Responsibilities in the Submission and Peer-Review Process
Page Contents
1. Authors
Authors should abide by all principles of authorship and declaration of relationships and activities detailed in Sections II.A and II.B of this document.
a. Predatory or Pseudo-Journals
A growing number of entities are advertising themselves as "scholarly medical journals" yet do not function as such. These journals ("predatory" or "pseudo-journals") accept and publish almost all submissions and charge article processing (or publication) fees, often informing authors about this after a paper’s acceptance for publication. They often claim to perform peer review but do not and may purposefully use names similar to well-established journals. They may state that they are members of ICMJE but are not (see www.icmje.org for current members of the ICMJE) and that they follow the recommendations of organizations such as the ICMJE, COPE, and WAME. Researchers must be aware of the existence of such entities and avoid submitting research to them for publication. Authors have a responsibility to evaluate the integrity, history, practices, and reputation of the journals to which they submit manuscripts. Guidance from various organizations is available to help identify the characteristics of reputable peer-review journals (http://www.wame.org/identifying-predatory-or-pseudo-journals and http://wame.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing). Seeking the assistance of scientific mentors, senior colleagues, and others with many years of scholarly publishing experience may also be helpful.
Authors should avoid citing articles in predatory or pseudo-journals.
2. Journals
a. Confidentiality
Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.
Editors therefore must not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Editors should be aware that using AI technology in the processing of manuscripts may violate confidentiality. Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings should be politely refused, and editors should do their best not to provide such confidential material should it be subpoenaed.
Editors must also make clear that reviewers should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidential. Instructions to reviewers should include guidance about AI use. Reviewers and editorial staff members must not publicly discuss the authors’ work, and reviewers must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy paper copies of manuscripts and delete electronic copies after submitting their reviews.
When a manuscript is rejected, it is best practice for journals to delete copies of it from their editorial systems unless retention is required by local regulations. Journals that retain copies of rejected manuscripts should disclose this practice in their Information for Authors.
When a manuscript is published, journals should keep copies of the original submission, reviews, revisions, and correspondence for at least three years and possibly in perpetuity, depending on local regulations, to help answer future questions about the work should they arise.
Editors should not publish or publicize peer reviewers’ comments without permission of the reviewer and author. If journal policy is to anonymize authors to reviewer identity and comments are not signed, that identity must not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewers’ expressed written permission.
Confidentiality may have to be breached if dishonesty or fraud is alleged, but editors should notify authors or reviewers if they intend to do so and confidentiality must otherwise be honored.
b. Timeliness
Editors should do all they can to ensure timely processing of manuscripts with the resources available to them. If editors intend to publish a manuscript, they should attempt to do so in a timely manner and any planned delays should be negotiated with the authors. If a journal has no intention of proceeding with a manuscript, editors should endeavor to reject the manuscript as soon as possible to allow authors to submit to a different journal.
c. Peer Review
Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are usually not part of the editorial staff. Because unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including scientific research, peer review is an important extension of the scientific process.
The actual value of peer review is widely debated, but the process facilitates a fair hearing for a manuscript among members of the scientific community. More practically, it helps editors decide which manuscripts are suitable for their journals. Peer review often helps authors and editors improve the quality of reporting.
It is the responsibility of the journal to ensure that systems are in place for selection of appropriate reviewers. It is the responsibility of the editor to ensure that reviewers have access to all materials that may be relevant to the evaluation of the manuscript, including supplementary material for e-only publication, and to ensure that reviewer comments are properly assessed and interpreted in the context of their declared relationships and activities.
A peer-reviewed journal is under no obligation to send submitted manuscripts for review, and under no obligation to follow reviewer recommendations, favorable or negative. The editor of a journal is ultimately responsible for the selection of all its content, and editorial decisions may be informed by issues unrelated to the quality of a manuscript, such as suitability for the journal. An editor can reject any article at any time before publication, including after acceptance if concerns arise about the integrity of the work.
Journals may differ in the number and kinds of manuscripts they send for review, the number and types of reviewers they seek for each manuscript, whether the review process is open or anonymized, and other aspects of the review process. For this reason and as a service to authors, journals should publish a clear, transparent description of their peer-review process for all types of manuscripts.
Journals should notify reviewers of the ultimate decision to accept or reject a paper, and should acknowledge the contribution of peer reviewers to their journal. Editors are encouraged to share reviewers’ comments with co-reviewers of the same paper, so reviewers can learn from each other in the review process.
As part of peer review, editors are encouraged to review research protocols, plans for statistical analysis if separate from the protocol, and/or contracts associated with project-specific studies. Editors should encourage authors to make such documents publicly available at the time of or after publication, before accepting such studies for publication. Some journals may require public posting of these documents as a condition of acceptance for publication.
Journal requirements for independent data analysis and for public data availability vary, reflecting evolving views of the importance of data availability for pre- and post-publication peer review. Some journal editors currently request a statistical analysis of trial data by an independent biostatistician before accepting studies for publication. Others ask authors to say whether the study data are available to third parties to view and/or use/reanalyze, while still others encourage or require authors to share their data with others for review or reanalysis. Each journal should establish and publish their specific requirements for data analysis and posting in a place which potential authors can easily access.
Some people believe that true scientific peer review begins only on the date a paper is published. In that spirit, medical journals should have a mechanism for readers to submit comments, questions, or criticisms about published articles, and authors have a responsibility to respond appropriately and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication (see Section III).
ICMJE believes investigators have a duty to maintain the primary data and analytic procedures underpinning the published results for at least 10 years. The ICMJE encourages the preservation of these data in a data repository to ensure their longer-term availability.
d. Integrity
Editorial decisions should be based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions. Those decisions should not be influenced by commercial interests, personal relationships or agendas, or findings that are negative or that credibly challenge accepted wisdom. In addition, authors should submit for publication or otherwise make publicly available, and editors should not exclude from consideration for publication, studies with findings that are not statistically significant or that have inconclusive findings. Such studies may provide evidence that combined with that from other studies through meta-analysis might still help answer important questions, and a public record of such negative or inconclusive findings may prevent unwarranted replication of effort or otherwise be valuable for other researchers considering similar work.
Journals should clearly state their appeals process and should have a system for responding to appeals and complaints.
e. Diversity and Inclusion
To improve academic culture, editors should seek to engage a broad and diverse array of authors, reviewers, editorial staff, editorial board members, and readers.
f. Journal Metrics
The journal impact factor is widely misused as a proxy for research and journal quality and as a measure of the importance of specific research projects or the merits of individual researchers, including their suitability for hiring, promotion, tenure, prizes, or research funding. ICMJE recommends that journals reduce the emphasis on impact factor as a single measure, but rather provide a range of article and journal metrics relevant to their readers and authors.
3. Peer Reviewers
Manuscripts submitted to journals are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.
Reviewers therefore should keep manuscripts and the information they contain strictly confidential. Reviewers must not publicly discuss authors’ work and must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy copies of manuscripts after submitting their reviews.
Reviewers who seek assistance from a trainee or colleague in the performance of a review should acknowledge these individuals’ contributions in the written comments submitted to the editor. Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript as outlined above, which may prohibit the uploading of the manuscript to software or other AI technologies where confidentiality cannot be assured. Reviewers must request permission from the journal prior to using AI technology to facilitate their review. Reviewers should be aware that AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased.
Reviewers are expected to respond promptly to requests to review and to submit reviews within the time agreed. Reviewers’ comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.
Reviewers should declare their relationships and activities that might bias their evaluation of a manuscript and recuse themselves from the peer-review process if a conflict exists.