Journal of Experimental and Clinical Application of Chinese Medicine (abbreviated as JECACM) complies with the following guidelines and standards:
⋄ ICMJE covers all aspects of editorial work comprehensively, from how to manage journals, to details about peer review and handling complaints. Most of the recommendations are not specific to medical journals, but will be complied by JECACM.
⋄ PRISMA involves systematic reviews and meta-analysis of interventional studies.
⋄ MOOSE involves systematic reviews and meta-analysis of observational studies.
⋄ CONSORT statement relates to the reporting of randomized controlled trials.
⋄ ARRIVE covers guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments.
⋄ CARE guidelines (for case reports) were formulated by an international expert group to support the improvement of accuracy, transparency and usefulness of case reports.
Learn more about the related guidelines, please get access to the equator-network.
All manuscripts should be submitted to JECACM only if the authors have read and agreed to the content, and the manuscript complies with the policies of the journal.
For manuscripts involving human or animal subjects, a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and approval number are required. This should also be mentioned in Methods and Material section in main text and Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate section in back matter. For example: All experimental procedures were approved by the Ethical Committee of XXX (the permission number: aaaa-bb). Informed consent regarding reports involving human subjects should be obtained prior to the study, and the confidentiality should be maintained accordingly. Recommendation for Conduct of Clinical Research should be adhered to. Experiments involving animals must comply with the accepted ethical standards. All materials must adhere to high ethical and animal welfare standards and with the Helsinki Declaration. Any use of animals must be based on ethological knowledge and respect of species-specific requirements for health and well-being.
(1) Humans
Studies involving human participants, their data or biological materials, must be certified to be performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. An independent ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB) should explicitly approve the experimental work with human subjects. The statement with details of the name of the ethics committee and reference/permit numbers must be included within the manuscript.
For non-interventional studies (e.g., surveys) without required ethical approval (e.g., because of local laws), a full explanation should be stated in the manuscript. The research for which an exemption has been granted should provide the name of the ethics committee that approved the exemption. If researchers are in doubt, they should seek advice from the relevant authorities before proceeding with the study.
For new procedures or tools to be used in the clinical setting, a clear rationale must be given in the manuscript as to why the new procedure or tool is considered to better meet the clinical needs of the patient than routine clinical practice. The ethical approval and informed patient consent should be obtained to participate in the study.
A clinical trial is defined as “any study in which human participants or groups of humans are prospectively assigned to one or more health-related interventions to assess the impact on health outcomes”. The last line of the abstract should indicate the trial registration number (TRN) and the date of registration. ICMJE website and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform list the publicly available registries. For clinical trials that are not prospectively registered, JECACM encourages retrospective registration, to ensure complete publication of all results. In such case, the manuscript should indicate TRN, date of registration and the words “retrospective registration”.
(2) Animals
Research involving vertebrates and regulated invertebrates should comply with animal welfare guidelines, and be approved by an ethics committee. The manuscript should include a statement detailing compliance with relevant guidelines (e.g., the revised Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the UK, Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe), and/or an ethical approval (including the name and approval number of the ethics committee). This also applies to field studies and other non-experimental research regarding animals. If an exemption is granted, it should also be detailed within the manuscript, including the name of granting committee and the reason of exemption.
For experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must obtain informed consent from the client or owner, and adhere to high standards (best practice) of veterinary care. A detailed description of any euthanasia or anesthesia methods, including information on the agents used, must be provided. These procedures must be performed in accordance with applicable veterinary guidelines, such as the American Veterinary Medical Association. For rodents used as in vivo cancer models, tumor burden should be within the recommendations of the University of Pennsylvania Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee guidelines.
The Editor will consider animal welfare issues and reserve the right to reject manuscripts, particularly when the study involves protocols that are inconsistent with generally accepted norms for animal research.
(3) Plants
Experiments covering plants (whether cultivated or wild), including the collection of plant materials, must conform to institutional, national, or international guidelines. Field studies should be performed in accordance with local laws, and manuscripts should provide a statement indicating appropriate permissions and/or licenses.
Voucher specimens must be stored in a public herbarium or other public collection that provides materials for storage. The manuscript must provide information about the voucher specimen and who identified it.
Please specify the following information in the Materials and Methods section within the manuscript:
⋄ Confirm that the cell line has been tested for mycoplasma.
