REGULATIONS OF THE JOURNAL OF THE PORTUGUESE SOCIETY OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
Part I
INTRODUCTION
Article 1
- According to the Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology (SPO) in Article 13, the SPO is the owner of the journal Ophthalmology, and the President of the SPO must be a member of the journal's board. The Editor-in-Chief is selected through a 3-year competition.
- According to the same article of the bylaws, the SPO will pay the costs associated with the Revista Oftalmologia, and the journal and its content must maintain total scientific impartiality.
Part II
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Article 2
Competition for Editor-in-Chief
- The editor-in-chief must be an ophthalmologist, a full member of the SPO and have proven general scientific knowledge of the fields covered by the journal and be skilled in the art of writing, editing, critical evaluation, negotiation and diplomacy.
- The editor-in-chief selected through an open competition must hold this position for a period of no less than three years and may serve more than one term, up to a maximum of two successive terms.
- The competition will be opened and advertised by the SPO Board at least 3 months before the end of the term of office, and the Board will make the final choice of the candidate for the position.
- The outgoing editor-in-chief may recommend potential successors to fill his or her position until the end of the current term.
- If the editor-in-chief is unable to complete the current term of office, the SPO Board must be notified three months in advance.
- In the event that there are no candidates and the outgoing Editor-in-Chief refuses to continue in office, the SPO Board of Directors shall appoint a permanent member, who does not serve on the SPO's governing bodies, to this position until the position is regularized through a competitive process.
Article 3
Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief
- The editor-in-chief will have complete authority and independence to determine the editorial content in accordance with the scope, mission and vision of the Journal of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology (according to the concept of editorial freedom adopted by the ICMJE: International Committee of Medical Journals Edit ors and defined by the World Association of Medical Editors' (http://www.icmje.org/ethical_2editor.html)) and to participate in the development of the journal's publicity and scientific dissemination policy.
- The editor-in-chief must use his/her best efforts to ensure that all contributions submitted for publication in the Journal of the Portuguese Ophthalmological Society:
- a) are of good quality, relevant and in good Portuguese or English;
- b) are original, have not yet been published, in whole or in substantial part, and do not infringe the copyright or other proprietary rights of any other person;
- c) do not contain any scandalous, defamatory, obscene, illegal or objectionable material;
- d) and that they comply with the instructions to authors drawn up by the editorial board, which are periodically reviewed and disseminated to members.
Article 4
Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief
- To publish original, important, well-documented and peer-reviewed articles on a wide range of scientific topics of interest to readers.
- Ensure the quality of the magazine and that what it publishes is ethical, current and relevant to readers.
- Ensure that editorial decisions are based on the merit of the work submitted and its suitability for the journal.
- Ensure that all parties involved in the peer review process declare any potential conflict of interest and ask to be excused from reviewing manuscripts that they may not be able to objectively review.
- Ensure that the submission of the manuscript and all associated details are kept confidential by the editorial board and all persons involved in the peer-review process and that the identity of the reviewers is confidential.
- Making decisions that are not influenced by the origin of the manuscript or determined by external agents or pressures.
- Ensure that all elements involved in the peer review process act in accordance with the highest ethical standards.
- Receive details of all manuscripts from the "manuscriptadministrator" and allocate them to an associated editor (including him/her where appropriate).
- Choosing and notifying reviewers of assigned manuscripts.
- Decide on rejections, acceptances and requests for resubmissions, maintaining the scientific quality of the journal and improving its readability.
- Requesting and/or supervising the commissioning of editorials, commentaries, review and perspective articles.
- Reject without external peer review manuscripts: lacking originality or of limited interest to the readers of the Journal of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology, containing serious scientific or methodological flaws, whose topic is not covered in the necessary depth, too preliminary and/or speculative, containing outdated information.
- Participate in editorial courses and meetings (e.g. Editor Training Courses, European Association of Science Editors, World Association of Medical Editors) and promote the training of your team in scientific editing.
- Establish policies that regulate:
- a. Manuscript submission and authorship/contributorship criteria;
- b. Peer review processes, including evaluation of decisions on publication and methods of reconsideration of rejected manuscripts;
- c. Identifying and selecting themed issues and supplements;
- d. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest;
- e. The ethical position of the publication;
- f. Indexing the journal.
- Supervising the journal's response to appeals, complaints, suggestions from readers and ethical problems in relation to published work (e.g. duplicate publication, plagiarism, scientific fraud, etc.). The journal is part of the Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE - http://publicationethics.org/). As such, complaints must be handled first and foremost by the editor-in-chief and not by the SPO Board.
