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Policies

Contents

Conflict of Interest Policy

View our Conflict of Interest Policy.

Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism Policy

The Journal of Mane Medical Center treats issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Authors should ensure their work is entirely original and that any work and/or words of others have been appropriately acknowledged. All submitted articles will be checked with duplication-checking software, Turnitin, to ensure integrity. Where an article is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or correction; retracting the article; or taking appropriate legal action.

AI Policy

JMMC concurs with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) defining the role of authors and contributors related to AI-Assisted Technology. The ICMJE specifically states:
“At submission, the journal should require authors to disclose whether they used artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in the production of submitted work. Authors who use such technology should describe, in both the cover letter and the submitted work, how they used it. Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, and these responsibilities are required for authorship). Therefore, humans are responsible for any submitted material that included the use of AI-assisted technologies. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors should be able to assert that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in text and images produced by the AI. Humans must ensure there is appropriate attribution of all quoted material, including full citations.”
https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
Authors submitting papers to JMMC must follow the ICJME guidelines above.
JMMC peer reviewers are not allowed to use AI-assisted technologies to review papers, as this incurs a risk that the paper’s contents become part of the database that these tools utilize.

Appeals Policy

View our Appeals Policy.

Philosophy of Journal of Maine Medical Center

For more information, please see Aims and Scope page.

Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in Journal of Maine Medical Center provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).

The following four criteria are necessary and jointly sufficient to be listed as the author on a manuscript.  
A. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
B. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
C. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
D. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Preferably, all authors should be identified at the beginning of a research project.  In addition, criteria C and D should not be used to exclude persons from authorship who might otherwise qualify for authorship.

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General Submission Rules

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. In addition, by submitting material to Journal of Maine Medical Center, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Journal of Maine Medical Center. If you have concerns about the submission terms for Journal of Maine Medical Center, please contact the editors.

JMMC Pre-print policy

Preprint repositories are online platforms for publicly sharing unpublished work. The Journal of Maine Medical Center will consider on a case-by-case basis submissions that have been previously posted in a non-commercial preprint repository. At the time of submission, the authors must disclose in the cover letter the preprint posting of the manuscript and must provide a link to that posting if it is still active (include the DOI).

Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal of Maine Medical Center. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published JMMC article.

When citing articles available as preprints in the manuscript References, which have not yet been published, the designation "[preprint]" should be included in the reference.

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Formatting Requirements

Journal of Maine Medical Center has no general rules about the formatting of articles upon initial submission. There are, however, rules governing the formatting of the final submission. See Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for details. Although bepress can provide limited technical support, it is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce an electronic version of the article as a high-quality PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format) file, or a Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or RTF file that can be converted to a PDF file.

It is understood that the current state of technology of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is such that there are no, and can be no, guarantees that documents in PDF will work perfectly with all possible hardware and software configurations that readers may have.

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Research Subject Protection Requirements

Original research or any report involving research using human or animal subjects must have appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approvals or determinations prior to submitting. Note this status clearly in the cover letter and manuscript’s Methods section. You may be required to provide proof of appropriate oversight.

If the submitted work is not research based on a determination from an IRB (e.g., QI projects), please indicate this.

Submission types that do not involve human subjects do not require IRB approval.

If an IRB is not available at an author’s institution, review of the research by an institutional compliance or HIPAA-related committee may be sufficient. This must be described in the cover letter and manuscript’s Methods section. Use of a commercial IRB is also an option.

Identifying information, including names, initials or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent must be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained.

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Rights for Authors and MaineHealth Knowledge Connection

The Journal of Maine Medical Center applies the Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY) to all works we publish. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.
The author may include the officially published version of the article (version of record) in an institutional or disciplinary repository, provided the posting includes a prominent statement of the full bibliographical details, and a link to the online edition of the journal.

Attribution and Usage Policies

Reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption or by written agreement of MaineHealth Knowledge Connection, requires credit to MaineHealth Knowledge Connection as copyright holder (e.g., MaineHealth Knowledge Connection © 2024).

Personal-use Exceptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from MaineHealth Knowledge Connection provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  • Storage and back-up of the article on the author's computer(s) and digital media (e.g., diskettes, back-up servers, Zip disks, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
  • Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  • Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series); and
  • Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.

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General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the MaineHealth Knowledge Connection website and/or software agree not to misuse the MaineHealth Knowledge Connection service or software in any way.

The failure of MaineHealth Knowledge Connection to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between MaineHealth Knowledge Connection and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is a confidential material. JMMC will not disclose submitted manuscripts to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of the JMMC’s Editorial Board and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct. JMMC shall follow the appropriate COPE flowcharts wherever necessary.

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