Publication Ethics

At Western Nigeria Journal of Medical Sciences (WNJMS), we are dedicated to fulfilling and maintaining the highest standards of ethical conduct throughout the publication process. We follow guidelines established by bodies like the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All parties engaged in the publication of scholarly journal articles—the authors, journal editors, peer reviewers, and publisher—are expected to behave ethically.

High standards of professional publishing judgment and rigorous scholarly evaluation are important to the WNJMS and its publisher, UNIOSUN Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Nigeria. The editors in charge of WNJMS oversee the editorial decisions. The journal editors are in charge of selecting the articles that are published in each issue and making sure that each piece is accurate, comprehensive, and unique per accepted editorial standards and procedures in respective fields, WNJMS assists authors and their affiliated institutions in running their publications ethically and openly.

• Authorship and Contributorship: Persons listed as authors MUST have made significant contributions to the research work and manuscript preparation. Those whose contributions do not qualify for authorship may be listed in the acknowledgement section. A change to the list of authors is not allowed after the completion of the manuscript submission. Authors take collective responsibility for determining who should be listed as an author and the order in which they should appear. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system to acknowledge different models of contribution may be used, although it is not a requirement for manuscript submission. 
• Handling of complaints and appeals: All complaints and appeals will be processed by the editorial board and the publisher in line with the guidelines of COPE. Complaints and appeals should be made to the editor at [email protected].  If no response is received from the editor, or the response is unsatisfactory, the publisher may be contacted directly at [email protected].
• Handling of allegations of research misconduct: Allegations of misconduct should be made to the editor ([email protected]) and the publisher ([email protected]). The editorial board will evaluate all allegations and make appropriate decisions in line with the extant guidelines. Retractions of published articles will be made if so determined by the board with a retraction notice published on the journal’s website. Erring authors may be reported to their institutions.
• Conflicts of interest: Authors must declare whether or not they have a conflict of interest capable of influencing their judgments, whether it be financial, personal, political, or academic. This information will be published at the end of each paper.
• Data sharing and reproducibility: WNJMS is committed to a more open research landscape and facilitating access to research by enabling reproducibility. WNJMS encourages authors to share their research data where relevant, including, but not limited to, raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, and materials. These may be uploaded during the submission process using the appropriate tabs.
• Ethical oversight: Research involving human subjects must have been performed by the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing the approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. 
• Intellectual property: The intellectual content of the paper is the responsibility of the authors. The Editor and the Publisher accept no responsibility for the opinions and statements of the authors. While every effort will be made by the Editor and Publisher to avoid inaccurate and misleading data, they accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of wrong information. The authors agree to keep the Editor and Publisher fully and effectually indemnified against any liability or claims that may arise out of the publication of inaccurate and/or misleading data.

The Journal is open-access and exclusively online. There are no submission, processing, publication or subscription fees. All accepted manuscripts are archived on the journal website and are fully accessible to the author and readers.

It is a condition of publications that authors transfer the copyright of their manuscripts to the Journal. All manuscripts should therefore be accompanied by a cover letter that states that the article is original, is not under consideration, or has not been previously published in another journal and/or the appropriate checkboxes be ticked in the online submission system. Authors will normally be entitled to publish any part of their paper elsewhere provided permission is requested and the usual acknowledgements are given. The assignment of the copyright will not affect subsisting patent rights or arrangements relating to them.

If illustrations, tables, or quotations from other publications are already copyrighted, written permission to use these should accompany the manuscript.

• Post-publication discussions: The WNJMS submission system has tools for post-publication discussions on the author’s portal for each article. Authors can contact the editorial office using the portal or by emailing the editor through [email protected]. Corrections regarding minor errors may be made to published articles.
• Corrections and retractions: Minor errors in published articles may be made by the editorial board. These should not have a substantial impact on the article itself. Corrections may be initiated by the editors. Request for corrections may be made by authors or readers through email to the editor at [email protected]. Extensive and/or substantial corrections may result in retraction of the published article.
• Integrity of scholarly literature: The integrity of scholarly literature is dear to the WNJMS and its publisher. All articles undergo a peer-review process. Plagiarism in any form is not acceptable. In case of plagiarism, the manuscript is rejected, and necessary action is taken in line with the COPE guidelines. Potential cases of plagiarism are assessed by the editorial board of WNJMS on a case-by-case basis. Every submitted manuscript is checked for plagiarism using Turnitin and/or Plagramme. Plagiarism may be detected at any stage of manuscript processing. Authors will be asked to make due corrections for more than 10% similarities, while articles with a similarity index of more than 25% may be outrightly rejected.