Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statements
Aging follows the guidelines based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Aging complies with the Committee's Code of Conduct and adheres to its Best Practice Guidelines.
Editors, authors, and reviewers should all follow the best-practice guidelines for ethical behavior and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor's Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
Peer review policy
Aging is committed to high-quality peer review. All submissions undergo a rigorous and timely peer-review process.
After submission, a manuscript goes through an initial checking (quality control) by the Managing Editor from the Editorial Office to ensure that the authors followed the journal’s guidelines, editorial policies, ethical standards, and included everything that is needed for peer review.
Then, the Assistant Editor in consult with the Editor-in-Chief (or members of the board designated by him) selects as reviewers external independent experts in the field, based on their published work and expertise. Aging utilizes the Web of Science Review locator Service. This service is integrated into Aging submission system. After receiving an average of 3-6 reviews (at least two), the Editor-in-Chief (or members of the board designated by him) makes a decision as to whether the paper must be rejected outright or sent to the authors for revision. After revision, the revised article and the authors’ detailed responses (rebuttal) are sent back to the reviewers for their additional comments. If the reviewers consider further revision necessary, then the article is returned to the authors for a second round of revision. No more than 3 rounds of revision are allowed, after which the Editor must make a final decision. There are four decision types: Reject, Major revision, Minor revision, Accept. Decisions are sent to the authors in a formal letter through the submission system, along with reviewer feedback and any other requirements from the journal office.
Aging uses single blind peer review. This is a conventional method of peer review, in which the authors do not know who the reviewers are, though the reviewers know who the authors are. The reviewers are the external experts in the field chosen based on their published work and expertise. During the submission process the authors will have an opportunity to exclude up to three potential reviewers. We will respect this request if it does not interfere with the objective assessment of the submission.
The contents of all manuscripts are considered privileged. All Editors and reviewers are required to maintain strict confidentiality concerning all manuscripts. The status of a manuscript and its details are available only to the Aging editorial staff, authors, Editors, and peer reviewers involved.
Papers that contain fabrication, image manipulation or plagiarism will not be accepted. Plagiarism is checked using the service provided by Crossref (Crossref Similarity Check). Advanced image forensics services are used to check the images and tables. At Aging, we utilize tools developed in-house as well as commercially available products (mainly ImageTwin software) for image forensics. Three types of image forensics are typically performed:
- Search for irregularities within the paper.
- Search for image matches in other papers within our journals.
- Search for image matches within other journals.
If a problem arises post-publication, Aging conducts investigations following COPE guidelines in cooperation with the authors and their affiliated institution.
Aging utilizes a submission system created by eJournalPress (EJP) to facilitate the peer review process. The login portal for the submission system can be found on the journal homepage.
For Editors
- Editors evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their scientific merit (novelty, technical merit, quality of the data, conclusions based on data, importance for the scientific community, presentation), regardless of the authors’ citizenship, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religious belief, political philosophy, gender or sexual orientation. Decisions to publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agency outside of the journal itself. The Editors-in-Chief have full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
- Editors and the editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the authors (all authors need to be informed), reviewers, potential reviewers, or members of the Editorial Board, as appropriate.
- Editors will not use unpublished information for their own purposes. This information will be kept confidential. Editors will only evaluate manuscripts for which they have NO substantial conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers.
For Reviewers
- Peer review is essential and obligatory. Peer review assists Editors in making decisions and provides authors with comments that enable them to improve their manuscripts.
- Any invited reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research should immediately notify the Editors and decline the invitation to review.
- All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents; they must not be shown to or discussed with others, except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief. This also applies to reviewers who decline the invitation.
- Reviews should be objective. Comments to authors should help authors improve their manuscript. Personal criticism is inappropriate.
- Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement should have the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the Editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and other manuscripts.
- Reviewers who have conflicts of interest should disclose them to the Editors to declare their conflicts of interest. The Editors will determine whether the conflict is sufficient to exclude the reviewer from peer review.
- Information in the manuscript should not be used in a reviewer’s (including the reviewers who were excluded based on conflicts of interests) own research. This information must be kept confidential.
For the Publisher
Post Publication Investigations
If a problem arises post-publication, Aging conducts investigations following COPE guidelines in cooperation with the authors and their affiliated institution.
- Any instance of unethical publishing behavior will be investigated, even if it is discovered years after publication.
- Editors/Publishers follow COPE recommendations as a guideline for ensuring that investigations are effective.
- If an error or misconduct are confirmed, a correction or retraction is published in the journal.
- We investigate any misconduct in cooperation with the Ethical Committee of the corresponding University/Clinical center.
- While investigating an article, we also publish the statement "This article is currently undergoing investigation". This note remains in place until the concern is resolved.