Authorship and Contributorship

We acknowledge that different disciplines and publication formats have different norms for who is listed as an author. Where no other guidance is specified, we recommend applying the following principles.1 

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and/or
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 and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

We consider the corresponding author to be the person who handles the manuscript and correspondence during the publication process. We ask that the corresponding author confirm that they have the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors in all matters pertaining to the publication of the manuscript including supplementary material. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining such agreements and for informing the co-authors of the manuscript’s status throughout the submission, review, and publication process. In addition, the corresponding author also acts as the main point of contact for any inquiries (including those relating to the integrity of the work) after the paper is published.

We encourage authors to list anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship in an Acknowledgments section in their publication, for example to recognize the contributions of anyone who provided research or writing assistance.

COPE also provides extensive resources on authorship and authorship disputes, and we encourage anyone involved in editorial decisions to familiarize themselves with these resources. We support our editors in dealing with any authorship disputes, including escalating or seeking advice on cases with COPE. We integrate with established and emerging industry standards to increase transparency in authorship (for example, ORCID). We support initiatives that enable transparency in authorship and contributorship such as CRediT taxonomy.

1 Outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, available at: www.icmje.org/ recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as ‘using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgment’.

Plagiarism can occur in respect to all types of sources and media, including:

• text, illustrations, musical quotations, extended mathematical derivations, computer code, etc.;
• material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media;
• published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and grey literature. 

We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications, and we reserve the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered post-publication, we will follow our guidance outlined in the Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern section of these guidelines. We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of plagiarism, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing publishingethics@cambridge.org. 

Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Duplicate or redundant publication, or ‘self-plagiarism’, occurs when work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap. This can be in the same or a different language.2 

We do not support substantial overlap between publications, unless:

• it is felt that editorially this will strengthen the academic discourse; and
• we have clear approval from the original publication; and
• we include citation of the original source.

We expect our readers, reviewers and editors to raise any suspicions of duplicate or redundant publication, either by contacting the relevant editor or by emailing publishingethics@cambridge.org. 

When authors submit manuscripts to our journals, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow our Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

2 Based on COPE’s definition of redundant publication, available at: https://publicationethics.org/category/ keywords/redundant-publication 

Research with Humans or Animals

Research involving humans or animals should be approved by relevant ethics committee(s) and should conform to international ethical and legal standards for research. We also expect authors to respect human participants’ right to privacy, and to gain any necessary consent to publish before submitting to us. For information on whether authors are required to submit or include evidence regarding the above, please consult individual journal submission guidelines or contact the relevant book or journal editor.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

We try to ensure that any Cambridge University Press publication is free from undue influence. Authors submitting a book or journal manuscript to Cambridge University Press, employees, the SAPC, editors and reviewers of Cambridge University Press publications, are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest that could interfere with the objectivity or integrity of a publication. Conflicts of interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the presentation, review or publication of a piece of work. These may be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual or personal in nature. We also expect that anyone who suspects undisclosed conflict of interest regarding a work published or under consideration by J. Vet. Anat.  should inform the relevant editor.

Many of our publications require the inclusion of a funding declaration in addition to conflicts of interest declaration. Please check with the relevant journal regarding declaration requirements. 

Libel, Defamation, and Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression is critical to us as academic publishers, but we do not support publishing false statements that harm the reputation of individuals, groups, or organizations. Our legal team can advise on pre-publication libel reviews, and will also address allegations of libel in any of our publications. 

Retractions, Corrections, and Expressions of Concern

Journal editors will consider retractions, corrections or expressions of concern in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. If an author is found to have made an error, the journal will issue a corrigendum. If the journal is found to have made an error, they will issue an erratum. Retractions are usually reserved for articles that are so seriously flawed that their findings or conclusions should not be relied upon. Journals that publish Accepted Manuscripts may make minor changes such as those which would likely occur during typesetting or proofreading, but any substantive corrections will be carried out in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines.

the integrity of the academic record and of other affiliated works (for example, other volumes in a series). This includes maintaining any associated metadata and, if legally possible, the abstract. 

We also participate in Crossmark; a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content, view any changes that have occurred, and access additional information about that publication record. 

Image Manipulation, Falsification and Fabrication

Where research data are collected or presented as images, modifying these images can sometimes misrepresent the results obtained or their significance. We recognize that there can be legitimate reasons for modifying images, but we expect authors to avoid modifying images where this leads to the falsification, fabrication, or misrepresentation of their results. 