- Communicate publication standards and editorial policies (e.g. instructions to authors, instructions to reviewers, ethical guidelines, editorial board reports, editorials).
- Appoint associate editors, members of the scientific council and statistical and epidemiological advisors.
- Select an independent editorial board to help you establish and maintain an editorial policy.
- Promoting and chairing meetings at least every two months with the group of deputy editors-in-chief and associate editors.
- Promoting and chairing meetings with the entire editorial team every six months.
- Receive, analyze and act on complaints from people involved in the publication process.
- Set annual targets for processing and publication time; audit performance and, if necessary, take appropriate corrective action if targets are not met.
- Provide the SPO Board, which owns the journal, with an action plan for the three-year period and an annual activity report for each year of activity. The annual report must include the journal's annual budget for approval by the journal's owner.
- Representing the editorial board in negotiations with the magazine's owner.
- Approve the ethical content of advertising, supplements or other materials proposed for publication and sponsored by commercial organizations.
Article 5
Duties and obligations of the Editor-in-Chief:
- Respect readers, authors, reviewers and all human beings who are the targets of research:
- a. Making the journal's process (e.g. management, editorial team members, number of reviewers, review times, acceptance rate) transparent;
- b. Thanking the reviewers for their work;
- c. Protecting patient confidentiality and privacy.
- Promoting self-correction in science and participating in efforts to improve the practice of scientific research:
- a. Publishing corrections, retractions and criticisms of published articles;
- b. Taking responsibility for improving the level of scientific research and medical publishing in the community of potential authors and readers.
- To guarantee the honesty and integrity of the content of the Journal of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology and to minimize bias:
- a. Managing conflicts of interest;
- b. Keeping information confidential;
- c. Separating the editorial and commercial functions of the magazine.
- Improving the quality of the Journal of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology:
- a. Familiarizing yourself with best practice in publishing, peer review, research ethics, research methods;
- b. Establishing appropriate programs to monitor the performance of magazines;
- c. Requesting external evaluations of the magazine's effectiveness.
Article 6
Removal of the Editor-in-Chief:
- a. The SPO has the right to remove the Editor-in-Chief from office in exceptional situations and for exceptional reasons such as: a. If the Editor-in-Chief loses the status of full member, in accordance with the bylaws;
- b. Faced with a pattern of poor editorial decisions, constant incompatibility with the magazine's management, reprehensible personal behavior (criminal acts) incompatible with a position of trust;
- c. If for any reason the owners and publishers feel that they cannot work together in a spirit of trust and mutual collaboration;
- d. The dismissal of the Editor-in-Chief must be decided at an Ordinary or Extraordinary General Meeting, at the proposal of the Board of Directors.
Chapter III
THE DEPUTY EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Article 7
The duties of the Deputy Editors-in-Chief are:
- a. Possess a general scientific knowledge of the fields covered by the journal and be skilled in the art of writing, editing, critical evaluation, negotiation and diplomacy.
- b. Proposing and writing editorials in accordance with the editorial line.
- c. Requesting and/or supervising the commissioning of editorials, commentaries, review and perspective articles.
- d. Responsible for ensuring the quality of the magazine and that what it publishes is ethical, current and relevant to readers.
- e. Making decisions that are neither influenced by the origin of the manuscript nor determined by external agents.
- f. Ensure that all elements involved in the peer review process act in accordance with the highest ethical standards.
- g. Choosing and notifying reviewers of assigned manuscripts.
- h. Decide on rejections, approvals and requests for resubmissions, maintaining the scientific quality of the journal and improving its readability.
- i. Requesting and/or supervising the commissioning of editorials, commentaries, review and perspective articles.
Chapter IV
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Article 8
- The Editorial Board must be made up of national and international members.
- The members of the editorial board have the following duties:
- a. The timely and effective review of at least 2 articles per year whenever requested;
- b. The submission of an article, if requested by the Editors-in-Chief or Associate Editors;
- c. Writing a letter, opinion piece or editorial whenever requested by the Editors-in-Chief or Associate Editors;
- d. Paper-chasing (promoting publication in the Journal of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology) at national and international level.
Chapter V
Article 9
- These regulations will come into force as soon as they have been approved by the General Meeting
- Amendments to the regulations may be made at ordinary General Meetings, provided that they are proposed in advance and included on the agenda.
