JHEOR Publishing Policies and Ethics - Columbia Data Analytics

Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research (JHEOR)

Publishing Policies and Ethics

Effective Date: September 6, 2019
Latest Update: October 25, 2019

Columbia Data Analytics, LLC is the publisher of the Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research (JHEOR).

Copyright Policy

The Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research (JHEOR) is an open access journal, in which published articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Once an article is submitted to JHEOR, the author grants the Editorial Board full publishing rights under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. The author grants the Editorial Board full publishing rights under a relevant third-party open access license.

For every article published in JHEOR, Columbia Data Analytics, LLC is granted the following rights:

The exclusive right to publish and distribute the article, and grant rights to others.
Columbia Data Analytics, LLC will provide the relevant third-party license when publishing an article on the JHEOR online platform.
The right to provide the article in all forms and media, including media forms that are different from the original submission.
The authority to enforce the rights in the article, on behalf of an author, against third parties, for example in the case of plagiarism and copyright infringement.

Publication Fees

There is no fee to submit a manuscript to JHEOR. A fee of $1,500 will be applied if the article is accepted for publication. This fee pays for immediate, worldwide open access to the full article text; developing and maintaining an effective peer review and publication process; and preparation in various formats for online publication. Accepted articles will not be published until the payment has been received.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest, also called a competing interest, arises when professional judgement concerning a primary interest may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). We ask authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest upon the submission of their manuscripts. We also ask the editorial board of JHEOR and all reviewers to provide statements on potential conflicts of interest. A disclaimer of competing interests will be posted along with any article published by JHEOR.

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authors should disclose four types of potential conflicts of interest:

Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript.
Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript.
Any similar financial associations involving their spouse or their children under 18 years of age.
Non-financial associations that may be relevant to the submitted manuscript.

Disclaimer

The statements and opinions contained in this journal are solely those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or the publisher. Columbia Data Analytics, LLC, the Editor-in-Chief, and the Editorial Board, disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements. The editors and publishers cannot accept liability for damages arising from any errors or omissions in the journal. Please inform the editors of any errors.

Editorial Decision

The single most important criterion for acceptance is the originality of the work. However, a decision to accept a manuscript is not based solely on the scientific validity of its content. Other factors may affect decisions, such factors are, but not limited to, the extent and importance of new information in the paper compared with that in other papers being considered, the Journal’s need to represent a wide range of topics, and the overall suitability for the target journal.

Privacy Policy

At Columbia Data Analytics, LLC we recognize that the proper handling of personal data is very important. The names and email addresses and other authors’ information collected by Columbia Data Analytics, LLC will be used exclusively for the stated purpose of article publishing and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Reviewers provide comments for the editor and for the authors. Columbia Data Analytics, LLC expects reviewers to treat manuscripts as confidential communications and not to use the content for their own purposes or make copies of the manuscripts. Reviewers are also expected to declare to the editor any possible conflicts of interest.

Publishing Ethics Policy

Editors’ code of ethics:

To protect the privacy of peer reviewers and the authors of submitted manuscripts.
To protect the copyright and intellectual property of all authors and contributors.
To strive to maintain the quality of the materials published.
To maintain the integrity of the academic record.
To make editorial decisions based only on the manuscript’s importance, originality, relevance to the journal, and the overall quality.
To provide authors with clear submissions guidelines.
To protect peer reviewers’ identities.
To be willing to publish corrections and redactions.
To provide reviewers with up-to-date review guidelines.
To avoid publishing articles containing any material that is defamatory, libelous, misleading, obscene, scandalous, and unlawful.
To ensure manuscripts remain confidential while under review.

Reviewers’ code of ethics:

To contribute to editorial decisions and assist in improving the article through editorial communications with the author.
To maintain the confidentiality of any manuscripts submitted.
To remain alert to potential ethical issues in the paper and bring these to the attention of the editor.
To conduct reviews objectively and take any personal biases they may have into account when reviewing a paper.
To consult the editor with any conflicts of interest prior to agreeing to review a paper.

Authors’ code of ethics:

To maintain reporting standards by presenting an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
To be aware that they may be asked to provide the research data supporting their article for editorial review and/or to comply with the open data requirements of the publication.
To ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if they have used the work of others, that this has been properly cited.
To commit to not publishing the manuscript to other publications after it has been submitted to JHEOR.
To commit to preserving Columbia Data Analytics’ confidentiality when it comes to any and all information obtained in the course of confidential services.
To limit authorship to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
To declare any competing interests to the editorial board upon the submission of the manuscript.
To promptly notify the journal editor upon the discovery of a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work.
To avoid enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image submitted with a manuscript.
To maintain clinical trial transparency. Authors are expected to conform to industry best standards in clinical trial registration and presentation.

Peer Review Policy

All authors and reviewers should read our Peer Review Policy before submitting an article or a review. Any article published on JHEOR will have been reviewed through a double-blind peer review process. This means that both the identities of the author and the reviewer will be concealed from each other until the manuscript is cleared for publication. We use a double-blind review process in order to prevent the reviewer and author from forming any biases on either side. Furthermore, a double-blind review process maintains focus on the manuscript itself.

