Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association (JKOA) welcomes articles that contribute to Orthopaedic knowledge from all countries. Articles are accepted only for exclusive publication in the Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association. Previously published articles, even those in peer-reviewed electronic publications, are not accepted by the Journal. Published articles and illustrations become the property of the Journal. All studies should be carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The uniform requirements and specific requirement of Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association are summarized below. Before sending a manuscript contributors are requested to check for the latest instructions available. Instructions are also available from the website of the journal (http://www.jkoaonline.com) and from the manuscript submission site (Click Here).

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association follows the COPE (Committee for Publication Ethics) Guidelines and decisions about duplicate publication, plagiarism, and article retraction are taken as per COPE Flowcharts. [Click Here to Download COPE Flowcharts]. All Authors need to report that their manuscript is an original publication and should sign the contributor’s form and conflict of interest form for each publication.

The Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association has the following salient points on Ethics and Malpractice

  1. Publication and authorship:

– list of funding agencies, financial support is to be disclosed

– no plagiarism, no fraudulent data;

– forbidden to publish same research in more than one journal.

  1. Author’s responsibilities:

– All authors are obliged to participate in peer review process;

– All authors have to significantly contribute to the research;

– Statement that all data in article are real and authentic is to be given by all authors

– All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

  1. Peer review/responsibility for the reviewers:

– Judgments should be objective;

– reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders;

– reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited;

– reviewed articles should be treated confidentially.

More details on Peer Review can be found HERE

  1. Editorial responsibilities:

– e.g. editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article;

– editors have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept;

– only accept a paper when reasonably certain;

– when errors are found, promote the publication of correction or retraction;

– preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

Journal follows the Editorial responsibilities as noted by COPE guidelines: Click Here

  1. Publishing ethics issues

– Monitoring/safeguarding publishing ethics by editorial board;

– Guidelines for retracting articles are as per the COPE guidelines

– Maintain the integrity of the academic record;

– Journal is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

– no plagiarism, no fraudulent data.

Open Access Policy

Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association is open access journal and all articles are available free immediately after publication. The articles are available under creative common licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) (in use since 2021).

Self archiving of  pre-print and post-print and publisher’s version/PDF is allowed freely.

The Editorial Process

-The manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that they are being submitted to one journal at a time and have not been published, simultaneously submitted or already accepted for publication elsewhere. Violation may lead to serious action against authors as per COPE guidelines.

-The Editorial board will review all submitted manuscripts initially.

-Manuscripts which seem to lack scientific message or content are rejected at first instance. Journal will not return unaccepted manuscripts.

-Manuscripts that are not formatted as per journal guidelines will be send for correct formatting before review process

-Manuscript that gets approval from editorial board and are formatted as per guidelines, will be send for peer review by at least two expert reviewers [this number may exceed in cases where we do not get a definitive answer by two reviews]. The review process is blinded for author, Institution or place of origin of the manuscript. The journal wishes to publish names of all our reviewers, however the reviewers names will be kept blinded

-Editorial team takes a final decision based on the comments received from the reviewers and also from the section editors

-The contributors are usually informed about the reviewers’ comments and acceptance/rejection within a period of 10 to 12 weeks. This period may get extended in cases where more than two opinions are needed.

-Articles accepted would be copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style and format. All articles will also be rewritten by the Editorial team and a final copy will be send to authors for approval

-Page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author, which has to be returned within 4 days.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions:

  • To conception and design or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data
  • Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  • Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship
  • General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship

Order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors

For an original article the number of contributors should not exceed six; for case reports, letter to the Editor and review articles, the number of contributors should not exceed four

A justification should be included, if the number of contributors exceeds these limits

Only those who have done substantial work in a particular field can write a review article. A short summary of the work done in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.

Contributors’ form and copyright transfer form

The contributors’ form and copyright transfer form duly signed by all the authors / contributors (in the same sequence as to be published in the journal) is to be uploaded directly on website at the time of submission of new manuscript. Manuscript submission will be considered incomplete till the completed forms are submitted.

Online Submission of the Manuscripts

Manuscript is to be submitted only online using submission software “Scripture”

New authors will have to register as “author”, which is a simple two step procedure

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html).

Do not use patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.

When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

All human and animal studies should be accompanied by a certificate of Ethics clearance, issued by an appropriate Institutional Review Board/Ethics Committee/Departmental Board of Study or an equivalent authority of competence.

Statistics

Statistical methods should be described in detail.

The statement “no significant difference was found between two groups” cannot be made unless a power study was done and the value of alpha or beta is reported. Use of the word significant requires reporting of a p value.

Ninety five per cent confidence intervals are required whenever the results of survivorship analysis are given in the text or graphs.

Use of the word correlation requires reporting of the correlation coefficient.

Acknowledgments

As an appendix to the text, one or more statements should specify

Contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair

Acknowledgments of technical help

Acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support.

This should be included in the title page of the manuscript.

Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent/guardian, wherever applicable) provides informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients’ names from figures, unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by the ICMJE guidelines:

1. Authors, and not the Journal or its Publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before submitting their work for publication consideration to the journal. Authors should ensure that this patient consent form(s) are properly archived. The consent forms should not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to the Editorial or Publisher offices.
2. If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity, or a description that has obvious indication to the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.
3. To protect the patient’s identity, the recognizable facial features not related to the study should be digitally blurred
4. Written informed consent is the preferred method for obtaining consent. If verbal consent is obtained, the authors must ensure that the verbal consent is recorded in the medical case record of the patient and duly signed by witness

Sending a revised manuscript

Before submitting a revised manuscript, contributors are requested to ensure that each and every comment of the reviewers/editorial board is answered.
Also mention the changes in the column in form of Page No. & Line No.
These changes should be clearly mentioned in the revised manuscript.
The revised version of the manuscript should be submitted online in a manner similar to that used for submission of the manuscript for the first time. However, there is no need to submit the “First Page” or “Covering Letter” file while submitting a revised version. When submitting a revised manuscript, contributors are requested to include, the ‘referees’ remarks along with point-to-point clarification at the beginning in the revised file itself. In addition, they are expected to mark the changes as underlined or colored text in the article.

Copyrights

The entire contents of the Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Associations are protected under India and international copyrights. However, the Journal grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Public License. The authors have to transfer their copyright to the journal if it is accepted for publication.   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ (in use since 2021)

Acceptance or rejection
Manuscripts are judged on the interest and importance of the topic, intellectual and scientific strength, clarity of presentation and relevance to Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Associations readers.

The Journal will check every article for plagiarism using an internet search.

Checklist

(To be tick marked as applicable and attached in the First Page File)

Manuscript Title

Covering letter

Signed by all contributors

Previous publication / presentations mentioned

Source of funding mentioned

Conflicts of interest disclosed

Authors

Full name along with Middle name initials provided

Author for correspondence, with e-mail address provided

Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions

Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods, citing previous study as ‘our study’, names on figure labels, name of institute in photographs, etc.)

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
The Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association  follows the COPE (Committee for Publication Ethics) Guidelines and decisions about duplicate publication, plagiarism and article retraction are taken as per COPE Flowcharts. [Click Here to Download COPE Flowcharts]. All Authors need to report that this is an original publication and should sign the contributors form and conflict of interest form for each publication.
Plagiarism is checked for all articles by using an internet search.

Policy against Plagiarism
The Journal follows strict anti-plagiarism policy and defines plagiarism as duplicate publication of the author’s own work, in whole or in part without proper citation, or mispresenting other’s ideas, words, and other creative expression as one’s own. All manuscripts submitted to Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association undergo plagiarism using an internet search. Only in cases of minor duplication or similarity with previous published work, the authors may be provided an opportunity to rectify the same; in all other cases, the manuscript is desk rejected along with the plagiarism report (please also see the Scientific Misconduct section for additional details).

Scientific Misconduct

If plagiarism is detected after publication, the Journal will investigate the same, and if established, the authors’ institution and funding bodies would be notified, and the article will be retracted. To report plagiarism, please contact the Journal office, preferably through email for better documentation of correspondence.
For duplicate publication, fabricated data, undisclosed conflict of interest, plagiarism and/or other issues of publication and scientific misconduct, Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association follows the guidance produced by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/core-practices , World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) http://www.wame.org/policies-and-resources and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf .
Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association endeavors to avoid all possible misconduct. All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using an internet search. If the Editor or a reviewer is concerned that some aspect of a submitted article may constitute a misconduct in research, publication or professional behavior, the Journal communicates the same to the author(s) and seeks clarification. However, if the concerns are not satisfactorily resolved by discussion with the author(s), the Journal may report the same to appropriate authorities such as their institutions and, for duplicate publication, the journal in which the previous publication had appeared.
The Journal also encourages its readers to report any published article in which they suspect misconduct through e-mail or letter. Anonymity of the complainant would be maintained at all times.

Open Access Policy
The journal holds the copyright for the article but the authors are free to distribute under creative common licence. Copyright held is simply to acknowledge the journal in any such distribution and sharing of content.

Permission
It is the responsibility of authors/contributors to obtain permission for reproducing any copyrighted material. A copy of the permission obtained must accompany the manuscript. Copies of any and all published articles or other manuscripts in preparation or submitted elsewhere that are related to the manuscript must also accompany the manuscript.

Complaints and Appeals
This procedure applies to complaints about the publishing policies, procedures and/or actions of the Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Associations’ Editorial staff. This complaint must relate to content or a procedure that was the responsibility of the Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association or its Editor.
If the authors strongly believe that their manuscript was wrongly rejected, they can register an appeal with the Journal by emailing detailed explanation to jkoa.editor@gmail.com
The appeals will be acknowledged by the Editorial office and will be investigated in an unbiased manner. While under appeal, the said manuscript should not be submitted to other journals. The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief, and second appeals are not considered.
The Journal only accepts complaints through the above-mentioned e-mail, as this provides a reliable trail. All complaints are acknowledged at the earliest. The complaint would be followed-up in an unbiased manner and be handled by the person to whom they are made, if possible. The Journal aims to resolve any complaint raised within 2–4 weeks; however, if that is not possible, an interim response would be provided until the complaint is resolved.


Editor

Dr Anil K Bhat
Department of Orthopaedics,
Kasturba Medical College, Manipal-576104
E-mail: jkoa.editor@gmail.com
anilbhatortho@gmail.com