Corrections Retractions and Editorial Expressions of Concern
The Process for Handling Cases Requiring Corrections
The Journal of Chitwan Medical College follows the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/guidance).
We strive to ensure the integrity of the academic record of all publications. Whenever it is found that a material inaccuracy, misleading statement, or misrepresentation has been published, it must be corrected promptly. If, after proper investigation, the item is found to be fraudulent, it should be revoked. The rebuttal must be clearly identified to readers and indexing systems.
Corrections
Errors in published articles may be flagged as corrections, or typographical errors when the Editor-in-Chief deems it appropriate to inform the Journal readers about the error and correct the published article. The corrigendum or erratum will appear as a new article in the journal, and will cite the original published article.
A correction should follow the following rules:
a) Corrections should be made immediately in the electronic version or printed page of the journal. The places that need to be corrected should be clearly indicated, with the correction date. The corrections should be included in the Table of Contents of either an electronic version or a print version of the journal.
b) The corrected version, and the version with errors, should be available for future access upon request from the authors.
c) The prior electronic version should contain a note that clearly indicates the existence of an updated version.
d) If the error is major enough to jeopardize the fundamental results or conclusions of the research, retraction instead of correction will be demanded.
Retraction
Occasionally a retraction will be used if infringements of publishing ethics, such as use of fake data, research misconduct, multiple submission, plagiarism etc. get detected. The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor can take place only after properly investigating the case under the advice of members of the scholarly community. Based on standard advice by scholarly community (COPE,ICMJE) for dealing with retractions, the following best practice for retraction by JCMC has been adopted.
- Case will be considered under retraction policy only if research integrity got challenged (by duplicate publication, plagiarized, bias/fake reviewing fake data, false results). Any other misconduct which does not affect research integrity of manuscript (such as author dispute, institution/funding policy, simultaneous submission) will not be considered under retraction.
- Retraction case will be considered in accordance with COPE guideline only if serious article integrity gets detected after complete investigation and not able to cover by corrigendum.
- A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” will be published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list. Retraction note will contain retraction decision and a link to the original article.
- The original article (pdf) will be retained unchanged with added “Retracted” watermark on each page. Crossmark data will be updated with retraction status of the article and a link to the retraction notice.
Editorial expressions of concern
Where substantial doubt arises and the authenticity of research or the integrity of the submitted/published article is compromised, journal editors may consider issuing an expression of concern. However, an expression of concern should only be made if investigations into issues related to the article have not yielded results and if there are strong indications of a well-founded concern. This expression of concern must be linked to the original article.