⋄ Confirm that the cell lines used have been identified and describe the method used for the identification.
⋄ State the source, supplier, and (if available) catalog numbers for all specific cell lines used in the study
Please provide detailed methodology describing the maintenance and culture of cell lines in line with international guidelines for good cell culture practice (basic techniques, mycoplasma contamination, passaging numbers, etc.).
Data on misidentified or cross-contaminated cell lines from the International Cell Line Authentication Committee and ExPASy Cellosaurus databases must be provided and cross-checked, to ensure that other cell lines are free of their contamination or obtain correct identification.
For cell lines previously reported to be contaminated or misidentified, the STR profile should be available for assessment in the study.
JECACM conforms to the principles of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which underlines that patients and study participants hold the right of privacy that cannot be violated without informed consent.
(1) Consent to participate
Research conducted on human subjects should comply with international and national regulations in accordance with relevant ethical principles. For participants who are minors, consent must be obtained from their legal guardians or, if the participant is deceased, from their next of kin. Regarding to human transplant studies, authors must provide a statement that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners, and identify the institution(s)/clinic(s)/department(s) where the organs/tissues were obtained.
(2) Consent for publication
Patients’ right of privacy cannot be infringed without informed consent, which means identifying information cannot be disclosed in the manuscript, including name, initials, date of birth, hospital number, or images, unless such information is essential for scientific purposes. A signed written informed consent for publication of any relevant data and accompanying images from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable) must have been obtained and stated in the manuscript. This request also applies to case reports or other researches in which case details, personal information, or images may allow an individual to be identified. The consent form treated confidentially must be provided to the journal editors if requested.
For datasets containing clinical data, authors should respect the privacy of participants and protect their identity on an ethical and legal level. The ideal situation is where participants have informed and consented to the dataset obtained at the time of trial recruitment. Otherwise, authors must demonstrate that the release of such data will not compromise anonymity or confidentiality or violate local data protection laws before releasing the dataset. Authors must consider whether the dataset contains any direct or indirect identifiers and consult with the local ethics committee or other appropriate body prior to submission. If full anonymity is not possible, authors must indicate in the submitted manuscript whether the patient has informed and consented to the publication of the data.
Patients should be informed that personally identifiable information will be accessible on the Internet under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) and in print after publication.
Authors can refer to the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines, and provide sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should address the sex (biological attribute) and/or gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) dimensions of their research in their article to avoid ambiguity or conflation of terms.
If the reseach involves relevant contents, authors should explicitly state the sex of the research application in article titles and/or abstracts. Authors should also describe in the background whether sex/gender differences may exist, illustrate how sex/gender was considered in the study design, provide sex/gender-disaggregated data where appropriate, and discuss the respective results. If sex/gender analysis was not performed, Discussion section should state the appropriate justification. Authors are recommended to carefully review the full guidelines prior to submission.
JECACM strongly recommends that all datasets upon which the manuscript conclusions are based should be disclosed to the reader, unless such datasets have already been a part of the submission. In "Availability of Data and Materials" section, authors should describe the available data source supporting their findings. If sharing of data is not desired, the author must state this fact and provide a corresponding explanation as to why the data are not available.
The statements for availability of data and materials may take one of the following forms (if multiple datasets are required, a combination of forms may be used).
⋄ The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
⋄ The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS].
⋄ All data generated and/or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
⋄ The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC], but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
⋄ Data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no datasets were generated and/or analyzed during the current study.
⋄ Data supporting the results of the study are available from [THIRD PARTY NAME], but its availability is limited. The data are being used under the license of the current study and therefore cannot be made public, however, may be obtained from the author upon reasonable request and permission of [THIRD PARTY NAME].
⋄ Not applicable (for manuscripts not contain any data).
JECACM encourages authors to archive their datasets in an appropriate public repository. Authors have discretion in choosing a repository, provided readers are assured of free access to the data. For more information, please consult the Registry of Research Data Repositories.
JECACM recommends prospective registration of systematic reviews at appropriate registries and authors should provide the registration number in the last line of the manuscript abstract. Authors should also provide documentation illustrating all the details of the search strategy. See the Cochrane Reviewers’ Handbook for examples of how search strategies should be presented.
