Contents
● Copyright Transfer Agreement
(3) Duplication submission/publication
● Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Expressions of Concern
The Blood and Genomics endorses COPE Guidelines and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
Submission of a manuscript to Blood and Genomics implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal's policies.
Each author must have contributed sufficiently to the intellectual content of the submission. The corresponding author should list all authors and their contributions to the work. If an author is removed from or added to the listed authors after submission, an explanation and a signed statement of agreement confirming the requested change are required from all the initially listed authors and from the author to be removed or added. The corresponding author must confirm that he or she has had full access to the data in the study and final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.
To qualify as a contributing author, one must meet all of the following criteria:
(1) Conceived and/or designed the work that led to the submission, acquired data, and/or played an important role in interpreting the results.
(2) Drafted or revised the manuscript.
(3) Approved the final version.
Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.
Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. For the purposes of this statement, competing interests are defined as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence on behavior or content, or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication.
Authors should state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist in the manuscript on a conflict-of-interest notification page that follows the title page, providing additional detail, if necessary, in a cover letter that accompanies the manuscript.
Editorial Office of Blood and Genomics:
I (we) agree to grant the exclusive license right of the copyright of this paper to the journal of Blood and Genomics. Blood and Genomics has the following exclusive rights to use this paper: the right of compilation (all or in part), the right to print and copy the electronic version, the translation right, the right of Internet communication, the publishing right, and the right to grant inclusion of literature retrieval system or databases. Without written permission of Blood and Genomics, no part of this paper may be compiled, reproduced or published in any form by any other party.
I (we) guarantee that this paper is an original work without multiple contributions, and does not involve confidentiality or other infringements related to intellectual property rights. In case of the above infringements, confidentiality violation and other issues, all responsibilities shall be borne by us. This authorization shall come into effect on the day when this paper is accepted by the Editorial Office of Blood and Genomics, and is valid until December 31 of the 10th year after publication.
1. After reading, please print and sign this transfer agreement, namely "Copyright Transfer Agreement.doc" and send it back to our Editorial Office.
2. The "Copyright Transfer Agreement" must be signed before the article is published. If the Editorial Office has not received the Copyright Transfer Agreement Signed by you and your co-author(s) before the scheduled publication time, the article will not be published.
Click to download: Copyright Transfer Agreement. Docx
All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. On rare occasions, if the editor has serious concerns about the ethics of a study, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds, even if an approval from an ethics committee has been obtained.
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, 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 editors on 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, editors may contact the ethics committee for further information.
If a study has not been submitted to an ethics committee prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review.
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.
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is especially true concerning images of vulnerable people (e.g. minors, patients, refugees, etc.) or the use of images in sensitive contexts. In many instances authors will need to secure written consent before including images.
Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers, biometrical characteristics (such as facial features, fingerprint, writing style, voice pattern, DNA or other distinguishing characteristic) and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent/guardian if the participant is a minor or incapable or legal representative) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases. Detailed descriptions of individual participants, whether of their whole bodies or of body sections, may lead to disclosure of their identity. Under certain circumstances, consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person.
Informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort meaning.
Exceptions where it is not necessary to obtain consent:
(1) Images such as x rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, brain scans, pathology slides unless there is a concern about identifying information in which case, authors should ensure that consent is obtained.
(2) Reuse of images: If images are being reused from prior publications, the publisher will assume that the prior publication obtained the relevant information regarding consent. Authors should provide the appropriate attribution for republished images.
B&G requires investigators to register their clinical trials in a public trials registry for publication of reports of clinical trials. Information on requirements and acceptable registries is available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/.
The trial registration number (TRN) and date of registration should be included in the manuscript. For clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, B&G encourages retrospective registration to ensure the complete publication of all results.
Authors are encouraged to (1) share or make open the data supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper where this does not violate the protection of human subjects or other valid privacy or security concerns; (2) deposit the dataset in a recognized data repository that can mint a persistent digital identifier, preferably a digital object identifier (DOI) and recognizes a long-term preservation plan; (3) cite any datasets referenced in the article and provide related links.
Where one or multiple datasets are associated with a manuscript, these are not formally peer reviewed as a part of the journal submission process. It is the author's responsibility to ensure the soundness of data. Any errors in the data rest solely with the producers of the dataset.
