Publication ethics

JCI Insight is committed to fair and ethical consideration of all articles and authors. Here, we outline the responsibilities of authors, editors, and reviewers, and provide additional ethics guidelines. The journal takes all publishing behavior violations seriously, and suspected cases will be fully reviewed. Please contact editors@insight.jci.org if you have specific concerns.

Revised January 2, 2019 | Revision history

 

Editors and editor responsibilities

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Manuscripts submitted to JCI Insight are adjudicated by a board of academic and professional editors. Questions concerning editorial policies or decisions should be addressed to the Editors at editors@insight.jci.org

The Editors are responsible for maintaining the highest possible standards in evaluating contributions to JCI Insight, as well as for maintaining the integrity of the Journal. The Editors select manuscripts for publication solely based on the scientific merit of the work and relevance to the scope of the journal, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, or institutional affiliation. The Editors treat the content of manuscripts as privileged information and will only disclose information about a submission to relevant reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher as necessary. Correspondence from the editors regarding decisions and other editorial matters will be directed to the designated corresponding author.

In the interest of establishing full transparency, editors are obliged to disclose any and all potential conflicts of interest to JCI Insight. We have determined two tiers of potential conflict and corresponding actions to be taken. The editors will report changes to their potential conflicts as they occur. An annual formal review of all disclosures will be performed in the evaluation of compliance.

First tier of potential conflicts for editors

  1. Ownership. If an editor currently has direct ownership of equity in a private or public company in the health care field of $10,000 or more (including restricted stock; the market price of all options, vested or unvested; and warrants), a first-tier potential conflict must be declared. Interests held by immediate family members (spouse or children) of the editor are included. This does not apply to ownership of mutual funds, where the editor does not directly control the purchase and sale of stocks
  2. Income. If an editor has received $10,000 or more per annum of income from any single private or public company in the health care field in the preceding calendar year, a first-tier potential conflict must be declared. This includes any and all sources of financial benefit, including, but not limited to, consultancy, speaking fees, royalties, licensing fees, retainers, salary (including deferred compensation), honoraria, service on advisory boards, and providing testimony as an expert witness. Income generated by immediate family members (spouse or children) of the editor is included.
  3. Research support. If an editor’s research was funded by $50,000 or more per annum from a private or public company in the health care field in the preceding fiscal year, including funding for personnel working within the laboratory, a first-tier potential conflict must be declared.

If an editor declares a first-tier potential conflict relating to 1, 2, or 3, this information will be published on the JCI Insight website, and the editor will be recused from editorial discussion and decisions related to the manuscript. An editor will be considered to be in conflict if a manuscript is funded solely by an organization with which the editor has a potential conflict, regardless of whether a research institution employs the authors.

Second tier of potential conflicts for editors

  1. Relationship with a company. If an editor had a relationship with a private or public company in the health care field wherein the editor received some compensation for services, but the total amount of income was between $1,000 and $9,999 for the preceding calendar year, a second-tier potential conflict must be disclosed. This includes, but is not limited to, any compensation as detailed above in item 2.
  2. Relatives. If an editor has a close relative other than a spouse or child (sibling or parent) employed by or with a significant financial interest in a private or public company in the health care field, a second-tier potential conflict must be declared.
  3. Prospective employment. If an Editor is negotiating with, has arranged prospective employment with, or is expected to initiate a significant financial relationship as defined in 1, 2, or 3 with a private or public company in the health care field, a second-tier potential conflict must be declared.
  4. Personal. Editors will be required to declare a second-tier potential conflict if a manuscript is submitted by a close personal contact (for example, former student, fellow, or mentor) or a recent collaborator (over the last 3 years). Relevant collaborations may include co-authoring a research article or serving as co-investigators on a grant.
  5. Competition. Editors will be required to declare a second-tier potential conflict if a submitted manuscript presents data that are highly relevant to a manuscript the editor has under review or in press elsewhere. Editors are prohibited from using unpublished information from the manuscripts under consideration by JCI Insight to further their own research, nor can they use new information gained from unpublished manuscripts for financial gain.
  6. Personal benefit. The editor must recuse himself/herself from discussion of a manuscript if he or she could benefit personally from its disposition. For example, if a manuscript is submitted describing the off-label use of a compound produced by a company for which an editor has a potential conflict, the editor must recuse himself/herself.
  7. Intellectual property. The editor must recuse himself/herself from discussion of a manuscript if he or she has a planned, pending, or awarded patent that could be positively or negatively impacted by the publication of a manuscript under consideration.
  8. Institutional conflict. Academic editors will be blinded to and recused from editorial decisions on manuscripts with any authors from his/her academic institution Institutional conflict. Academic editors will be blinded to and recused from editorial decisions on manuscripts with any authors from his/her academic institution.

