Editor Roles and Responsibilities

Editors of scientific journals have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the content of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, the journal’s readers and the scientific community, the owners/publishers of the journals, and the public as a whole.

Editor Responsibilities toward Authors

Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts (see https://endourolojibulteni.com/en/author-guidelines/)
Providing a clear statement of the journal’s policies on authorship criteria (see https://endourolojibulteni.com/en/author-guidelines/)
Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency
Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff, authors, and reviewers (see https://endourolojibulteni.com/en/disclosure-of-conflicts-of-interest/)
Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work
Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review
Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner
Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons
Establishing clear guidelines for authors regarding acceptable practices for sharing experimental materials and information, particularly those required to replicate the research, before and after publication
Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions (see https://endourolojibulteni.com/en/peer-review-process/)
Clearly communicating all other editorial policies and standards.

Fulltext: https://cse.memberclicks.net/2-1-editor-roles-and-responsibilities

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Confidentiality

Material under review should not be shared or discussed with anyone outside the review process unless necessary and approved by the editor.

Constructive critique

Reviewer comments should acknowledge the positive aspects of the material under review, identify negative aspects constructively, and indicate the improvements needed.

Reviewers have the responsibility to identify strengths and provide constructive comments to help the author resolve weaknesses in the work.

Competence

Reviewers who realize that their expertise on the subject of the manuscript is limited have a responsibility to make their degree of competence clear to the editor. Reviewers need not be expert in every aspect of a manuscript’s content, but they should accept an assignment only if they have adequate expertise to provide an authoritative assessment. A reviewer without the requisite expertise is at risk of recommending acceptance of a submission with substantial deficiencies or rejection of a meritorious paper. In such cases, the reviewer should decline the review.

Impartiality and integrity

Reviewer comments and conclusions should be based on an objective and impartial consideration of the facts, exclusive of personal or professional bias. All comments by reviewers should be based solely on the paper’s scientific merit, originality, and quality of writing as well as on the relevance to the journal’s scope and mission. Potential reviewers who are concerned that they have a substantial conflict of interest should decline the request to review and/or discuss their concerns with the editor.

Disclosure of conflict of interest

If reviewers have any interest that might interfere with an objective review, they should either decline the role of reviewer or disclose their conflict of interest to the editor and ask how best to address it.

Timeliness and responsiveness

Reviewers are responsible for acting promptly, adhering to the instructions for completing a review, and submitting it in a timely manner. Failure to do so undermines the review process. Every effort should be made to complete the review within the time requested. If it is not possible to meet the deadline for the review, then the reviewer should promptly decline to perform the review or should inquire whether some accommodation can be made with respect to the deadline. Reference; https://cse.memberclicks.net/2-3-reviewer-roles-and-responsibilities

Authorship Responsibilities

Confidentiality

The author-editor relationship is founded on confidentiality. Authors should hold all communication between themselves and the journal in confidence.

Originality

The authors should provide a statement attesting to the originality of the study they have submitted for consideration.

Disclosures

Authors have a responsibility to be forthright when complying with journal submission requirements. This entails disclosure about the originality of the content, a statement of an author’s actual contribution to the study, and financial and conflict of interest disclosures. The Endourology Bulletin requires statements on the regulatory status of any drugs or devices used in the study. Please check it out at https://endourolojibulteni.com/en/preparation-of-manuscript/.

Copyright Assignment

The content in question must be original and not otherwise under copyright elsewhere (in whole or in part). Authors should ensure that the study under consideration is original and does not contain plagiarized content. In addition, authors must avoid duplicate publication, which is reproducing verbatim content from their other publications.

Permissions

Authors frequently wish to reuse previously published images and other copyrighted material. It is the author’s responsibility to follow journal or publisher guidelines to reuse any copyrighted material and provide proper attribution. This includes the author’s own work if the copyright was ever transferred to a publisher or journal. Authors should contact the journal or publisher of the source material or consult the “permissions” information that can be found on many of their web sites. Permission should be granted in writing and the authors should retain this documentation. The editor may request a copy of this notification as well.

Multiple Submissions

In the biomedical sciences, it is not acceptable for authors to submit the report of a study to several journals at the same time, including a manuscript undergoing peer review that has not been formally rejected by the original journal to which the manuscript was submitted. Authors who do not follow this standard may find that editors reject their papers as a violation of policy. In addition, this practice can be a violation of copyright.

If authors want to submit their article to another journal while it is under consideration elsewhere, then they must send a formal notification to the editor of the journal in which it is under consideration, requesting that their study be withdrawn from further consideration. All co-authors must agree to the request for withdrawal and this agreement must be made clear to the editor of the journal with which the study is under consideration. Authors should request formal acknowledgment from the journal to the effect that the editors understand the manuscript has been withdrawn from future consideration. On receipt of notification from the journal acknowledging the withdrawal, the authors may submit their manuscript elsewhere. They should retain a copy of the notification.

Data Sharing

Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. The goal of this policy is to promote reproducibility and availability of underlying data sets. Authors should be aware of their data-sharing responsibilities imposed by their funding agencies.

Human Subjects Research

All journals should require formal affirmation that human subject’s research on which a submission is based was approved by an institutional review board or complied with the Declaration of Helsinki. Although some institutional review boards may consider certain types of studies, such as case reports, to be exempt from their approval, an institutional review board review may still be necessary to make that determination.

Journal editors may request a copy of the institutional review board determination letter during manuscript submission. Additionally, authors should obtain written informed consent from the subjects of case reports and written permission to use any identifiable images.

Animal Research

Endourology Bulletin requires formal affirmation that any research involving animals was approved by an animal care and use committee and was conducted according to the approved protocol and acceptable research standards for animal experimentation. Fulltext; https://cse.memberclicks.net/2-2-authorship-and-authorship-responsibilities