Publication Ethics

Dharmaputra Medical Law Journal (DMLJ)

Jurnal Dharmaputra Hukum Kesehatan

P-ISSN: 3124-1964 | E-ISSN: 3124-1840

The Dharmaputra Medical Law Journal (DMLJ) is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics in order to ensure the integrity, quality, and public trust of the research it publishes. All parties involved in the publication process — editors, authors, and reviewers — must adhere to these ethical standards.

DMLJ follows the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Declaration of Helsinki, and the Indonesian National Research Ethics Committee (KEPK). The journal is a Diamond Open Access publication and is indexed in DOAJ.

The editorial team of DMLJ operates in accordance with the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. Editors bear ultimate responsibility for all content published in the journal and are expected to maintain the following standards:

• Fair and impartial review: All submitted manuscripts are evaluated solely on their academic merit, regardless of the author's race, gender, nationality, institutional affiliation, or any other personal characteristic.
• Confidentiality: Editors must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, or the editorial board, as appropriate.
• Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest, including manuscripts from their own institution, close collaborators, or manuscripts in which they are personally invested.
• Timely decisions: Editors are responsible for ensuring that the peer review process is conducted in a timely manner and that authors receive prompt notification of editorial decisions.
• Upholding corrections policy: Editors must be willing to publish corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, and other notices when required, following COPE guidelines.
• Protection of research integrity: When misconduct is alleged or suspected, editors must take appropriate action in accordance with COPE flowcharts and guidelines, including contacting the author's institution where necessary.
• Editorial independence: Editors make decisions based solely on scholarly merit and journal scope, free from commercial interests or undue pressure from the publisher, advertisers, or other parties.

Authors submitting manuscripts to DMLJ are responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their work. The following responsibilities apply to all submitting authors:

• Accuracy of data: Authors must ensure that their data, analyses, and conclusions are presented accurately. Raw data underlying the study must be retained and made available to editors upon request.
• Originality: Submitted manuscripts must be original works that have not been published elsewhere and are not currently under consideration by any other journal.
• Proper citation: All sources, ideas, and data obtained from other works must be properly cited using the Vancouver referencing system. Failure to attribute the work of others constitutes plagiarism.
• Acknowledgement of funding: All sources of funding for the research must be clearly disclosed in the manuscript's Acknowledgements section.
• Disclosure of conflicts of interest: Authors must disclose any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.
• Ethical compliance: Research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have received approval from a recognized ethics committee (KEPK). Ethics committee approval numbers must be stated in the manuscript.
• Prompt notification of errors: If an author discovers a significant error in a published paper, the author must promptly notify the editors and cooperate in issuing a correction or retraction.

DMLJ uses the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). To qualify as an author, an individual must meet all four of the following criteria:

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section, not listed as authors. Examples include those who provided administrative support, data collection assistance, or general supervision.

Ghost authorship (listing individuals who did not contribute) and gift authorship (excluding individuals who did contribute) are both forms of misconduct and are strictly prohibited.

Peer reviewers play a central role in maintaining the quality and integrity of published research. DMLJ employs a double-blind peer review process in which both authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other. Reviewers are expected to:

• Maintain confidentiality: Reviewers must treat all manuscripts as confidential documents and must not share, discuss, or use unpublished work without the explicit written consent of the corresponding author.
• Provide objective feedback: Reviews must be constructive, specific, and based on objective scientific criteria. Personal criticism of the authors is not acceptable.
• Declare conflicts of interest: Reviewers must immediately notify the editorial office if they have a conflict of interest with the manuscript under review and, if necessary, decline the review assignment.
• Report suspected misconduct: If a reviewer suspects plagiarism, data fabrication, or any other form of research misconduct, they must alert the editorial team with supporting evidence.
• Respond promptly: Reviewers are expected to complete their reviews within the agreed timeframe (14 to 28 days) and to notify the editorial office promptly if they are unable to do so.

A conflict of interest exists when a person's judgment may be influenced — or may appear to be influenced — by a secondary interest, such as financial gain, personal relationships, or academic competition. DMLJ requires full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest from all parties.

Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial interests that could be perceived as influencing their research. This includes employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications, and travel grants related to the submitted work.

Reviewers who have recently collaborated with the authors, who are affiliated with competing institutions, or who have any personal or financial interest in the submitted work should decline review assignments and notify the editorial office immediately.

Editors who have a conflict of interest with a submitted manuscript must recuse themselves from editorial decisions on that manuscript and hand responsibility to another member of the editorial board.

All research involving human participants, human tissue, or identifiable patient data must be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, as amended). The following requirements apply to all submissions:

• Research must have received prior approval from a recognized Research Ethics Committee (Komite Etik Penelitian Kesehatan / KEPK) before the study commences.
• The ethics committee name and approval number must be stated explicitly in the Methods section of the manuscript.
• Written informed consent must have been obtained from all human participants. Where informed consent was waived by the ethics committee, this waiver must be stated and justified.
• Patient privacy and confidentiality must be preserved at all times. Identifying information must not be published without explicit written consent from the individual concerned.
• Research involving animals must comply with applicable national and institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals.

Manuscripts that describe human research without evidence of ethics committee approval will be rejected without further review, regardless of the scientific merit of the work.

DMLJ treats any form of research misconduct with the utmost seriousness. The three primary categories of misconduct are defined as follows:

When misconduct is identified, DMLJ will act in accordance with COPE guidelines, which may include contacting the author's institution, issuing a retraction, or reporting to relevant authorities.

Duplicate submission refers to the submission of the same manuscript (or substantially similar manuscripts) to more than one journal simultaneously, without disclosure. This practice is strictly prohibited and constitutes a breach of publication ethics.

Redundant publication (also called salami publishing) occurs when an author publishes substantially the same data in more than one paper, creating the impression that there are more studies on a topic than actually exist. DMLJ will reject manuscripts that appear to report data that has already been published, unless the authors can demonstrate that the new paper provides a distinct and significant contribution.

Authors must confirm at the time of submission that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Concurrent submissions discovered at any stage of the editorial process will result in immediate rejection and may be reported to the authors' institutions.

DMLJ maintains a transparent correction and retraction policy in accordance with COPE guidelines. The journal may issue the following types of post-publication notices:

• Erratum: A correction issued to correct an error introduced by the journal during the production process (e.g., typographical or layout errors).
• Corrigendum: A correction issued to correct an error introduced by the authors (e.g., a minor error in a calculation, an incorrectly labeled figure).
• Retraction: A formal withdrawal of a published paper due to serious concerns about the reliability or integrity of the data, findings, or authorship. Retracted articles remain visible on the journal website with a clear retraction notice.
• Expression of Concern: Issued when an investigation is ongoing and there is uncertainty about the reliability of findings but a retraction is not yet warranted.

Concerns about published articles may be submitted to the editorial office at any time. All concerns will be investigated in accordance with COPE flowcharts and the outcome communicated to the person who raised the concern.

Principal Contact: Gede Krisna Udiana, S.K.M., M.H.Kes.  |  +62 812-3898-787  |  udiana.krisna@gmail.com

https://dmedlaw.org