EDITORIAL POLICIES

1. AUTHORSHIP

Foundation University Medical Journal strongly encourages all authors to maintain clear transparency and accurate attribution of authorship. All authors must give consent to be listed on the submitted paper. For the said purpose, every author must read and sign the author declaration and conflict of interest statement form available on the Journal website. (See Appendix-D for Authorship and Declaration of Conflict-of-Interest Form)

All authors listed on a submission must have given prior approval to have their name attributed to the file(s) that are being submitted and agree to the publication. The corresponding author has the responsibility to ensure that all authors qualify for, and have agreed to authorship of the submission. They are also responsible for informing all co-authors of relevant editorial information during the review process.

Our recommendations are based on the ICMJE Authorship Criteria. Authors must have:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

Final approval of the version to be published; AND

Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

2-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a university dean or department head/chair who provided only general support.

2.1 Third-Party Submissions

Foundation University Medical Journal does not accept third-party submissions on behalf of the authors. The manuscript must be submitted by the corresponding author.

2.2 Writing Assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g., from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

It is not necessary to disclose the use of language polishing services.

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article before your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

3. PEER REVIEW POLICY

All manuscripts submitted to FUMJ initially undergo internal peer review. A manuscript not found suitable for publication as regards to the topic or poor writing is likely to be rejected on the internal peer review. After in-house peer review, the manuscript is sent for external peer reviews. This usually involves a review by two independent peer reviewers.

The journal follows a double-blind peer-review process where neither the author nor the reviewer gets to know the identity of each other. This is ensured by masking the front-page file, having author details, from the reviewers.

Where an editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. Submissions felt to be suitable for consideration will be sent for peer review by appropriate independent experts identified by the Editor. Editors will make a decision based on the reviewers’ reports and authors are sent these reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected.

Authors may suggest potential reviewers if they wish; however, whether or not to consider these reviewers is at the Editor's discretion. Authors should not suggest recent collaborators or colleagues who work in the same institution as themselves. Authors who wish to suggest peer reviewers can do so in the cover letter and should provide institutional email addresses where possible, or information that will help the Editor verify the identity of the reviewer (for example an ORCID or Scopus ID).

Authors may request the exclusion of individuals as peer reviewers, but they should explain the reasons in their cover letter on submission. Authors should not exclude too many individuals as this may hinder the peer review process. Please note that the Editor may choose to invite excluded peer reviewers.

Intentionally falsifying information, for example, suggesting reviewers with a false name or email address, will result in rejection of the manuscript and may lead to further investigation in line with our misconduct policy.

4. ETHICS AND CONSENT
4.1 Ethical Approval
Research involving human participants, human material, or human data, must have been performed following the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption). Further information and documentation to support this should be made available to the Editor upon request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for further information.

4.2 Retrospective Ethics Approval
If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval before commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained, and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.

4.3 New Clinical Tools and Procedures
Authors reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting, for example as a technical advance or case report, must give a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new procedure or tool was deemed more appropriate than usual clinical practice to meet the patient’s clinical need. Such justification is not required if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors’ institution. Authors will be expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent before treatment.

4.4 Consent to Participate
For all research involving human participants, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. For manuscripts reporting studies involving vulnerable groups (for example, unconscious patients) where there is the potential for coercion (for example prisoners) or where consent may not have been fully informed, manuscripts will be considered at the editor’s discretion and may be referred to an internal editorial oversight group for further scrutiny. Consent must be obtained for all forms of personally identifiable data including biomedical, clinical, and biometric data. In the case of articles describing human transplantation studies, authors must include a statement declaring that no organs/tissues were obtained from prisoners and must also name the institution(s)/ clinic(s)/department(s) via which organs/tissues were obtained. Documentary evidence of consent must be supplied if requested.

4.5 Consent for Publication
For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to a person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (such that they will be freely available on the internet). If the person has died, consent for publication must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was obtained.

Authors can use a consent form from their institution or region if appropriate. The consent form must state that the details/images/videos will be freely available on the internet and may be seen by the general public. The consent form must be made available to the Editor if requested and will be treated confidentially.

In cases where images are entirely unidentifiable and there are no details on individuals reported within the manuscript, consent for publication of images may not be required. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.

5. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

For Randomized Controlled Trails, authors are strongly encouraged to follow ICMJE guidelines.
FUMJ will only consider the results of such trials which followed these guidelines.
The ICMJE uses the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a clinical trial, which is "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes". This definition includes phase I to IV trials. The ICMJE defines health-related interventions as "any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome" and health-related outcomes as "any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants". Authors who are unsure whether their trial needs registering should consult the ICMJE FAQs for further information.

All interventional trials must be registered at or before enrollment of the first participant. Trial registration records must be available in a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, on ClinicalTrials.gov, or in any publicly accessible database that meets the minimum 24-item trial registration dataset (Click Here).

The trial number must be indicated in the abstract and methods section of the manuscript. Trials with retrospective registration or with registration in a database that is not publicly accessible cannot be considered.

6. DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Foundation University Medical Journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors about their work. All submitted manuscripts must include a 'Disclosure' and ‘Conflict of Interests’ section at the end of the manuscript after any acknowledgements and before the references. If no conflict exists, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’ For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

6.1 What Constitutes a Conflict of Interest?

Conflict of interests may be financial or non-financial. A conflict of interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by, or maybe perceived to be influenced by, their personal or financial relationship with other people or

organizations. Authors should disclose any financial conflict of interests but also any non-financial conflict of interests that may cause them embarrassment if they were to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

A. Financial Conflict of Interests

Financial conflict of interests includes (but is not limited to) (A). Receiving reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of the manuscript, either now or in the future, (B). Holding stocks or shares in an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of the manuscript, either now or in the future, (C). Holding, or currently applying for, patents relating to the content of the manuscript, (D). Receiving reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript.
B. Non-financial Conflict of Interests
Non-financial conflict of interests includes (but is not limited to) political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests. If, after reading these guidelines, you are unsure whether you have a conflict of interest, please contact fumj@fui.edu.pk

7. COPYRIGHT POLICY

Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. A copyright gives exclusive rights to persons who create original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and other intellectual works. Usually, for authors, it will be figures or photos/images and tables. If you want to include an image in your manuscript that you have not created, it is likely to come under copyright. If you do not have the consent of the copyright holder, it is illegal to; copy the work, adapt the work, rent, lend or provide copies of the work to the public, and perform, broadcast, or show the work in public.

When submitting your manuscripts at FUMJ, you are allowed to include copyrighted work in your work if you obtain permission from the copyright holder. For that, you will need to get in touch with the Publisher of the work to do this. If the Publisher cannot give direct permission, they should know who you will need to contact. You should obtain written permission, even if the copyright holder is personally known to you, as this will avoid any future disputes. Please note that the editorial team will routinely check that copyright permission has been granted for figures or photos and may ask for evidence/ proof if needed.

Permission is required for (A). Your works were published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright, (B). Substantial extracts from anyone's works or a series of works, (C). Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified, Photographs for which you do not hold the copyright.
Permission is not required for (A). Reconstruction of your table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case, you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...", (B). Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission, (C). Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.

To avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. If in any doubt about the copyright, apply for permission or contact the editorial office for assistance. FUMJ does not publish material from other publications without permission.

The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgement to be followed; otherwise, follow the style: "Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].' at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.

7.1 Copyright at FUMJ

For all articles published in FUMJ, copyright is retained by the author(s). This means that the author has full control over the work (e.g., retains the right to reuse, distribute, republish etc.). In this context, the author will often license the right of first publication to the journal. Authors grant FUMJ to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) license and identify itself as the original publisher. With each accepted article, the following note will be attached: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. All copyrights © are reserved with the author(s) under (CC BY-NC 4.0). Foundation University Medical Journal (FUMJ) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal that allows free access to its published articles, in addition, to copying and use for research and academic purposes; provided the article is correctly cited. FUMJ does not allow commercial use of any article published in FUMJ. All articles published represent the view of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of FUMJ.

8. SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT POLICY

Foundation University Medical Journal makes every effort to ensure the highest standards in publication ethics are upheld and takes all forms of misconduct seriously. FUMJ will take all necessary action per HEC Pakistan, ICMJE, WAME and COPE Guidelines, to protect the integrity of the scholarly record. Authors should be aware of misconduct issues before submitting articles for publication. Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to):

8.1 Plagiarism Policy

This applies to data, images, words or ideas taken from any materials in electronic or print formats without sufficient attribution. This can include abstracts, seminar presentations, laboratory reports, thesis or dissertation, research proposals, computer programs, online posts, grey literature and unpublished or published manuscripts. The use of any such material either directly or indirectly should be properly acknowledged in all instances and the source of content must always be cited.

