Ethical Publishing Practices

Overview

Confidentiality

Authorship

ChatGPT and Chatbots

Allegations of Misconduct

Complaints and Appeals

Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities 

Predatory or Pseudo Journals

Editors and Journal Staff as Authors

Intellectual Property

Human and Animal Subjects 

Informed Consent

Diversity Commitment

Post publication discussion and corrections

Journal management policies and teamwork

Social Media

Production and platform

Revenue sources

APC

Copyright

Ownership and management

 

Overview

PDH follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct, and aspires to adhere to COPE Best Practice Guidelines. 

Journal authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to follow best practice in publication ethics.

Confidentiality

Reviewers and editors are required to keep manuscript submissions in confidence and disclose financial and non-financial relationships and interests (this includes the journal staff and volunteers) on the Journal Relationships and Activities page here.

Reviewers and editors are also asked to alert the managing editor of any potential conflict(s) identified before peer review.  Additionally, at onboarding a new member to the team, the publisher sends an email outlining expectations, requirements, confidentiality and includes links to COPE, ICMJE, and journal links including details regarding peer review to further emphasize familiarity with journal operations, workflow and the importance of ethics. See

https://telehealthandmedicinetoday.com/index.php/journal/authors-journal

Authorship

Authors are expected to comply with ICMJE authorship requirements. Additional details for authors are located on General Information for Authors on the link below. There are no exceptions. Non-author contributors should be acknowledged, and contributions specifically noted, in the article.

https://telehealthandmedicinetoday.com/index.php/journal/authors

ChatGPT and Chatbots 

THMT follows WAME Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots. Click here for the full article.

  1. Chatbots cannot be authors. Chatbots cannot meet ICMJE authorship criteria. Chatbots cannot hold copyright. Authors submitting a manuscript must ensure that all those named as authors meet ICMJE authorship criteria.
  2. Authors should be transparent when Chatbots are used, provide information about how they were used in the cover letter, and also disclose use in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.
  3. Authors are responsible for the work performed by a Chatbot in their paper (including the accuracy of what is presented, and the absence of plagiarism), and for appropriate attribution of all sources including for material(s) produced by the Chatbot.

THMT encourages the use of Chatbots and ChatGPT to assist with abstracts and Plain Language Summaries (PLS), and generating article keywords.

Should you have questions, contact the publisher at t.cenaj@partnersindigitalhealth.com

Allegations of Misconduct

The journal will vigorously investigate allegations of research or publication misconduct and will contact authors, institutions and all those associated to conduct a timely proper investigation following COPE guidelines. Corrective action will be taken, noted, any revisions or article status changes will also be noted on CrossMark.

Please email the managing editor with any concerns pre- and post-publication at j.russo@partnersindigitalhealth.com

Complaints and Appeals

  1. Editorial

Should reviewers reject the submission or resubmission, the managing editor will alert the Editors-in-Chief (EICs) to determine whether the EICs believe the submission warrants publication and benefits the field. The Editors-in-Chief and managing editor will, together, make a decision based on the reviewers' comments, and may contact the reviewers to discuss in more depth.

  1. Appeals

To appeal an editorial decision, contact the Managing Editor and explain your reason(s) for the appeal. When a paper has been revised in response to the review, or when authors appeal against a decision, we ask reviewers to provide follow-up commentary.

All appeals are discussed with the Editors-in-Chief and reviewers assigned to the submission.  In the case of disagreement, THMT may seek external advice on the appeal, but it is most likely the final decision will be left to the Editors-in-Chief.

Only one appeal will be considered. The Editors-in Chief decision will be final.

Please email the managing editor at j.russo@partnersindigitalhealth.com

  1. Journal

To report a complaint against the journal, its staff, or editorial board, please email the publisher at t.cenaj@partnersindigitalhealth.com

The journal will vigorously investigate complaints or misconduct with a timely investigation following COPE guidelines. Corrective action will be taken, noted, and reported on CrossMark.

Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities 

THMT requires all authors, reviewers and editors to declare financial and non-financial relationships and activities to the journal’s editorial office to ensure transparency is maintained. The journal publishes any potential conflicts reported by members on the Journal Relationships & Activities page.

Public trust in the scientific process and credibility of published articles hinges in part, on the transparency and trust publishers and authors are able to insure from collecting and reporting research, to writing research manuscripts, peer review, editing and publication of work. Professional judgements must not be influences by financial gain. Purposeful failure to disclose relationships and activities is a form of misconduct. Authors must disclose all as per journal requirements and forms. The ICMJE has developed a Disclosure Form to facilitate and standardize authors’ disclosures. Authors are required to submit this form when a manuscript is submitted.