Any potential competing interest of the authors, reviewers and editors that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively, must be disclosed. These might include relevant financial, personal, political, or religious, or academic interests (e.g., reimbursement for salaries, equipment, supplies, competing patents, grants, funding, employment or a strong personal/ethical belief). If professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the integrity/validity of research) is likely to be affected by a secondary interest (such as financial gain), the competing interest is deemed to exist and should be explicitly stated. Public funding sources also should be included in the statement of competing interests.
Cover letter and manuscript should include the content of competing interests. If there is no conflicts of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as “The author(s) declare(s) no conflicts of interest".
External reviewers must decline to review a submission when they have any potential interest that may affect the objectivity. Any competing interests of reviewers should be declared, which will be considered by the editors of JECACM.
Upon acceptance of the manuscript, the editors in JECACM will communicate with the authors for further confirmation or update of the disclosed statements. Details on conflict of interest statements are available at ICMJE.
Editorial board members in JECACM can submit their own research work, but are not allowed to participate in its assessment process. Under such circumstance, alternative members in Editorial Board will take in charge of the article evaluation. Likewise, the manuscripts are independently reviewed by a minimum of two external reviewers. Final decisions to accept or reject the manuscript are not made by submitting editors, but other editorial board members who have no potential conflicts of interest regarding the authors or their submitted work.
Similarly, editors in JECACM cannot be involved in the assessment of submitted manuscripts when they have potential conflicts of interest with authors. Under such circumstance, the rights for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection are owned by the Editor-in-Chief or another suitable editorial board member. Here is a statement of such cases: “Considering his/her role as an Guest Editor/Editorial Board Member/Editor-in-Chief, XX (name of the editor) will not participate in the peer-review of this article any longer, and has no access to any information about its peer review or decision. YY (name of commissioned editor) is commissioned to take full charge of the editorial process for this article".
(1) Authorship contributions
All authors should have made substantial intellectual contributions to published research. Authorship credit should be given in accordance with the standard proposed by the ICMJE guidelines. Specifically, authorship is merited by:
⋄ substantial contributions to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
⋄ drafting the article or making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript;
⋄ final approval of the version of the article to be published;
⋄ agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Each author should be fully involved in the work and take public responsibility for the content of the appropriate parts. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
In the Author Contributions section, the authors' individual contributions to the manuscript should be identified, and state "All authors read and approved the final manuscript" at the end. JECACM recommends using the role definition of CRediT.
(2) Acknowledgements
All contributors that do not meet the criteria of authorship should be listed in "Acknowledgments" section. Only those who have made substantive contributions to the study itself might be acknowledged, including but not limited to providing general support (e.g., department chair), purely technical help (e.g., technicians), or writing assistance. In light of European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines, in addition to their funding sources, the medical writers with great contributions to the drafting of manuscripts should be acknowledged. The specific tasks that the medical writers undertake need to be stated in this section as much detailed and explicit as possible. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written approval from the person mentioned in the acknowledgement section.
(3) Authorship change
During initial submission, corresponding author has an obligation to guarantee the accuracy of authorship as much as possible. Changes in authorship are only allowed before publication. In such cases, the corresponding author is responsible for contacting the journal staff and clearly stating the reasons. All authors, including those to be added or removed, must agree to any proposed change.
In case that changes to authorship are approved and also adhered to the above-mentioned guidelines, the corresponding author should provide written confirmation from all authors to clarify their consent. Authorship changes (e.g., adding or removing authors, re-arranging orders, modifying names or contributions, etc.) will not be considered in the absence of a fully completed Author Change Form with all authorss' signatures. JECACM will notify all involved authors about the Authorship Changes.
Relevant literature must be properly quoted to provide adequate evidence for the claims made in articles such as opinions, comments, and commentaries based on the following instructions:
⋄ A citation should be made when the author’s viewpoints or conclusions arise from external sources of information.
⋄ The accuracy of quotations must be ensured in the manuscript, where the statements made must be highly relevant to the quotations and sufficient to support the relevant viewpoint or conclusion.
⋄ References from other publications with no relevance should not be quoted in authors’ articles. Sources that authors haven't read should not be cited.
⋄ Any act of inappropriate quotations is not encouraged, e.g., self-citation, which means intentionally citing numerous articles published by themselves.
⋄ Peer-reviewed sources are recommended to cite in authors’ articles.
⋄ Advertisements or advertorial content is not allowed to be quoted.
