Authorship Criteria

All persons listed as authors of a manuscript must have made a substantial intellectual and scientific contribution to the manuscript as defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) by

1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Potential authors who have not contributed in one of these ways to the paper should not be included, although their contribution can and should be recognized in the Acknowledgements section. All authors of a multi-author paper must read and approve of the manuscript and revisions. Changes to the list of authors or the order of authors during the peer-review and publication process must be approved in writing by all parties involved. This approval should be sent to the editor prior to the publication of an article. Further information is available at: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.

Authorship Disputes and Editorial Decision Appeals:

If an author wishes to appeal a journal editor’s decision, the author should submit an appeal letter to the journal’s editorial office via email. The author should address this to the editor and clearly explain the basis for an appeal. The author should detail why they disagree with the decision and provide specific responses to any of the editor’s and/or reviewers’ comments that contributed to the reject decision; provide any new information or data that the author would like the journal to take into consideration; provide evidence if the author believes a reviewer has made technical errors in their assessment of your manuscript, and include evidence if the author believes a reviewer may have a conflict of interest.

After receiving the appeal, Senior Editors will review and involve any associate editors who handled the peer review of the original submission or the Editorial Board members, depending on the nature of the appeal. Editors may confirm their decision to reject the manuscript, invite a revised manuscript, or seek additional peer- or statistical review of the original manuscript. Editors will consider one appeal per article, and all decisions on appeals are final. The timely review and decision-making process for new submissions will take precedence over appeals.

Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work. JBHM does not adjudicate authorship disputes. These disputes should be resolved by the authors/researchers involved or their institutions. If JBHM becomes aware of a dispute, the Editors will suspend consideration of the paper until the dispute is resolved. In such a case (and when authors request changes to authorship), all authors should approve authorship in writing. In addition to consulting JBHM policies on authorship, authors may find it helpful to seek out other commonly accepted academic definitions of authorship to help determine who should be included in the author list. One such source is the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which supports authors, editors, publishers, and other stakeholders by providing resources on publication ethics (https://publicationethics.org/).

Authors are allowed to deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice. Submitted, accepted and published versions of the manuscript can be deposited.