Examples include:

  • Involvement in a business (such as ownership, employment, contracting or speaking for) that would financially gain from the publication of the work
  • Rivalry in the same research area
  • Potential career advancement based on the publication of the research
  • Being asked to assess the work of a close colleague or relative for the journal

Predatory or Pseudo Journals

Be aware there are a myriad of entities promoting themselves as "scholarly medical journals," and are not. This is of particular interest to THMT's publisher. See the blog post "It’s Time for an Integrity Throwdown: Conflicts of Interests in Scientific Communications," in THMT's sister journal, Blockchain in Healthcare Today, here. 

Predatory journals do not conduct peer review, are not members of ICMJE, COPE or WAME, and researchers must avoid submitting papers to them. Authors have a responsibility to evaluate a journal's policies, practices, and reputation for integrity. Reviewers must also vet journals they join to perform peer review. Seek the counsel of mentors and colleagues and reach out to journal editorial board members. Conduct proper due diligence. 

New and reputable journals must conquer hurdles that are consistently raised, while legacy publishers continue to flourish. The publisher of THMT asks you vet journals appropriately, and asks fair consideration is given to legitimate emerging entrants that strive to compete in an evolving marketplace. 

Editorial Team and Staff

Issues regarding research integrity and publishing ethics or legal issues relating to the journal may arise pre- or post-publication. The first step for editors and staff members is to discuss an identified issue with journal and staff team members where issues involve legal, defamation, breach of contract, privacy, or copyright infringement. The process for resolution may include: 

  • Seeking guidance or advice from sources such as COPE
  • Involving institutions, employers, or funders to investigate author disputes and alleged misconduct
  • Consult with other journal editors being mindful of confidentiality

Editors or Journal Staff as Authors

Editorial Board Members are required to declare any competing interests and are excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. Where an Editorial Board Member is author they must declare this in the Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities section on the submitted manuscript. If any other competing interests are identified regarding a specific manuscript, another editor will be assigned to assume responsibility of peer review. These submissions undergo the same review process as any other manuscript. The managing editor ensures no editors that are authors of manuscripts are invited to peer review their own manuscript. Beginning January 2023, a statement will be published identifying any THMT editorial team members as authors to confirm no involvement in the editorial review decision of a published manuscript. The statement will be located in the "Conflicts" section of the manuscript at the end of the article and preceding the references section. This includes journal ambassadors. 

If the editor is first author on an accepted manuscript, the student rate APC applies.  Editorial and blogs are published at no charge. The journal editorial board is comprised of volunteers. The journal recognizes their efforts and has chosen to reduce fees in appreciation of the editor’s time.

Intellectual Property

Authors are copyright owners of their articles and retain all rights to IP, patents, and trademarks for their work(s). All rights to the owner of IP, patents and trademarks are retained by the owner. Sharing articles for professional and personal use is strongly encouraged with the scientific community, time stamped on the blockchain for provenance, reproducibility and sharing additional work.

The journal is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The journal APC is $650.00 USD for research articles and $450.00 for currently enrolled students, collected at the galley stage of manuscript production. 

The journal has a waiver policy. Contact the publisher to submit a request.

Only papers related to COVID-19 are considered for pre-publication and will be peer reviewed.

Human and Animal Subjects 

THMT follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors .

When reporting research involving human data, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed have been assessed by the responsible review committee (institutional and national), and/or in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration (revised in 2013). Authors must explain rationale for their approach and demonstrate the institutional review body explicitly approved any doubtful aspects of the study. Approval by a responsible review committee does not preclude editors from forming their own judgment as to whether the conduct of the research was appropriate. Authors must remember to add the trial registration number to the end of the abstract.

For manuscripts reporting experiments on animals, the corresponding author must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The manuscript must include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments, including any relevant details.

The ICMJE Recommendations guide accurate and unbiased reporting of industry-sponsored clinical trial data in medical journals. One update in the current version is:

  • Reporting of trial participants: authors should discuss how representative the study sample is of the larger population of interest; in cases where race or ethnicity data were not collected, authors should explain why not.

Informed Consent

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects, observing privacy rights of human subjects. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent requires an identifiable patient is shown the manuscript to be published. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. If identifying characteristics are de-identified, authors should provide assurance that such changes do not distort scientific meaning.

Diversity Commitment

Partners in Digital Health (PDH) is committed to supporting diversity, inclusion and egalitarianism across scientific and academic communication and in publishing practices.

This belief is reflected in our internal journal practices, editorial and peer review boards, in published content, journal and community outreach and ambassador chapters to demonstrate the portfolio’s integrity, trust and values to communities far and wide in tearing down any barriers and borders relating to knowledge, economics, age, race, gender, geography and political views. The founder and publisher has stated repeatedly since the journal’s inception, “all are welcome to the table.” The journal maintains an objective, unbiased and fair balanced posture at all times. 

Priorities and actions include:

  • Manuscript submission and Authorship 
  • Peer reviewers
  • Editorial and Advisory Board Members
  • ConV2X Conference and Pitch Competition
  • Fees and business model
  • Ambassador Chapters

We encourage all global citizens from all countries to learn, share and participate as equals. 