Potential controversial issues involving borders and territories are relevant for authors in describing their research or correspondence address, which should be respected. The editorial team will attempt to find a resolution for dispute or complaint if any, that will strive to reach a solution that is agreed upon by all parties as far as possible. Upon the settlement of such controversial issue or complaint, the editors in JECACM retain the right of final decisions
JECACM maintains neutrality on the jurisdiction of public maps and institutional relationships.
JECACM only accepts original manuscripts. At the time of submission, it should be confirmed that during the processing stage, no similar manuscripts have been or will be submitted to any other journal for publication. It is unethical to submit one same manuscript to several journals at the same time. Publishing same papers in more than one journal damages reputation of both the journals and the authors, and will be considered as academic misconduct. Duplicate publications or redundant publications (re-packaging in different words of data already published by the same authors) will be rejected. Please refer to the flowchart used for dealing with Redundant Publications of COPE.
The author is responsible for ensuring the originality of the work. At the time of submission, all manuscripts will be rigorously evaluated to determine whether substantial duplicate contents with published materials are contained. The editorial office uses Turnitin in combination and searches titles in PubMed and Google. Submitted manuscripts will be singled out based on published research and other related sources. Submitted images will be checked for duplicates or other apparently abnormal data. Therefore, unprocessed data and metadata files need to be well preserved for the editorial office evaluating manuscripts. Delay on proceeding manuscripts may happen if unprocessed data are not available, until this issue being addressed.
When plagiarism or fraud is reasonably suspected, the editorial office reserves the right to challenge the author’s sponsoring agency and any other relevant agency. In cases of suspected plagiarism, a preliminary investigation will be performed in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart and ICMJE guidelines. Any suspected unethical publishing practices will be investigated. Plagiarism will be clearly marked on each page of the manuscript if it's confirmed. If plagiarism is found and proved, submitted papers will be rejected, and published papers will be announced with formal retraction relaying on the extent of plagiarism.
All digital images in manuscripts considered for publication will be carefully reviewed for any signs of manipulation inconsistent with the following guidelines. Manipulations that violate these guidelines will incur delay on processing manuscripts, rejection of submitted papers, or even retraction of published articles:
⋄ No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced.
⋄ The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields or exposures, must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure and in figure legend.
⋄ Brightness, contrast, or color balance can be adjusted as long as they apply to each pixel in the image and do not blur, erase, or distort any information that exists in the original image, including the background. Non-linear adjustment (for example, change in gamma setting) must be declared in the figure legend.
Any issues raised during peer review will be submitted to the editors, who may compare the prepared data with original data requested from the author(s). If the original data cannot be provided, the manuscript may be rejected or, in case of published articles, retracted. In any case, falsification of experimental data, ambiguity of data source, manipulation affecting the interpretation of data, will cause rejection or retraction. Suspected misconduct will be reported to the author’s institution.
JECACM complies with the ICMJE and COPE guidelines.
Material inaccuracies, misleading statements, or distorted report must be corrected in a timely manner and with due prominence. If changes are made to a published article that do not affect the interpretation and conclusions of the article and do not render the article completely invalid, the editor will, in his discretion, make corrections at the earliest possible date by issuing a corrigendum, corrections, or editorial expressions of concern.
Published articles whose scientific information has been seriously undermined may be retracted. Retracted articles will be indexed and linked to the original article.
Peer review is an indispensible part of scientific publication used to confirm the validity of the reported science. Reviewers evaluate journal manuscripts, give substantial advices, and further improve them. JECACM complies with COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, using "double blind" review, which means during entire reviewing process, both reviewers and authors are undisclosed to each other.
The editorial board will suggest at least two experts to review submitted manuscripts. Additional review may happen if inconsistent reports are collected.
Editors-in-Chief are responsible for publication decisions based on the reviewing reports. If the paper is not acceptable for publication, the author(s) will be notified promptly.
Through peer review, improvement should be made on manuscripts as follows:
⋄ More solid: Based on reviewers' comments, more explanation or additional experiments may be required to overcome the shortage of the paper.
⋄ Easier to read: If reviewers point out that paper contents are difficult to understand, the author should revise them. Readers in different fields are impossible to understand the authors' work in case that an expert fails to do so.
⋄ More valuable: Importance and real contribution of the paper in relative field will be considered. Reviewing reports should contain recommendations to improve or better emphasize this point.