Foundation University Medical Journal uses Turnitin plagiarism detection software to screen all submitted manuscripts and will deal with cases of plagiarism according to Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan Policies and COPE guidelines. FUMJ has a zero-tolerance policy on the Plagiarism issue.

As per HEC policy, all manuscripts are checked for similarity index if it exceeds the limit ≥ 20% and would be returned for correction. Any disputes are considered on merit and the editorial board decides the issue after looking at all the pertinent facts. FUMJ aims to have the manuscript at ≤ 19% Similarity Index Report.

Authors are strongly advised to go through these important links from HEC Pakistan on Plagiarism and Turnitin Originality Report:
http://hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/Plagiarism/Pages/default.aspx

How to Interpret Originality Report (Guidelines) (http://fui.edu.pk/fjs/files/how-to-interpret-originality-report.pdf)

Guidelines on 'Ethics of Using Turnitin' for Administrators (http://fui.edu.pk/fjs/files/guidelines-on-ethics-of-using-turnitin-for-administrators.pdf)

Guidelines on 'Ethics of Using Turnitin' for Instructors (http://fui.edu.pk/fjs/files/guidelines-on-ethics-of-using-turnitin-for-instructors.pdf)

HEC Plagiarism Policy (http://fui.edu.pk/fjs/files/hec-plagiarism-policy.pdf)

Plagiarism Little Book (http://fui.edu.pk/fjs/files/plagiarism-little-book.pdf)

8.2 Duplicate Submission/ Publication
Authors are required to declare upon submission that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere, and as such the detection of a duplicate submission or publication is typically considered to be a deliberate act. This includes articles previously published in another language. For acceptable forms of secondary submissions or publications (e.g. an article translated into English), per ICMJE guidance, authors must seek permission from the publisher and copyright holder of the original article and must inform the Editor of the receiving journal about the history of the original article. It must also be made clear to readers that the article is a translated version, with a citation provided to the original article.

Foundation University Medical Journal will accept unpublished work from an author’s thesis; however, the thesis must be acknowledged as the source of the work and adequately cited within the manuscript. It is advised the submitted manuscript contains unique aspects not included in the thesis. If work from a thesis has already been published this will not be considered original work and will not be considered for publication. Please refer to COPE's guidelines for more details regarding the publication of theses.

If you have uploaded your manuscript to a non-commercial preprint server, you may still submit the manuscript to a FUMJ. We do not consider posting on a preprint server to be a duplicate publication and this will not jeopardize consideration for publication.

If you have posted your manuscript to a preprint server, we ask that, upon acceptance, you acknowledge that the article has been accepted for publication as follows:

“This article has been accepted for publication in [JOURNAL TITLE], published by Foundation University Islamabad.”
After publication, please update your preprint, adding the following text to encourage others to read and cite the final published version of your article:

“This is an original manuscript of an article published by Foundation University Islamabad in [JOURNAL TITLE] on [date of publication], available online: https://doi.org/ 10.33897/[Article DOI].”

8.3 Text-Recycling/Self-Plagiarism

Although authors are expected to refer to their own previously published work, in some cases the re-use of large proportions of previous work is considered unacceptable. Where this is unavoidable authors must be transparent about their previously published work by providing appropriate citations. Authors must also ensure that re-use is compliant with copyright policies. FUMJ will deal with cases of text recycling according to COPE guidelines.

8.4 Authorship

Authors are required to give an honest account of authorship, where each listed author meets the authorship criteria to provide transparency and credit to those who have substantially contributed to the work. However, where authors have deliberately not complied with this requirement it will be considered a form of misconduct. Of particular concern are:
‘Ghost authorship’ - where an author(s) has substantially contributed to the work but has not been given credit. This also impacts transparency as any competing interests of a ‘ghost author’ will not be declared.

‘Gift authorship’- where a listed author(s) has not contributed substantially, or at all to the published work.

‘Authorship for sale’- where authors have ‘sold’ an author spot on a paper, or where a researcher has ‘bought’ an authorship spot on a paper.

FUMJ will deal with authorship misconduct according to COPE guidelines. In some instances, FUMJ may be required to defer cases to the author's institution(s) for adjudication.

8.5 Affiliation Misrepresentation

Affiliations must be an accurate reflection of where the study was approved and/or supported and/or conducted. For non-research articles, the affiliation should be listed as the place the author(s) was based at the time of submission. Misrepresentation of affiliation is a form of misconduct and FUMJ will deal with such cases by contacting all relevant institutions to assist with our investigation.

8.6 Undisclosed Competing Interests

A competing interest has the potential to influence or bias someone’s judgments or views. They arise when a personal judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patient welfare or research results) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Misconduct occurs when an author, editor or reviewer does not declare relevant competing interests, which can be perceived to influence their opinion of or assessment of research or non-research article. Editors and reviewers should recuse themselves from any kind of involvement with submissions they have a competing interest against. FUMJ will not consider manuscripts that are suspected of having an undisclosed competing interest.

8.7 Image Manipulation

Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate an image. This is a serious form of misconduct as is designed to mislead others and damages the integrity of the scholarly record with wide-reaching and long-term consequences.

Foundation University Medical Journal expects all images contained within manuscripts to be accurate and free from manipulation. Specific features within an image may not be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed or introduced without adequate notification of what the alteration is. Adjustments to the brightness, contrast or color balance of an image are acceptable if they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent information present in the original. Grouping images from different parts of gels, western blots or microscope images must be made explicit in the arrangement of the figure or the text of the figure legend.
If the original, unedited images cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or paper may be declined or retracted.

8.8 Data Falsification/Fabrication

Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate data. This is considered a serious form of misconduct and is designed to mislead others and damage the integrity of the scholarly record with wide-reaching and long-term consequences.

When submitting a manuscript to FUMJ, authors must ensure all data contained within their manuscript is accurate and correctly represents their work. To help assist FUMJ with manuscript evaluation, authors are expected to retain all raw data represented in their manuscripts.

If the original data cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or published paper may be declined or retracted.

8.9 Peer Review Manipulation

Where authors or agencies submitting on behalf of authors take deliberate steps to influence the peer review process in their favor, or where editors make decisions based on biased peer review reports. Where there is evidence to suggest that the integrity of the peer-review process has been compromised, necessary action will be taken to correct the scholarly record.

In very rare instances peer reviewers may appropriate the work they were assigned to review. FUMJ recognizes the damage such actions would cause to the peer-review process. All peer reviewers at FUMJ are advised to read and consider the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers before accepting to review a manuscript and are expected to treat any article and associated materials received in the course of the review as confidential. Any reviewer found to have committed misconduct by appropriating the work of others will be permanently removed from the peer review database and reported to their institution.

8.10 Citation Manipulation
Where authors excessively and inappropriately self-cite or enter into prearrangements among author groups to inappropriately cite each other's work or where editors or reviewers coerce authors to cite papers from their own previously published papers, or from specific journals, without due justification as to why those papers are necessary to cite.

8.11 Unethical Research
Where research fails to comply with the relevant and approved local, national, or international legislative and regulatory requirements or where researchers have not taken sufficient steps to protect the safety and privacy of human subjects or the welfare of animals used in the research.

Foundation University Medical Journal takes its role in ensuring all publications meet ethical requirements seriously. Manuscripts will not be considered for publication where evidence exists that a study was not suitably approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or ethics committee. Similarly, submissions will not be considered where concerns are raised by the journal editors or peer reviewers over a lack of patient consent, improper patient identification protection or a lack of animal ethical approval.

8.12 “Ethics Dumping”
Where researchers leading a study deliberately set up collaborations in regions where participant recruitment and study interventions can circumvent international standards of research ethics oversight.

8.13 Breaches in Copyright/Use of Third-Party Material Without Permission
Where authors have included material, which is under copyright and has not obtained the appropriate permissions as instructed by the copyright holders.

Should an author wish to complain about an editorial decision or the editorial process in general they should first approach the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, explain their complaint and ask for a reasoned response. Should this not be forthcoming or adequate, the author should raise the matter with the publisher, who will investigate the nature of the complaint and act as arbiter on whether the complaint should be upheld and investigated further. This will follow guidelines set out by COPE.