The second tier of potential conflicts will necessitate only internal disclosure to the Editors and the JCI Insight staff. The editor in potential conflict will also be recused from editorial discussion and decisions related to the manuscript.

Authors and author responsibilities

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The corresponding author is responsible for warranting that the data in the manuscript are original, scientifically accurate, and not under consideration by any other journal. The corresponding author must also ensure that the manuscript is not defamatory, does not invade any right of privacy, and does not infringe on any proprietary right or copyright. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors listed on the manuscript have agreed to the content of the article and order of authorship listed and that all authors have agreed to participate in the peer review process.

Any revisions to the list of authors (i.e., adding or removing authors or changing their order) requires submission of written approval (email is sufficient) from each author of the manuscript. JCI Insight does not make determinations of authorship, but all authors must have significantly contributed to the research design, data generation, analysis, and/or interpretation of the findings. Submitted manuscripts must include a paragraph specifying each author’s role.

Authors are obliged to notify the Editorial office about substantive errors or the possibility of malpractice discovered at any time during the evaluation of the manuscript or after acceptance or publication.

Authors should appropriately cite relevant work of others and articles that influenced the submitted work. Funding for the submitted research studies should be listed in the Acknowledgments section for Research and Technical Advance articles and in the Abstract for Clinical Medicine submissions.

Publication fee. Authors will be assessed a $3650 article publication charge if the manuscript is accepted for publication in JCI Insight. This charge supports immediate free access to the manuscript upon publication and helps offset editing and production costs.

All authors are expected to disclose financial relationships, consultancies, stock or equity interests, patent-licensing arrangements, or any other interest of a financial nature, whether or not directly related to the subject material of the study, since it could undermine the objectivity, integrity, or perceived value of the publication.

Such potential conflicts will be published in a footnote if the manuscript is ultimately accepted. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to gather the list of potential conflicts from each author and to communicate the list of all potential conflicts to the editors with the submission.

Potential conflicts to be disclosed by authors

  1. Ownership. If an author currently has direct ownership of equity in a private or public company in the health care field of $10,000 or more (including restricted stock; the market price of all options, vested or unvested; and warrants), a first-tier potential conflict must be declared. Interests held by immediate family members (spouse or children) of the author are included. This does not apply to ownership of mutual funds, where the author does not directly control the purchase and sale of stocks.
  2. Income. If an author has received $10,000 or more of income per annum from any single private or public company in the health care field in the calendar year preceding the date of the original submission, a potential conflict must be declared. This includes any and all sources of financial benefit, including, but not limited to, consultancy, speaking fees, royalties, licensing fees, retainers, salary (including deferred compensation), honoraria, service on advisory boards, and providing testimony as an expert witness. Income generated by immediate family members (spouse or children) of the author is included.
  3. Research support. If an author’s research was funded by $50,000 or more per annum from a private or public company in the health care field in the fiscal year preceding the date of the original submission, including funding for personnel working within the laboratory, a potential conflict must be declared.
  4. Intellectual property. If an author is an inventor on a planned, pending, or awarded patent, a potential conflict must be declared.

Peer review process

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All articles published in the Research, Clinical Medicine, Technical Advance, and Review categories are peer reviewed. Newly submitted manuscripts are assigned to members of the Editorial Board, who will determine whether a manuscript is sent for external review. The editor may seek the advice of a member of the journal's consulting editorial board or other scientists with expertise in the field prior to making this initial decision. The necessary criteria for sending a manuscript for external review are that the work is technically well executed and the findings advance the field, are of clinical relevance, and are of sufficient interest for the readership. The studies should include a relevant in vivo model and/or a primary human cell or tissue model. When papers are sent for external review, the choice of reviewers is made by the editor and may include reviewers suggested by the authors. Requests by authors to exclude two specific potential reviewers will be honored to the greatest extent possible. At least two, and generally three, expert referees are asked to review the manuscript in a timely manner and to assign a priority based on content, quality, and relevance. Reviewers should also indicate if they are aware of relevant published work that is not yet cited. Reviewers and editors are directed to treat all manuscripts with confidentiality as described in Editors and editorial responsibilities and Reviewers and reviewer responsibilities. The corresponding author is informed of the final decision by e-mail, with applicable comments from reviewers and editors included.

