The Canadian Journal of Infection Control (CJIC) is an international peer review journal providing a platform for knowledge transfer and academic discourse in the field of infection prevention and control, and healthcare epidemiology. All parties involved in the publishing process (authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board, and publisher) are expected to adhere to standards of ethical behaviour. The publication ethics and publication malpractice statement of CJIC is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
1. Duties of Editors
Publication decisions
Editors ensure that all manuscripts submitted as research articles and being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the field. Reviewers reports shall always be made available to the authors. The publication decision on manuscripts is based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. A mechanism for appeal against editorial decisions is established.
Post publication discussion and corrections
After an article has been published it may be necessary to make a change to the Version of Record. This will be done after careful consideration by the Editor in accordance with guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article, such as a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction or in rare circumstances a Removal. These changes are permanent and ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.
Complaints and Appeals
Appeals to editor decisions need to provide strong evidence of new data or information in response to the reviewers’ and/or editor’s comments. The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines on appeals to editor decisions and complaints about editorial management of the peer review process. Editors will consider one appeal per article and all decisions are final. Review and decisions on new submissions will take priority over appeals.
Confidentiality
Editors will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Editors are obliged to protect the identity and confidentiality of both the authors and the referees.
Data sharing and reproducibility
Data is available upon reasonable request from the authors as long as it does not violate protection of human subjects or other valid privacy concerns.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscripts; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.
Ethical Oversight
The Editorial Board ensures compliant with COPE’s https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines on ethical oversight. Ethical oversight includes, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices.
Fair play and editorial independence
Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The editors have full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
Misconduct
Editors will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent publication of manuscripts where research misconduct have occurred. All forms of misconduct are taken seriously and will result in necessary action in accordance with COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing https://publicationethics.org/. Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to) affiliation misrepresentation, breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions, citation manipulation, duplicate submission/publication, avoiding international standards of research ethics, image or data manipulation/fabrication, peer review manipulation, plagiarism, text-recycling/self-plagiarism, undisclosed competing interests and/or unethical research. For plagiarism, CJIC uses Turnitin to detect plagiarism based on similarity check. Submitted manuscripts with evidence of plagiarism are automatically rejected.
Publication fraud
Editors take responsible measures when ethical concerns arise about a submitted manuscript or a published article. Even if the publication is discovered years later, each of the reported unethical publishing behaviors will be considered. Editors follow COPE flowcharts for suspected misconduct. Upon investigation, if ethical concerns based on sound grounds is established, a correction, withdrawal, explanation, apology statement or any other relevant note shall be published immediately.
2. Duties of Reviewers
Despite the application of the blind arbitration system, reviewers must evaluate manuscripts based on content without regard to the authors’ race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.
Peer review and editorial decisions
Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavour. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Reviewers should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Also, referees should produce their reports in an objective manner supported by scientific arguments and do not bear any trace of the referee's personal information.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Any reviewer who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
Promptness
Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.
3. Duties of Authors
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
Acknowledgement of sources
Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and they should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.
Authorship and Contributorship
Only persons who meet the following authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, editing assistance, general support) should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named has been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication. It is the collective responsibility of all the individuals who have conducted the work to determine who should be listed as authors, and the order in which authors should be listed.
Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests
All authors must declare any competing interests relevant to the article. That is disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Such declarations must occur at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript). Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).
Data sharing and reproducibility
Data should be available upon reasonable request from the authors as long as it does not violate protection of human subjects or other valid privacy concerns.
Fundamental errors in published works
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper.
Hazards and human or animal subjects
If the work involves the use of animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.
Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal or authors should not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal at a time. This constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Originality and plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written and that they submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited.
Authors submitting their work to CJIC for publication as original articles confirm that the submitted works represent their own contributions and have not been copied or plagiarized in whole or in part from other works without clearly citing the source. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Peer review
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and other questions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary," authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.
4. Duties of the Publisher
The publisher provides practical support for CJIC’s editor and editorial board to follow COPE's Code of Conduct. Ensures the maintenance of good practices in accordance with high publishing standards.
Handling of research misconduct or unethical behavior
The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
In cases where alleged or proven scholarly misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism is brought to the attention of the publisher, the managing Editor will consult with the Editor-in-Chief. All forms of misconduct are taken seriously and will result in necessary action in accordance with COPE https://publicationethics.org/ guidelines. Examples of misconduct include (but are not limited to) affiliation misrepresentation, breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions, citation manipulation, duplicate submission/publication, avoiding international standards of research ethics, image or data manipulation/fabrication, peer review manipulation, plagiarism, text-recycling/self-plagiarism, undisclosed competing interests and/or unethical research.
Measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question may include the following; prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.
Intellectual property
CJIC is committed to open access publishing, ensuring global access to research publications and emphasizing the rights of authors to retain copyright in their work and to license that work in ways that encourage sharing and reuse. The publisher protects the intellectual property and copyrights inherited by the publication of the articles and performs legal follow-up of possible infringements.
Access to and preservation of journal content
CJIC will preserve and host the journal contents without charge to authors or readers, even if the journal is dissolved and/or the journal ceases to publish. The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by maintaining digital archive as well as submission to indexing databases.
5. Duties of readers
Journal readers shall refrain from violating the copyright of scientific articles. Not share or disseminate full-text files of articles on social media or any other online platform without the permission of the publisher. Readers should report via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. any publications suspected of publication ethics, plagiarism or typo.