9. WITHDRAWAL POLICY

Authors can withdraw their manuscript at any stage of the evaluation process, including the editorial evaluation and the peer-review stages, and even in the publication process after acceptance. Given the significant time and effort, editors and reviewers invest in the process, an early request for withdrawal will relatively facilitate its acceptance. If the authors want to withdraw the manuscript during its evaluation stage, an email must be sent notifying them as to their intention, to the effect that the manuscript withdrawal form will be emailed for the signatures of all the authors. This needs to be completed, scanned, and sent back. The editor will review the request/reason stated in the form and respond in writing explaining the result of his/her evaluation of the request. Authors should not assume to have withdrawn their manuscript until they receive a response from the editor. Any attempts (such as submitting the manuscript to another journal) before receiving the response of the editor can lead to serious ethical issues and sanctions. A final email from the editorial office for withdrawal of the manuscript will then be dispatched. Electronic signatures will not be accepted.
Sometimes after an article has been published it may be necessary to make a change to its final edited version. This will be done after careful consideration by the Editor who is also supported by FUMJ staff to ensure any necessary changes are done per guidance from the COPE. Any necessary changes will be accompanied by a permanent post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article.

Following guidelines from the COPE, Foundation University Medical Journal handles different kinds of errors in the following ways:

Amendment

Correction article

Retraction article

Removal or Withdrawal
To minimize requests for post-publication edits:
Editors should ensure that the author(s) has been allowed to sign off their final draft & metadata before the files are sent to typesetting. It should be made clear that future edits will not be possible

Editors should also give the final draft & metadata a thorough read through before sending it to be typesetting to make sure that they are happy with the content

All articles will have had their PDF proofs checked by the author or editor before publication. This is a final chance to catch layout errors and minor editorial issues such as typos. This is not an opportunity for wider content editing

Please contact the editorial office if you believe that an article needs correcting. We reserve the right to decide what constitutes a minor or major issue and whether an amendment or correction article is necessary.

9.1 Amendment

For very minor content or metadata issues, FUMJ may directly amend the article (both PDF and HTML) if the error is reported very soon after publication (normally < 48h) and the publication has not yet been sent out for indexing.

In-line amendments are strictly limited to only obvious and small mistakes. Corrections relating to the scientific content or other major metadata issues (e.g., a change in authorship) will require a formal correction to be published. Should an in-line amendment be made then a note may also be added to the publication to alert readers to this fact.

To avoid multiple versions of the same publication being circulated, should a publication have already been sent out to indexing services then in-line edits will not be permitted.

9.2 Correction Article

After an article has been published it will immediately be available to the public. Shortly after publication, we will also send the publication information and files to multiple indexes to aid this dissemination. Once this indexing process has begun (usually within a day or so of publication), all corrections must be released as a separate publication, linked to the original. This ensures that the integrity and transparency of the academic record are maintained.

A Correction notice will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission which can impact the interpretation of the article, but where the scholarly integrity of the article remains intact. Examples include mis-labelling of a figure, missing information on funding or competing interests of the authors. FUMJ utilizes two types of correction notice; a Corrigendum will typically be issued for errors introduced by the authors, whereas an Erratum is typically issued for errors introduced by the publisher.

9.3 Retraction Article

Retractions are used to remove a published paper from the scientific record. Following the COPE guidance, retractions are used when:

Editors have clear evidence that the article’s findings are unreliable, either because of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error)

The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e., cases of redundant/duplicate publication)

Article publication constitutes plagiarism

The article reports unethical research

Retraction articles will be drafted and posted in the same way as correction articles and with the editors’ approval. The original article is watermarked as retracted, and the title is amended with the prefix “Retracted article:”

FUMJ recognizes the purpose of a retraction is to correct the literature and ensure the integrity of the publication record. They are not intended as a means of punishment for authors.

Retractions will not normally be issued to resolve authorship disputes. The preferred option in this situation is to issue a corrigendum. This is provided with the authors can justify the change in authorship, and this usually requires the support of their respective institutions.

9.4 Removal or Withdrawal

A Removal notice will be issued in very rare circumstances where the problems cannot be addressed by a Retraction or Correction notice. Examples include where the content in the article is defamatory or infringes on other legal rights or is subject to a court order. In the rare case of an article being removed from FUMJ Online, a removal notice will be issued in its place.

9.5 Exceptions

In some cases, legal or privacy issues may lead to exceptions to the above processes. Such examples will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with standard processes followed as much as possible.