Once a manuscript is submitted to JHEOR, the editorial board will send the manuscript out for review. JHEOR will consider reviewers suggested by the author(s) of the manuscript for review but reserves the right to assign the manuscript to be reviewed by whomever they see fit. The manuscript will then be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether or not it duplicates other published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently cleared for publication. Reviewers are also expected to provide their recommendation for whether or not the content of the manuscript is relevant to JHEOR as a whole as well as make an evaluation on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions.

As stated in our Submission Guidelines, we require that the author(s) of the manuscript declare any conflicts of interest (which could be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious in nature) so that editors can assess these and factor them into their decisions. Reviewers are equally as expected to refer to the JHEOR editorial board with any conflicts of interest prior to accepting to review a manuscript. Additionally, reviewers should not accept to review a manuscript simply to read it without intending to write a review.

All reviewers are expected to provide fair, honest, and unbiased feedback to the author(s) of the manuscript within the agreed upon timeframe. Reviewers are expected to be as specific as possible, to provide supporting evidence, and to be as professional and appropriate as possible. Reviews should be civil and constructive, and editors reserve the right to edit or remove any comments felt to be inappropriate.

Advertising Policy

Commercial advertising is not allowed on the Columbia Data Analytics website nor on the website of its publication, JHEOR.

Research Ethics Policy

Our policy is to ensure that all articles published by JHEOR are morally acceptable. JHEOR expects authors to follow the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013. All authors are expected to have received approval to conduct research from an independent, local, regional, or national review body (e.g. ethics committee or institutional review board). Papers describing investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the study was approved by the institutional review board, in accordance with all applicable regulations, and that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the study were explained. That informed consent was obtained should be noted in the “Methods” section of your manuscript.

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, such as names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in any article published by JHEOR. Additionally, nonessential details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt about the anonymity of the subjects.

Informed Consent Policy

Appropriate consents, permissions, and releases must be obtained where authors wish to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in a Columbia Data Analytics publication in order to apply with all applicable laws and regulations concerning the privacy and/or security of personal information, including, but not limited to, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) and other U.S. federal and state laws relating to privacy and security of personally identifiable information, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 and member state implementing legislation, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, India’s Information Technology Act and related Privacy Rules, (together “Data Protection and Privacy Laws”).

Images of patients or research subjects should not be used unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and explicit permission has been given as part of the consent. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If the manuscript contains videos, recordings, photographs, images, illustrations, or case reports in which a patient is portrayed in any identifiable form, then it is the responsibility of the author to ensure that each individual, or the individual’s legal guardian or other person with legal authority to act on the individual’s behalf is made aware of the fact that such media is being taken, and of all the purposes for which they might be used, including disclosure to Columbia Data Analytics and use by Columbia Data Analytics or its licenses in any work or project. That individual, legal guardian or person with legal authority must give his/her explicit written consent.

Plagiarism Policy

JHEOR takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as one’s own original work. Self-plagiarism is the reuse of significant, identical or near-identical portions of one’s own work without citing the original.

JHEOR screens each manuscript upon submission using plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate and Similarity Check, which is offered through CrossRef and is powered by iThenticate. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, it is screened a second time to ensure there are no instances of plagiarism.

Where an article is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the article is contested, JHEOR reserves the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of the department or dean of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action. JHEOR’s Editorial Board will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism. The name of the author(s) committing plagiarism will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals.

Additionally, JHEOR seeks to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Columbia Data Analytics recognizes the importance of the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record to researchers and librarians and attaches the highest importance to maintaining trust in the authority of its electronic archive. It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor is guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances.

It is the absolute right of the Editorial Board to decide on article withdrawals. Withdrawals of articles after publication will only occur when there are infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, and fraudulent use of data, etc. The article will be replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been removed because of an infringement of professional ethical codes.

It is sometimes the case that any author would like to request a withdrawal after their manuscript has been submitted to JHEOR. To request a withdrawal before publication, the corresponding author of the article should submit a request that is signed by all co-authors of the article explaining the reason for the withdrawal request. An article will only be considered for withdrawal if the article has not been published yet by JHEOR, contains substantial errors, is discovered to be an accidental duplicate of other published article(s), and/or is determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, etc.). It is unadvised for authors to withdraw their manuscript(s) due to lack of agreement with reviewer comments.

In the case of withdrawal before publication, no penalty will be levied against the author(s). However, if the publication fee of $1,500 has already been paid for any article already accepted for publication, then it shall not be refunded to the author(s) in any case. Depending upon the severity of the errors, the author(s) may also be banned from submitting any other articles to JHEOR. If an article is withdrawn after publication, a penalty will be levied against the author. Additionally, the publication fee will not be refunded to the author(s). Depending on the severity of the errors, the author(s) may also be banned from submitting any other articles to JHEOR.

Changes

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace the Publishing Policies and Ethics at any time. When a change is made, the date for the Latest Update listed above will be modified to reflect the date the most recent change was created.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about the Publishing Policies and Ethics, please contact JHEOR at info@jheor.org.