Publication Ethics

1. 1.   Article assessment

   All manuscripts to QMSM are subject to peer review and are expected to meet the highest standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors.

2. 2.   Plagiarism

   Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and the reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text. Crossref Similarity Check may be used to detect submissions that overlap with published and submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will be rejected and the authors may incur sanctions. Any published articles may need to be corrected or retracted.

3. 3.   Duplicate submission (new heading)

   Manuscripts submitted to QMSM must not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration and must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere. Authors whose articles are found to have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere may incur sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published work or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. Reuse of the authors’ own figures or substantial amounts of wording may require permission from the copyright holder and the authors are responsible for obtaining this.

4. 4.   Fabrication and falsification

   The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.

5. 5.   Authorship and acknowledgments

   All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript, approved its claims, and agreed to be an author. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution. Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged with their permission. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.

6. 6.   Conflicts of interest

   Conflicts of interest occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. This can happen at any stage in the research cycle, including during the experimentation phase, while a manuscript is being written, or during the process of turning a manuscript into a published article. If conflicts of interest are found after publication, this may be embarrassing for the authors, the Editor, and the journal. It may be necessary to publish a corrigendum or reassess the review process.
   
   Conflicts include the following:
   
   

   1. Financial — funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work.
   2. Affiliations — being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work.
   3. Intellectual property — patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization.
   4. Personal — friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections.
   5. Ideology — beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work.
   6. Academic — competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.

7. 7.   Editors and Reviewers

   Editors and reviewers should decline to be involved with a submission when they
   
   

   1. Have a recent publication or current submission with any author.
   2. Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author.
   3. Have a close personal connection to any author.
   4. Have a financial interest in the subject of the work.
   5. Feel unable to be objective.

   Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.

8. 8.   Corrections and retractions

   When errors are identified in published articles, the publisher will consider the required action and may consult the editors and the authors’ institution(s). Errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum and errors by the publisher by an erratum.

9. 9.   How to raise a concern

   The editor will try to adhere to the standards guided by the core practices and policies outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
10. Anyone who believes that research published by QMSM has not been carried out in line with these principles should raise their concerns with the editor, or email qmsm@gm.pu.edu.tw(Administration office of QMSM).
11. Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines.