identify a manuscript that describes a particular participant or patient. If there is any question as to whether anonymity has been maintained, written, informed consent must be obtained. If written, informed consent is required, the JCEMS Patient Consent Form must be signed by the patient [or guardian] and submitted with the manuscript. The author administering the form must provide the identified patient or participant with the opportunity to review and comment on the manuscript or image, and the author must advise the participant or patient to consider seeking legal guidance prior to signing the form. The author administering the form should confirm the identify of the participant or patient via a valid ID.
Ethical Approval of Study
Investigators are required to obtain a formal review and approval, or waiver, by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board for all research on human participants or animals. The investigators must follow the Declaration of Helsinki and the ICMJE’s “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” if an ethics committee or institutional review board is unavailable. Institutional Review Board approval is not required for case reports, provided case reports do not meet the federal definition of human subjects research as a “systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” Case reports describing three or more clinical cases will be taken to qualify as human subjects research. A statement should be included in the manuscript indicating the name of the committee or board from which approval was obtained, or indicating that IRB approval was not required. If approval was required, authors must have documentation of approval available upon request by editors or reviewers. Regardless of whether IRB approval was required, all research reported in the manuscript is expected to adhere to the guidelines detailed in this Guide for Authors.
Disclosing Conflicts of Interest
Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest in the manuscript, or provide a statement that none of the authors have a conflict of interest. Statements should be provided in the “Acknowledgments” section. Authors declaring a potential conflict of interest are required to submit the ICMJE’s Conflicts of Interest form along with the manuscript.
Conflicts of interest include financial or personal relationships, arrangements, or interests that might influence or bias the professional judgment of the authors. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony.
In addition, JCEMS requests that authors who serve on the Editorial Board or in a staff role for JCEMS disclose their position. If an individual in such a position submits an article to JCEMS, all listed editorial and review policies and standards will strictly apply. The author will not be permitted to be involved in the decision to accept or reject the article for publication. As an exception, the Editor-in-Chief may accept an article for publication for which he or she is an author provided the article is published explicitly as an “Editorial” article.
Please contact the Editors if you are not certain whether one or more of the authors’ relationships, arrangements, or interests constitute a potential conflict of interest.
Declaring Funding Sources
Authors must declare who provided any funding or financial support for research and manuscript preparation. Authors must describe the role, or lack thereof, of the funding source in any aspect of study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit for publication. Statements should be provided in the “Acknowledgments” section.
Duplicate Submissions & Prior Publication
Authors are strictly prohibited from simultaneously submitting their manuscript to other journals. We pledge to review all submissions promptly so that authors may submit their manuscript to other journals in the event of rejection.
Authors are strictly prohibited from submitting previously published work written by themselves or others. Likewise, authors are prohibited from submitting articles that include previously published data or other content, without appropriate reference. Submitted content may be assessed using originality detection software. Authors may, however, submit articles containing data or content previously reported in an abstract, conference proceeding, presentation, or unpublished academic thesis or paper. In such cases, authors must appropriately reference the original source and have the supporting documentation available upon request of an editor or reviewer.
Authorship
Submission of a manuscript implies that all listed authors meet all four requirements detailed in the ICMJE Recommendations, when applicable:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be published.
- 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.
All individuals who meet the aforementioned criteria should be listed as authors. Individuals who meet some, but not all, of the criteria should be noted in the “Acknowledgments” section after written consent is obtained from the contributing individual. All authors must be able to detail the specific contributors of co-authors upon request of an editor or reviewer. It is the responsibility of the authors and appropriate research institutions, not JCEMS, to appropriately assign authorship.
The corresponding author is responsible for communications with JCEMS Editors throughout the submission, review, and post-approval process. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that manuscripts are submitted in accordance with the guidelines detailed in this document. The corresponding author must be clearly noted on the manuscript cover page.
Requests to add, remove, or rearrange the order of one or more authors in the authorship list after submission must be made in writing. The corresponding author must submit an electronic or print letter detailing the reason(s) for the requested change. All authors – including the author to be added or removed – must submit an electronic or print letter of agreement with the change.
Personal Communication
Unpublished data or other information obtained through personal communication may be included in articles, provided the individual and means of communication (written or oral) are identified in the manuscript text. An example might read: “All patient charts are reviewed weekly by the student QI/QA officer prior to review by the agency’s medical director (oral communication with Medical Director John Smith, MD).” Authors must include a signed statement from the source(s) of personal communication indicating that individual(s) consent to being identified in the article.
Corrections
Requests to make corrections in an article should be submitted by the corresponding author in writing (electronic or print) to the Editor-in-Chief. If the article is already published, a correction notice and updated version of the article noting the change will be published immediately. If the requested corrections invalidate a scientific article’s results, the article may be retracted.
Open Access
JCEMS is committed to freely disseminating research and other scholarly work to the collegiate EMS community and the public. All JCEMS articles and other content are therefore published open access at CollegeEMS.com, which means that all content is freely available to the public. Open access publication ensures that content reaches the widest audience and has the greatest impact. Authors and readers can access, share, print, and distribute JCEMS content for free, provided the authors and JCEMS are appropriately cited.
We have waived our article processing charge (APC) to remove all barriers for JCEMS authors to publish open access. Unlike most open access journals, JCEMS does not charge authors to submit or publish articles.
Licenses & Copryright
All articles published in print or online versions of JCEMS are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. This license promotes open access dissemination of all content published in JCEMS. By submitting to JCEMS, authors agree to retain their copyright and have the CC BY 4.0 license applied to their work. The full license is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
In brief, anyone is allowed to reuse a JCEMS article –in part or in full – for any legal purposes, including for commercial uses. Anyone may copy, redistribute, or adapt the work provided (1) the author and the original source (JCEMS) are appropriately cited, (2) a link to the CC BY 4.0 license is provided, (3) any changes are indicated, and (4) legal terms or technological measures that restrict the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license are not applied. Provided all terms of the license are followed, the freedoms associated with the CC BY 4.0 license cannot be revoked.
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