1. Peer review process
On submission, papers are assessed by the Editorial Office to ensure that they are suitable for the full peer-review process. If there are any aspects of the submission that are not complete or require clarification (for example, incomplete figures, author list not complete) then the submission will be returned to the authors at this stage for completion.
If a paper is ready for full peer review, the Editorial Office assigns the paper to an Associate Editor (on the basis of expertise). At this stage, the Associate Editor can decline the paper without full peer review (this could occur if the paper is not within the scope of the journal). If the Associate Editor considers that the paper warrants full peer review, then they assign two independent reviewers (who can come from the journal’s Editorial Board, although this is not an absolute requirement).
All EurAsia Academic Publishing Group journals follow a single-blinded process of peer review (i.e. the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers). Reviewers assigned to papers do not see each others’ comments prior to writing their own, and the reviews received are completely independent.
Once reviewer reports have been received (usually in two weeks), the Associate Editor assesses the reports, and the Associate Editor makes the decision on the paper, writing the decision letter to the authors. On a rare occasion, if reviewer reports are conflicting, the Associate Editor at this stage can solicit the opinion of a third reviewer.
The decisions that can be made by the Associate Editor are:
Authors are given either 1 month (minor) or 3 months (major) to revise their papers. Authors can request longer if needed. If a revised paper has not been received after 1 year (and there has been no contact from the authors requesting additional time), then the paper will be considered a new submission if submitted after this time.
If a revised version of a paper has been invited, on resubmission the paper will be assessed by the Editorial Office to ensure that it is suitable for full peer review. For revised papers, a point-by-point response to the reviewer reports received should be submitted, along with the revised paper.
Once a revised paper has entered peer review, it will be assessed by the Associate Editor who handled the peer review of the original version. At this point, the Associate Editor is able to assess the revised version of the paper themselves if they wish, without having to send to reviewers. Alternatively, the Associate Editor can assign the revised paper to the reviewers who saw the original version for their comments. A final decision is then made on the paper and sent to the authors by the Associate Editor.
2. Appeals
If you wish to appeal a decision that has been made on a paper, the process followed is set out below (and is according to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice for Editors and Publishers, published by COPE).
Note that if there is a further dispute, the Editor-in-Chief will be called upon to make the final decision.
3. Ethical processes
(i) Animal experimentation
Experiments with animals should comply with national legislation and local Institutional Review Board requirements and there should be a statement to this effect in the paper. In the absence of any national regulations, authors/reviewers can seek advice from the Editorial Office. For additional information on the reporting of work in animals, please see the ARRIVE Guidelines. In particular, please ensure that in your paper you state the site where the animal work has taken place, and where the ethics approval has been sought/obtained from.
In addition, research where chloral hydrate is used as an anaesthetic will not be considered on the grounds that the agent does not provide analgesia and its use in animal experimentation no longer reflects best practice.
(ii) Human experimentation
Papers describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the research has been carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Research should comply with national and Institutional Review Board requirements for ethical approval and informed consent. In the absence of any national regulations, authors/reviewers can seek advice from the Editorial Office.
(iii) Scientific publication
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group is a member of ALPSP (the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) and endorses the guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), including the Code of Conduct for Editors, which are available at http://www.publicationethics.org/. Complaints against the Journal must be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief; if a complaint is not resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant they have the option of referring the matter to COPE.
Notwithstanding, the Editorial Board will not accept papers where the ethical aspects are, in the Editorial Board’s opinion, open to doubt.
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group believes that the Editorial Boards of its journals has a duty to protect the scientific record. Therefore it will always investigate fully any matter of apparent misconduct that it becomes aware of with respect to both published and unpublished papers, in conjunction with the institution where the work was performed or with funding bodies as appropriate.