Fraudulent Research and Research Misconduct

Where we are made aware of fraudulent research or research misconduct by the author, our first concern is the integrity of the content we have published. We work with the relevant editor(s), COPE, and other appropriate institutions or organizations, to investigate. Any publication found to include fraudulent results will be retracted, or an appropriate correction or expression of concern will be issued. Please see the Retractions, Corrections and Expressions of Concern section of these guidelines for more information. 

Versions and Adaptations

Our publications are distributed in many different global cultural, environmental and economic contexts. We may, therefore, issue different versions of some of our products in order to cater to these contexts. We neither modify existing, published content nor originate new materials to meet political or ideological requirements where we judge these to compromise the quality, effectiveness or factual accuracy of the materials or to conflict with our Code of Ethics. 

We grant licenses in volume and subsidiary rights to third-parties that permit the reproduction, reuse or adaptation of our content in different contexts, languages and territories. Where we license volume rights, we and our authors retain the right to withhold approval for publication if we have concerns about the integrity and accuracy of the licensed edition. 

Transparency

We strive to follow COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing and encourage our publishing partners to uphold these same principles. 

Data and Supporting Evidence

We support transparency and openness around data, code, and other materials associated with research. We expect authors to maintain accurate records of supporting evidence necessary to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate new findings, and to supply or provide access to this supporting evidence, on reasonable request. Where appropriate and where allowed by employer, funding body or others who might have an interest, we encourage authors to:

• deposit data in a suitable repository or storage location, for sharing and further use by others; and
• describe where the data may be found in a Data Availability Statement which authors should include in their publication. 

Integrity of Record

We maintain a record of the existence of everything we publish with information (metadata) describing each publication. If our content is deemed not to comply with the laws of a sovereign nation, we make every effort to ensure the metadata remains accessible within that jurisdiction. Where we are obliged to alter the publication record in any way, such as in the case of research misconduct leading to retraction of a publication, we preserve the academic record as far as possible. See the Retractions, Corrections, and Expressions of Concern of these guidelines for information about how we do this. 

We apply these same principles to our marketing and do not modify or manipulate the representation of the academic record in our marketing activities.

Reviewers responsibilities:

 

Peer reviewers are external experts chosen by editors (sometimes are suggested by the authors, without obligation on Editor-in-chief to use them) to provide written opinions, with the aim of improving the study.

 

The duties of the reviewers include:

 

1. The duty of confidentiality in the assessment of a manuscript must be maintained by expert reviewers, and this extends to reviewers’ colleagues who may be asked (with the editor’s permission) to give opinions on specific sections.
2. The submitted manuscript should not be retained or copied.
3. Reviewers and editor-in-chief should not make any use of the data, arguments, or interpretations unless they have the authors’ permission.
4. Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous, unbiased, and justifiable reports.
5. If reviewers suspect misconduct, they should write in confidence to the editor.
6. Journal of Veterinary Anatomy should publish accurate descriptions of their peer review, selection, and appeals processes.
7. Journal of Veterinary Anatomy should also provide regular audits of its acceptance rates and publication times.

 

N.B.

 

1. Previous publication of an abstract during the proceedings of meetings does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but full disclosure should be made at the time of submission.
2. Re-publication of a paper in another language is acceptable, provided that there is full and prominent disclosure of its original source at the time of submission.

 

Editor-in-Chief responsibilities:

 

Editor-in-chief provides direction for the journal and builds a strong management team.

 

He must consider and balance the interests of many constituents, including readers, authors, staff, owners, editorial board members, advertisers and the media.

 

The editor-in-chief is responsible for:

 

1. The decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication which should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal.
2. Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an especially sympathetic hearing from the editor.
3. Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.
4. All original studies should be peer-reviewed before publication, taking into full account possible bias due to related or conflicting interests

 

1. The editor-in-chief must treat all submitted papers as confidential.
2. When a published paper is subsequently found to contain major flaws, editor-in-chief must accept responsibility for correcting the record prominently and promptly.
3. Editorial decisions must not be influenced by advertising revenue or reprint potential: editorial and advertising administration must be clearly separated.
4. Advertisements that mislead must be refused, and editors must be willing to publish criticisms, according to the same criteria used for material in the rest of the journal.