CMHP thrives to meet the standard quality of publication ethics for editors, authors, and reviewers. CMHP follows the ethics guideline issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for requirement for authorship, contributorship and processes for managing potential disputes.  

Publication decisions in CMHP is made by editors based on scientific merit of the manuscripts after peer-review process.  CMHP ensures that publication decisions are not influenced or impacted by any commercial revenue, advertising, or reprints.  The followings are duties of editors, reviewers, and authors to ensure ethical publication at CMHP.

DUTIES OF EDITOR

Publication Decisions

The editor of CMHP is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be enforced regarding libel copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.  Suspected misconduct and disputes shall be solved using COPE guideline. The editors should act responsibly and ethically in each stage of publication process and editors should help authors to follow the Guidelines for Authors.

Process Control

Editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality, making use of appropriate software to do so. After passing this test, the manuscript is forwarded to one reviewer or more for double-blind peer review, each of whom will make a recommendation to accept, reject, or modify the manuscript. Editors should respect reasonable and practical requests from authors to exclude an individual as a reviewer of the submitted manuscript. Editors need to ensure blinded review process and should ensure that no information of the authors is sent to the reviewer. Editors' decision should be clearly informed to authors along with reviewers' comments.

Fair Play

Editors are required to objectively assess each manuscript for publication, based on its quality and not on the gender, seniority, religion, ethnicity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or institutional affiliation of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editors and any editorial board members must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Editors must report potential conflicts of interest that occur when reviewing articles. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without written consent from the authors.  For other issues that have not been regulated, we follow the guidelines suggested by COPE.

 

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Reviewers need to keep the manuscript confidential. A reviewer should notify the editor if a reviewer's assistant needs to access the manuscript, or a reviewer needs to transfer the manuscript to someone else. The editor will decide on approval of such access and transfer.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. In reviewing the manuscript, reviewers need to ensure timely process and should notify editor if they need more time.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge. Reviewers need to make assessment on ethical conduct and possible research and publication misconduct in each manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should declare and not accept to review manuscripts with potential conflicts of interest between them and any of the authors. For other issues that have not been regulated, we follow the guidelines suggested by COPE.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Reporting standards

Authors of original research or community development reports 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 paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Authors of research articles should follow relevant research reporting guideline available on the Equator Network. In writing the manuscript, authors must follow the Guideline for Authors. All authors must read the submission final checklist before submission.

Data Access and Retention

CMHP supports data sharing for reproducibility. Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure the originality of the content of manuscript, and they have properly cited references in accordance with the required referencing style. Authors must also ensure that the use of pre-published images, figures, tables, and any other components have received proper permit from the original authors and proper citation have been used. Author(s) should not engage in plagiarism nor self-plagiarism which is a serious violation of publication ethics. CMHP screens for plagiarism using Turnitin to estimate similarity of the manuscript with other publication.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Authors need to affirm that the submitted material has not been previously published and is not currently under consideration by another journal or any other publisher. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship is limited to those who have made significant contributions to the conception, design, data collection, implementation, analysis, or interpretation of the reported study. All authors and co-authors should have read, reviewed, and approved the version of the manuscript submitted to the CMHP. The corresponding authors should ensure that all persons who have made significant contributions to the study and the manuscripts should be listed as co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included. Others who have participated or contributed substantially to any aspects of the study but do not fulfil authorship criteria should be acknowledged as contributors.  The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the publication of the manuscript has had all co-authors' approval. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that the manuscripts emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the necessary approval of the institution. In case of multiple authorship, a copyright release form must be signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all authors. Authors should clearly identify in the Title Page any financial support received for the implementation of the research and/or manuscript preparation and state the role of the funder/sponsor in any part of the work.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support received for the implementation of the research and/or manuscript preparation and the role of the funder/sponsor in any part of the work should be disclosed. Authors contributions and conflict of interest should be declared in the Title Page upon submission. Authors contribution and conflict of interest should include all named authors in the manuscript.

Fundamental errors in published work

When authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, authors should immediately notify the Editors to retract or correct the manuscript.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects (Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate)

Ethical Clearance

CMHP requires all manuscripts from studies involving human subjects to respect research ethics principles as stated in the Declaration of Helsinki.  Such manuscript should clearly state that:

1) the study was conducted with proper consenting process from each participant, participants consent process should be described, and anonymity of the subjects should be maintained.

2) that a valid ethical committee has approved the study protocol.

3) for studies involving children or vulnerable populations, parent or guardian consent must be obtained. 

4) in cases where participant's or, in cases of vulnerable population, parents/guardian's consent was not obtained, the author must provide explanation and the editor would decide upon assessment if the explanation deemed acceptable.

CMHP also requires all manuscript from studies involving live animals to include:

1) full description of any surgical procedure and anaesthetic used.

2) evidence of possible measures taken to avoid animal sufferings at each stage of the study.

3) statement of approval from a valid ethical committee.

Post Publication Critique - Handling Procedures

• CMHP, together with its editors, makes great efforts to maintain and uphold academic integrity by ensuring that all published materials comply with internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
• When an author discovers significant errors or inaccuracies in his published work, it is the author's obligation to immediately notify the journal editor and work with the editor to correct or retract the article.
• If the editor learns from a third party that a published work has received criticism and contains significant errors, the editor will discuss it in the editorial board meeting.  If it is found that the criticism or error is fundamental, the editor will return it to the author for correction or article retraction. We follow the guidelines suggested by COPE.
• In the case of a seriously flawed article, the journal will take a quick reaction, which may result in the retraction of the article. Procedures for retracting articles will follow the guidelines suggested by COPE.
• All complaints regarding publication will be taken seriously by the editor, regardless of who submits the complaint.
• The journal will consider issuing corrections, erratums, clarifications, and apologies if it is proven that there are serious publication errors.