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group journals follow the guidelines published by COPE in respect of the retraction of articles.
a) Plagiarism and duplication submissions
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group is a member of Crossref and will not tolerate plagiarism in manuscripts submitted to its journals. Passages quoted or closely paraphrased from other authors (or from the submitting authors’ own published work) must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the sources of the quoted or paraphrased material must be acknowledged. Use of unacknowledged sources will be construed as plagiarism. If any manuscript is found to contain plagiarized material the review process will be halted immediately.
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group defines duplicate and prior publication as set out in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. This does not preclude EurAsia Academic Publishing Group from considering a paper that is an extension of preliminary work or work previously presented in abstract form; however, this should be clearly stated in any cover letter. For example, content published on forums such as BioRxiv do not constitute prior publication.
b) Images
Images will be checked for manipulation when a paper is accepted. The Editorial Board may request that authors supply the original data for comparison against the prepared figures. If authors are unable to comply with such a request, the acceptance of the paper may be withdrawn. The interpretation of this policy is in the hands of the Editorial Board, who judge whether each paper submitted is acceptable in terms of science and presentation.
c) Authorship
Submission of a paper to the EurAsia Academic Publishing Group journals implies that it has been approved by all of the named authors, that all persons entitled to authorship have been so named, that it reports unpublished work that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere in any language, that conflicts of interest are declared.
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group endorses the Vancouver Guidelines on authorship as defined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, namely that entitlement to authorship should be based on all of the following criteria:
(1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it 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. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements. On submission, a paragraph outlining the contribution of each author to the study should be included and will be published as part of the paper. Please note that the author list that is provided at submission (and on the accepted paper) is what will be included in the published paper.
d) Changes to authorship
1. In general: As a general rule, extensive changes to the authorship for an article are not permitted. During submission of the original and revised versions of the paper, the corresponding author takes responsibility that all persons listed on the paper should be authors (are eligible for authorship per the criteria described above). Extensive changes to the author list will be investigated on a case-by-case basis, and if it cannot be ascertained why an extensive change has taken place, the paper may be rejected on that basis.
2. Authorship changes on submission of a revised version of a paper: Depending on the nature of the revisions asked for in decision letters sent to authors, new author(s) might be added to a revised version of a paper, particularly if new experimental work has been requested as part of the peer-review process, and if the contributions of previously unnamed persons now merit authorship listing on the revised manuscript (criteria for authorship described above). In the event of the addition of authors at revision, the author contribution paragraph at the end of the manuscript must be updated to reflect what the newly added authors contributed to the paper.
If any authors are being removed from a revised paper, then it should be clear why that author has been removed, and written confirmation should be obtained from all authors (including the author who has been removed) confirming that they are aware of and agree with the removal of the author.
3. Authorship changes following acceptance of a paper and/or during the proof process: Accepted papers have been through peer review and at least one round of revision by the authors, and have received a final “accept” decision from the Editor. Given this, we do not support addition or removal of authors post-acceptance.
4. Conflicts of interest
Authors/reviewers should clearly declare any conflicts of interest. Examples of conflicts of interest that should be declared are (but not limited to):
5. Open access
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group is a member of DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and provides a number of open-access options to ensure that authors are compliant with their funder mandates.
During the peer review process, all reviewers are blinded to selection or not of open access that may be chosen by authors. For full details of the open access options available, please take a look at our open access policy.
6. Data policy
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group encourages Authors to share their data and upload raw data and datasets to open data repositories on formal acceptance of their article for publication. We do not stipulate a particular repository but encourage Authors to find a suitable repository by visiting http://www.re3data.org/.
7. Reuse and permissions
For full details of the policy around reuse of work, please take a look at our Rights and Permissions information.
8. Pre-publication policy
EurAsia Academic Publishing Group welcomes submissions of work that was previously presented as a poster and/or work that has been posted to a pre-prints server.
Placing a pre-submission version of an article on a pre-prints server and/or publishing and presenting research as a poster does not constitute prior or duplicate publication.
Extensions of preliminary work or work previously presented in abstract form are welcomed. For example, we welcome as new submissions any content published on forums such as BioRxiv.