ASCI members. Any dues-paying ASCI member who is a corresponding author of a first-round submission to JCI Insight, and whose dues are current, may designate up to three submissions per calendar year to be guaranteed for external peer review. Submissions using the guaranteed review must fit within the scope of the journal and will be held to the same standard for publication as other manuscripts considered by the Editors. Previously submitted manuscripts are not eligible for guaranteed external review. Upon submission of a manuscript, eligible ASCI members who have not yet used this option for the calendar year will receive an e-mail notification that the option is available and must respond within 2 days to elect this option.

Reviewer rewards. Frequent reviewers are provided the opportunity to submit a new manuscript, as corresponding author, with a guarantee of external review. The Reviewer Reward is granted in January to reviewers who have completed on-time reviews for at least 3 separate manuscripts within the preceding 18 months. Only 1 reward may be used per calendar year. Submissions using the reward must fit within the scope of the journal and will be held to the same standard for publication as other manuscripts considered by the Editorial Board. Note: ASCI members whose dues are current receive a separate benefit for guaranteed external review and may not earn Reviewer Rewards in addition.

Reviewer responsibilities

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The peer-review process rests on the assumption that an assigned reviewer will treat all manuscripts as privileged information. A reviewer may request advice from another party, subject to the general principle of confidentiality and prior notification to JCI Insight. The contents of unpublished manuscripts that are disclosed as part of the peer review process may not be used for the reviewer’s research.

Referees should exclude themselves in cases where there is a potential financial, personal, or scientific conflict of interest. Referees must inform the editors of any potential conflicts that might be perceived as relevant as early as possible following invitation to participate in the review so that the Editors may determine how to proceed. Referees must disclose to the editors conflicts relevant to the manuscript as follows:

  1. The reviewer has ownership in or income from a private or public company that has provided funding for the study or has a competing interest that could be positively or negatively impacted by the publication of a manuscript under consideration.
  2. A close personal contact (former student, fellow or mentor, relative for example) or a recent collaborator (within the last 3 years) is on the author list. Relevant collaborations may include co-authoring a research article or serving as co-investigators on a grant.
  3. Any authors from the reviewer’s academic institution.
  4. Known negotiations or pending prospective employment offers that would create an institutional conflict.
  5. The manuscript contains data highly related to the reviewer’s ongoing or submitted research studies.
  6. The reviewer has a planned, pending, or awarded patent that could be positively or negatively impacted by the publication of a manuscript under consideration.

Scientific integrity and publication ethics

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In general, JCI Insight adheres to guidelines established by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity. For further information, refer to the Office’s website at http://ori.hhs.gov/.

The journal is committed to upholding the highest integrity standards in publications and evaluates submissions for potential misconduct violations, including data falsification and plagiarism. If the editors detect any manipulation of images or figures prior to publication, the editors will automatically request all primary data for all figures for verification purposes. The journal will not knowingly publish articles with misconduct or encourage misconduct in any way.

If the editors discover or are presented with evidence of duplicate publication or scientific misconduct in published articles, the editors will contact the appropriate official(s) at the institution(s) from which the manuscript originated. It is then left to the institution(s) in question to pursue the matter appropriately. Depending upon the circumstances, the journal may choose to publish errata, corrigenda, or expressions of concern, or to retract the manuscript in its entirety.

Copyright and access

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Authors associated with a submission are sent an e-mail requesting assignment of copyright to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) prior to publication. A CC-BY license can be provided upon request for authors with funding sources that mandate its use (e.g., Wellcome Trust and HHMI), and the ASCI will ensure that these articles are published according to the funding agency’s policy.

All articles published in JCI Insight are freely available from the moment of publication on insight.jci.org.

JCI Insight is indexed in the following resources:

Archiving

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JCI Insight deposits all articles in PubMed Central. Authors of articles published in JCI Insight do not need to submit their accepted articles separately to PubMed Central. This satisfies the NIH Public Access Policy and other similar funder requirements.

Ownership and management

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JCI Insight is owned, published, and managed by the ASCI, a nonprofit honor organization of physician-scientists incorporated in 1908.

Publishing schedule

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JCI Insight publishes two issues per month. Accepted manuscripts are generally published within 6–8 weeks of acceptance. Authors will be notified of scheduled publication timing upon receipt of the article proof. In addition, corresponding authors are provided the option to publish a PDF of the accepted research paper as an In-Press Preview on the JCI Insight website prior to copyediting and layout. This version is replaced upon finalization of copyediting, layout, and author proofing according to the journal’s regular publication schedule.

 

 

Revision history

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  • January 2, 2019: Added Reviewer Rewards, ASCI guaranteed review benefit, and In-Press Previews.
  • January 1, 2019: Changed publication fee from $3500 to $3650.
  • March 1, 2018: Created kiosk page.
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