Collection of Data on Editors, Authors, and Peer Reviewers

The journal does NOT collect information on race and ethnicity and does NOT permit editorial decisions to be influenced by the demographic characteristics of authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, or editors.

We continuously address equity and inclusion in our portfolio in these areas and others as needed, to ensure our ongoing commitment to global equality, diversity and inclusion.

Post publication discussion and corrections

THMT encourages questions and debate post publication. This can be exercised as a letter to the editor, opinion piece to the journal, commentary can be viewed across social media platforms where journal content is posted and shared such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Medium and Substack. Additionally, PubPeer can be used as an external moderated site. For details, see https://pubpeer.com/static/about.

All authors are encouraged to register their article on PubPeer by posting the article DOI number and encouraging commentary. The registration link is: https://pubpeer.com/register

Mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles post publication are made on CrossMark.

Brief journal management policies and teamwork

To maintain editorial independence, the Editors-in-Chief, board members, and the managing editor make editorial decisions, not the journal owner and publisher. If legal or ethical issues arise with regard to an article or the journal, the owner/publisher will engage.

Preprints will be accepted and evaluated as to whether the journal will place the manuscript in peer review. Previous publication as a preprint should be disclosed in the paper.

Article corrections will be made on CrossMark. Retractions will be made on CrossMark.

Expressions of concern should be brought to the attention of EICs, managing editor or publisher as soon as possible to info@partnersindigitalhealth.com and j.russo@partnersindigitalhealth.com

New team members are sent details regarding basic journal workflow and operations, confidentiality, expectations, requirements and links to COPE, ICMJE to further emphasize familiarity with journal operations, workflow, the importance of ethics and peer review.

Journal staff keeps up with industry trends and developments and keeps staff and all editors informed. Staff seeks guidance from its editors and ventures to push boundaries of traditional scholarly publishing.

Social media

The journal is active across a multitude of social media platforms as are editors, authors, and the publisher. THMT encourages high engagement with content, and appreciates open discussion and commentary.

The publisher reserves the right to remove any posts or comments deemed inappropriate. The journal is open access and welcomes appropriate comments to posts across platforms. Foul language, coarse, obscene, or otherwise impolite expressions will be deleted by the publisher.  Additionally:

  • No response will be provided for queries regarding medical direction or advice
  • Maintain HIPAA/GDPR guidelines for privileged content
  • Refrain from posts that spam, solicit, advertise, promote or endorse any cryptocurrency, exchange, drug, health service, political or government organization
  • Conduct due diligence and research when using social media platforms and verify users and information
  • The publisher will block users, ads, companies and content that violate guidelines and misuse the privilege of evidence based scientific and professional communications

Authors are also encouraged to magnify work across their professional networks and cite them accordingly. Authors will be alerted to comments related directly to work by the publisher and will be asked to respond.

Authors and journal ecosystem members are encouraged to join or follow THMT across open access platforms. The journal will post and amplify all articles, podcasts, conference proceedings, editorials, and blog posts across a multitude of social media platforms. This includes but is not limited to updates and news regarding the journal, its annual conference, calls for manuscripts, editors, special issues, market research updates, and news in the field.

The THMT publisher and editors are free to publish relevant content, are encouraged to tag and comment on posts to generate discussion(s); and amplify the journal, its content, relevant news and opinions, and generate additional followers and awareness around the globe.

The journal amplifies work across the platforms below. Follow us and join the global ecosystem including ambassador chapters around the globe.

 YouTube  Podcasts  Facebook  Twitter  Medium  Substack  LinkedIn

Production and platform

Production is outsourced and typically takes 14 days after a manuscript is accepted for publication. If authors are tardy responding to queries it will take longer. Accepted versions may be published in the interim and replaced with the production ready article when available.

The journal platform and workflow is provided by OJS/PKP services and runs on version: Open Journal Systems 3.2

Revenue sources

Revenue Sources may include advertising support for the journal, reprints, article publication fees, special editions, supplements, summits, advisory, roundtable proceedings, or custom projects.  The journal curates an annual Converge2Xcelerate (#ConV2X) conference. Under no circumstance does commercial support impact editorial decisions for journal manuscript review or acceptance.

APC 

THMT’s Article Processing Charge (APC) is $650.00 USD. The APC applies to original research and reviews published in THMT. APC for students currently enrolled at an academic institution is $450.00 USD. There is no charge for editorials, discussions or blogs. Please plan accordingly. 

 If changes are required post publication or requested by the author(s), a flat $300.00 USD fee will be invoiced for revision(s).

Copyright

The journal is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Ownership and management

Partners in Digital Health (PDH), was founded in 2015 and is privately owned and independently operated by Tory Cenaj. Please see correspondence details below to contact the owner for inquiries.

Partners in Digital Health
241 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 21
Stamford, CT 06902, USA
Attention: Tory Cenaj, Owner and Publisher

Email: t.cenaj@partnersindigitalhealth.com