Where community-endorsed mandates exist for submission of data to public repositories, authors should submit the datasets to the appropriate repositories and provide the accession numbers (where available) in the paper. Authors should include a statement in their manuscript about where the data can be found and provide links to the publicly archived datasets. The statement of data availability should explain which additional unpublished data from the study, if any, are available, to whom, and how these can be obtained. These datasets can also be cited in the reference list and this is particularly encouraged when the datasets have a DOI. In cases where authors do not wish to share their data or are unable to do so, they should state that data will not be shared and the reasons why.
Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Review and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript:
(1) Any statement in the manuscript that relies on external sources of information (i.e. not the authors' own new ideas or findings or general knowledge) should use a citation.
(2) Authors should avoid citing derivations of original work. For example, they should cite the original work rather than a review article that cites an original work.
(3) Authors should ensure that their citations are accurate (i.e. they should ensure the citation supports the statement made in their manuscript and should not misrepresent another work by citing it if it does not support the point the authors wish to make).
(4) Authors should not cite sources that they have not read.
(5) Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends', peers', or institution's publications.
(6) Authors should avoid citing work solely from one country.
(7) Authors should not use an excessive number of citations to support one point.
(8) Ideally, authors should cite sources that have undergone peer review where possible.
(9) Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
Plagiarism 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. Any manuscript found to contain plagiarized material will not be considered for publication.
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. Authors must also ensure that re-use is compliant with copyright policies. B&G will deal with cases of self-plagiarism according to COPE guidelines.
● Duplication submission/publication
Any manuscript submitted to B&G must be original and the manuscript, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journal. In any case where there is the potential for overlap or duplication we require that authors are transparent. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission. Any overlapping publications should be cited. Any 'in press' or unpublished manuscript cited, or relevant to the editor's and reviewers' assessment of the manuscript, should be made available if requested by the editor. The B&G reserves the right to judge potentially overlapping or redundant publications on a case-by-case basis.
Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Expressions of Concern
Rarely, it may be necessary for B&G to publish corrections to, or retractions of, articles published in its journals, so as to maintain the integrity of the academic record.
Changes to published articles that affect the interpretation and conclusion of the article, but do not fully invalidate the article, will, at the editor's discretion, be corrected via publication of an Erratum that is indexed and linked to the original article.
On rare occasions, when the scientific information in an article is substantially undermined, it may be necessary for published articles to be retracted. The B&G will follow the COPE guidelines in such cases. Retraction articles are indexed and linked to the original article.
● Editorial expressions of concern
When an editor becomes aware of serious concerns regarding interpretation or conclusion of a published article, they may choose to publish a statement alerting the readership. Scenarios in which Editorial Expressions of Concern may be published include prolonged investigations of very complex cases and when the concerns may have a significant and immediate impact on public health or public policy. An Editorial Expression of Concern may be superseded by a subsequent Correction or Retraction, but will remain part of the permanent published record.
The Blood and Genomics follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal's editorial management of the peer review process.
Complaints about our processes or about publication ethics will in the first instance be handled by the editor responsible for the journal. If the editor is the subject of the complaint, please approach the editorial management team by email to editorial_office@apjbg.com.
I want to appeal an editorial decision
If you wish to appeal a journal editor's decision, please submit an appeal letter to editorial_office@apjbg.com. Please explain clearly the basis for an appeal. You should:
(1) detail why you disagree with the decision. Please provide specific responses to any of the editor's and/or reviewers' comments that contributed to the reject decision.
(2) provide any new information or data that you would like the journal to take into consideration.
(3) provide evidence if you believe a reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of your manuscript.
(4) include evidence if you believe a reviewer may have a conflict of interest.
After receiving the appeal, editors may involve any associate editors who handled the peer review of the original submission, depending on the nature of the appeal. Editors may confirm their decision to reject the manuscript, invite a revised manuscript, or seek additional peer- or statistical review of the original manuscript.
Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions on appeals are final. The timely review and decision-making process for new submissions will take precedence over appeals.
I want to comment on the editorial management of a journal
If you wish to comment on aspects of the journal's editorial management, please submit an email to editorial_office@apjbg.com.
It is important to note that B&G cannot consider appeals where the subject matter is the focus of on-going legal proceedings. Similarly, we reserve the right to decline, suspend or to discontinue an appeal made under this policy in the event that legal proceedings commence, and the claim concerns the same subject matter as the appeal.