Peer review not only provides advices to authors, but also ensure that the quality of published manuscripts meets the journal's objectives. Please note that manuscripts with contents outside journal scope will not be sent for peer review.
⋄ All submitted manuscripts are considered confidential.
⋄ Privileged information or ideas that are obtained through peer review must not be used for competitive gain.
⋄ The journal's peer review process is confidential.
Accordingly, reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the paper contents. It is not permitted to display or discuss with others, except in special circumstances to whom specific advice can be sought. The identity of the consulted person should be disclosed to the editorial office. Reviewers are forbidden to use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations in their reviewed manuscript without authors' consent.
Editors, reviewers and editorial staff participating in the review process shall disclose conflicts of interest with any author arising from competition, collaboration or other relationships, and avoid situations where such conflicts impact objective evaluation.
External reviewers must avoid to review a submission when they have any potential interest that may affect the objectivity. Any competing interests of reviewers should be declared, which will be considered by the editors of JECACM. Rejecting or accepting manuscript are at the discretion of journal editors, who will take (but not absolutely rely on) peer-reviewed comments into consideration.
Authors will get an initial feedback within one week after their submission about whether the manuscript could be sent for peer-review. Authors may receive requests of providing more detailed materials, such as high-resolution original images, ethical approval, etc.
At least two qualified reviewing reports should be collected (or at least three with inconsistent opinions). Then authors will receive a decision about whether the manuscript is rejected, or could be accepted/reconsidered after revision. Authors should provide point-to-point responses to the reviewing reports. A second round of review may or may not proceed on the basis of the content of the reports.
After all concerned issues are addressed, the manuscript can be accepted for publication (under the decision of Editor-in-Chief). Before being finally published on the website, authors should answer all questions raised during the proofreading phase as detailed, complete, and as quickly as possible.
The academic editor of a journal has the full responsibility and authority to accept or reject papers submitted for publication. The academic editor may make the decision in consultation with a member of the Editorial Board or a Guest Editor in the case of evaluation.
Academic editors should consider all manuscripts submitted for publication in a timely and unbiased manner, taking no account of the race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author, judging them on their merits and respecting the intellectual independence of the author. Situations that might result in real or perceived competing interests should be avoided.
Academic editors and editorial staff should not disclose any information about the manuscript under consideration to anyone except reviewers and potential reviewers. Editors should not use unpublished information, arguments, or explanations disclosed in submitted manuscripts for their own research unless the author agrees.
If editors have compelling evidence that the content or conclusions of a published paper are incorrect, they should prompt publication of a correction or retraction of the article.
The editorial policy on editorial independence in JECACM is analogous to that proposed by World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). The editorial decision-making process is completely separate from commercial interests, for instance, pressure from the publisher to the journal editor. In other words, final decisions upon the rejection or acceptance of manuscripts in JECACM are at the discretion of the journal editors, regardless of any external pressure from influential groups or organizations.
Supplements, commercial issues, or similar publications funded by third parties (e.g., companies, societies, or charities), may be selected for publication. The journal should provide readers with the name of the funding agency, as well as any conflicts of interest statements.
Journals do not allow funding agencies to decide which publications they choose to fund.
Editorial oversight of all publications is protected from the influence of sponsors or advertisers, including the selection and appointment of Guest Editors for these supplements. Sponsors or advertisers, including their roles, will be prominently disclosed in the publication.
All supplements published by JECACM will transparently disclose the source of content, the role of editors, authors, sponsors and advertisers, and any conflicts of interest related to the supplement.
JECACM follows COPE guidelines for appeals and complaints against editorial decisions. Authors may appeal a decision of rejecting their manuscript that they believe to be incorrect. The appeal letter should clearly state why the decision is believed to be incorrect, and respond in detail and specifically to any comments related to the rejection of review. Further advice from the journal’s Editorial Advisory Panel and external experts will be taken into account for eventual re-reviewability.
To maintain the diversity of expert team in Editorial Board, Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors in JECACM are encouraged to recruit assorted experts in specific areas. With regard to the recruitment of experts, there is no specific restriction on the gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, or socio-economic status. Everyone is equal in the workplace of JECACM, which is deemed as the first principle of editorial work.
2998-1824 (Print)
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Exploration and Verfication Publishing
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