Frontier Scientific Publishing

Editorial Policies

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed substantially to the work. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary after publication. A maximum of two corresponding authors are allowed for the associated responsibilities. The corresponding author must include written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, for example, data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.

Conflict of Interest

The authors must declare any conflict of interest with any financial body or funding agency or anything else that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All authors, members, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to FSP’s journals should 1) not have been published before, and 2) not concurrently be submitted elsewhere. If part of a manuscript has been published or will be published elsewhere, the authors must let the editors know in a cover letter. If duplicate submission is detected during peer review, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Plagiarism

FSP does not approve of plagiarism. Plagiarism detection software is used to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. If a manuscript uses a text copied directly from another source, this text must be written in quotation marks and original source must be cited. If any kind of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is detected during the review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Open Access Policy

FSP provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Manuscripts are published under the (CC BY-NC 4.0) publishing license, which allows the manuscript to be freely shared or used for non-commercial purposes, as long as attribution is given. Authors are welcome to post the published manuscript on personal websites, institutional repositories, and any other database.

Publication Ethics

Frontier scientific publishing requires all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the principles of Core practices as stipulated by COPE (Committee on Publishing Ethics), to investigate misconduct and to ensure the integrity of research.

COPE has defined measures against data fabrication, duplicate publication, plagiarism and retraction, etc. All complaints submitted by the authors to the journal will be addressed promptly according to the procedure set out in the COPE complaints and appeals. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the publisher at contact@front-sci.com.

Editorial Process

The journal operates a double-blind peer-review process, meaning that both author and reviewer identities are concealed in the reviewing. Each article is assigned to at least two independent reviewers, followed by a final acceptance/rejection decision by the Editor-in-Chief, or another academic editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and special issue topics, and new Editorial Board members.

Pre-check

Immediately after submission, this check is initially carried out by the managing editor to assess:

• Suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/special issue;
• Qualification and background of authors;
• Reject obviously poor manuscripts.

The Academic Editor, i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, or the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board Member in case of a conflict of interest, will be notified of the submission and invited to check and recommend reviewers.

Peer-review

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, Frontier Scientific Publishing editorial staff will use qualified Editorial Board Members, qualified reviewers from our database, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years;
• That they hold a PhD (exceptions are made in some fields, e.g. medicine);
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;
• They have not recently been invited to review a manuscript for any Frontier Scientific Publishing

To assist academic editors, Frontier Scientific Publishing staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor; however, Academic Editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time. Reviewers are given two weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within three days. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request.

A paper can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor. Employed Frontier Scientific Publishing staff can only reject papers: it would create a clear conflict of interest if they were permitted to accept a paper as their salary is paid for by the APC of accepted articles.

Editor Decision

Acceptance decisions on manuscripts, after peer review, are made by an academic editor, either the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor, or another suitable Editorial Board member. When making an editorial decision, we expect that the academic editor checks the following:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.

The editor can select from: accept, reject, ask author for revision, ask for an additional reviewer.

If there is any suspicion that a paper may contain plagiarism, the editorial office will check using the industry standard iThenticate software.

Reviewers make recommendations, and Editors-in-Chief are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision, for the benefit of the authors.

Editorial independence is extremely important and Frontier Scientific Publishing does not interfere with editorial decisions. In particular, no paper is published without the agreement of an academic editor and Frontier Scientific Publishing staff do not advise academic editors about accepting or rejecting articles.

Revision

In cases where only minor revisions are recommended, the author is usually requested to revise the paper before referring to the external editor. Articles may or may not be sent to reviewers after author revision, dependent on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version and the wishes of the Academic editor. Apart from in exceptional circumstances, we allow a maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript.

Production

Frontier Scientific Publishing carries out production on all manuscripts, including language editing, copy editing and conversion to XML. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing staff. In the small number of cases where extensive editing or formatting is required, we charge authors an additional fee (with authors’ prior approval). The authors are also free to use other English editing service, or consult a native English-speaking colleague—the latter being our preferred option.

Publishing Standards and Guidelines

Frontier Scientific Publishing follow the following guidelines and standards for its journals:

ICMJE: Medically related FSP journals follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The guidelines comprehensively cover all aspects of editing, from how the journal is managed to details about peer review and handling complaints. The majority of the recommendations are not specific to medical journals and are followed by all Frontier Scientific Publishing journals.

The CONSORT statement covers reporting of randomized, controlled trials. We encourage authors to verify their work against the checklist and flow diagram and upload them with their submission.

TOP covers transparency and openness in the reporting of research. Our journals aim to be at level 1 or 2 for all aspects of TOP. Specific requirements vary between journals and can be requested from the editorial office.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Authors are recommended to complete the checklistand flow diagram and include it with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

Compliance with the standards and guidelines above will be taken into account during the final decision and any discrepancies should be clearly explained by the authors. We recommend that authors highlight relevant guidelines in their cover letter.

 

About retraction

The Frontier Science Publishing values the integrity of academic activities and the completeness of academic achievement records, ensuring that academic papers are kept as recordable and unchanging as they are published. However, it is difficult to find out the individual non-normative phenomena in the manuscript or the inattention of the author, even if carefully reviewed by the editor. Therefore, correcting academic records is sometimes necessary. The decision to change the record is of great importance, and the publisher will take different measures based on the article's situation, roughly in the following forms:
1. Expression problem
2. Correction (error in the layout or error in the content)
3. Cancellation
4. Remove
All of the above measures are aimed at correcting the article and reminding the reader, but not punishing the author. In the articles published in the journals, there are intentional or unintentional irregularities, the editors of the journals have the responsibility of supervising the review, and the review process should involve the authors and reviewers. The editor will follow the publisher's retraction guidelines and other acceptable academic principles to select the best solution to the problem.
If the author is actively asking for action, the author will not be required to pay additional fees. If the measures taken (such as retraction) are not initiated by the author, or only the unilateral action of the author before the both sides reached an agreement, the publisher does not need to compensate the author for economic losses, and the article's page fee cannot be returned to the author.

 

Copyright Notice

Authors contributing to this journal agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. With this license, the authors hold the copyright without restrictions and are allowed to retain publishing rights without restrictions as long as this journal is the original publisher of the articles.