Peer Review Process and Editorial Workflow

JoNMC employs a strict double-blind peer review process (the identities of both the authors and the reviewers remain completely anonymous to each other throughout the evaluation lifecycle) to ensure objective, high-quality, and unbiased evaluation. Neither the author identities nor the reviewer identities are disclosed to either party throughout the evaluation lifecycle.

Step 1: Initial Submission & Operational Screening

• Who Handles It: Upon submission, the manuscript is received by the Executive Editorial Team (Managing Editor / Executive Editor).
• What They Do: They perform an initial quality check to ensure the manuscript aligns with the journal's scope, meets formatting guidelines, and undergoes systematic plagiarism screening via iThenticate. Submissions with an overall similarity index exceeding 25% are rejected immediately.

Step 2: Review Assignment & Triage

• Who Handles It: The Editor-in-Chief (or a designated Section Editor from our 26-member Editorial Board) takes charge of the file.
• What They Do: If the paper passes the initial screening, the Editor-in-Chief or Section Editor selects and invites two independent, external subject experts to review the manuscript.
• Suggested/Opposed Reviewers: Editors may consider author-suggested reviewers but are under no obligation to use them; all suggested reviewers undergo strict institutional verification to prevent conflicts of interest. Opposed reviewers are honored unless vital to the evaluation.
• Tie-Breaking Rule: If the two initial reviewers provide conflicting recommendations (e.g., one recommends acceptance and the other rejection), the handling Editor will assign the manuscript to a third independent reviewer for a final tie-breaking assessment.

Step 3: Processing Timelines

• First Round Review: The initial peer-review phase typically requires 30 to 45 days.
• Revision Review: If a manuscript requires revision and is returned to the reviewers for re-evaluation, an additional 15 to 30 days will be required.
• Average Total Duration: On average, the journey from initial submission to a definitive final editorial decision span approximately 90 days.

Step 4: Final Decision Making

• Who Decides: The final decision regarding the acceptance, revision, or rejection of any manuscript rests exclusively with the Editor-in-Chief, based on the formal written recommendations and structural critiques provided by the peer reviewers.
• Exceptions: Short Communications receive a highly accelerated review timeline of 1 to 2 weeks at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief to ensure the rapid dissemination of urgent findings.

Reviewer Guidelines and Responsibilities

The Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) relies on peer reviewers to maintain the highest standards of scientific integrity and validity. Reviewers are expected to adhere strictly to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Reviewer Responsibilities

• Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat all manuscripts as confidential documents. They must not share, discuss, or exploit any part of an uncompleted review or unpublished data.
• Objectivity: Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal or unprofessional criticism of the authors is strictly prohibited. Arguments must be supported with clear scientific evidence.
• Promptness: Reviewers should only accept manuscripts within their area of expertise that they can evaluate within the journal's standard 3-week review window. If an extension is needed, they must notify the editorial office immediately.
• Conflict of Interest: Reviewers must decline to review a manuscript if they have any personal, professional, or financial conflicts of interest with the authors or institutions involved.
• Reporting Breaches: If a reviewer suspects plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, or redundant publication, they must report their concerns directly to the Editor-in-Chief with supporting details.
• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by Reviewers: Reviewers must comply with the Journal's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Policy. Manuscripts under review are confidential and must not be uploaded to public or commercial AI tools. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content and recommendations of their peer review.

Complaints Against Reviewers

Authors or editors who believe a reviewer has breached confidentiality, exhibited bias, used unprofessional language, or engaged in any other form of reviewer misconduct (as defined above) may submit a formal written complaint to the Editor-in-Chief at editorjonmc2012@gmail.com.

• The complaint is assessed confidentially by the Editor-in-Chief (or, where the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict, by an independent Editorial Board member).
• The reviewer in question is given the opportunity to respond.
• Where misconduct is confirmed, actions may include removal of the reviewer's comments from consideration, reassignment of the manuscript to a new reviewer, formal warning to the reviewer, and/or permanent removal from the Journal's reviewer database.
• Confirmed serious breaches (e.g., data theft, plagiarizing unpublished content) may also be reported to the reviewer's home institution.

Policy on Handling Papers from Editorial Board Members

• To ensure absolute impartiality, if an Editorial Board member, or Advisor submits a manuscript to JoNMC, the entire peer-review process is structurally isolated from them.
• The submitting board member is completely blinded from reviewer selection, tracking dashboards, and reviewer comments.
• The Editor-in-Chief will assign an independent, external guest editor to manage the peer-review pipeline.
• Editorial Board members will never participate in the evaluation, discussion, or final decision regarding their own submissions.

Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Research Misconduct Framework: Screening, Definitions, and Enforcement

The Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) employs a multi-tiered screening pipeline to prevent, detect, and handle instances of suspected research misconduct in strict accordance with COPE guidelines.

1. Active Identification Routines

• Plagiarism Screening: Every submitted manuscript is systematically screened using iThenticate software. Submissions with a similarity index exceeding 25%, or containing contiguous blocks of text copied without attribution, will be returned or rejected.
• Data and Image Audits: Editors and reviewers evaluate charts, statistical distributions, and high-resolution medical imaging (e.g., micrographs, radiographs, gel blots) for visual anomalies, geometric repetitions, or metadata inconsistencies.
• Citation Integrity Checks: The editorial board reviews reference lists to identify unnatural citation clustering, citation stacking, or malicious coercion by external actors.

2. Definitions and Classification of Misconduct

JoNMC classifies breaches of research integrity into specific operational levels managed via standardized COPE workflows:

• Data Fabrication: The invention or ungrounded generation of research data, clinical records, or laboratory results that never occurred.
• Data Falsification: The deliberate manipulation, selective alteration, omission, or misrepresentation of research materials, equipment processes, or datasets (including deceptive cropping or adjustments of medical images).
• Citation Manipulation: The intentional inflation of citation metrics, including "citation coercion" (where a reviewer or editor forces authors to add irrelevant citations to their own papers or to JoNMC) or excessive author self-citation stacking.
• Reviewer Misconduct: Instances where a peer reviewer breaches confidentiality, intentionally delays a competitor’s manuscript, or appropriates text, ideas, or data from an assigned manuscript for their own use.

3. Procedure for Handling Allegations of Misconduct

Allegations of research or publication misconduct may be raised by editors, reviewers, readers, or any third party, and should be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief at editorjonmc2012@gmail.com, with supporting evidence where possible.

• Initial Assessment: The Editor-in-Chief conducts a preliminary review to determine whether the allegation warrants formal investigation.
• Investigation: If warranted, the matter is referred to the Editorial Board (or an independent panel where a conflict of interest exists) for formal investigation in accordance with COPE guidelines and flowcharts. The corresponding author is notified and given the opportunity to respond.
• Confidentiality: The investigation is conducted confidentially until a conclusion is reached, consistent with the Journal's Privacy and Confidentiality Policy.
• Institutional Referral: Where appropriate, the matter is simultaneously referred to the author's institution for parallel investigation.
• Outcome and Timeline: JoNMC aims to reach a decision within 90 days of a formal allegation, resulting in one of the outcomes described under Disciplinary Action, Retractions, or Expressions of Concern below. The person who raised the allegation is informed of the outcome where appropriate.

4. Disciplinary Action and Enforcement

If an internal investigation confirms misconduct, the JoNMC Editorial Board will implement penalties scaled to the severity of the offense:

• Pre-publication: Immediate desk rejection, a formal warning letter sent to all co-authors, and a potential multi-year submission ban.
• Post-publication: Issuance of an official Retraction Notice or an Expression of Concern (if evidence is inconclusive or an external investigation is unresolved) permanently linked to the online article.
• Institutional Notification: Formal notification of the infraction will be sent to the authors' institutional head, dean, the Institutional Review Committee of Nobel Medical College Teaching Hospital (IRC-NoMCTH), or the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC).

Data Sharing, Availability, and Transparency Policy

To promote scientific transparency, reproducibility, and responsible data sharing, the Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) requires all original research articles submitted from August 2026 onwards to include a mandatory Data Availability Statement placed immediately before the references section. Articles submitted before August 2026 were not subject to this requirement.

Authors are strongly encouraged to make their anonymized raw research data, statistical codes, and clinical datasets available to reviewers and readers. The mandatory statement must explicitly specify which of the following options applies to the study:

1. Publicly Available: The data is deposited in a recognized public repository (with a valid DOI or link).
2. Available Upon Request: The data is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
3. Restricted Access: The data cannot be shared due to patient privacy laws, institutional ethical restrictions, or regulatory confidentiality.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Policy

AI Use by Authors

The Journal of Nobel Medical College permits the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or similar tools) only to improve the language, readability, or organization of a manuscript.

Authors must adhere to the following requirements:

• Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all submitted work, including any content generated or assisted by AI tools.
• AI tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot meet the requirements for authorship or accept responsibility for the work.
• If AI tools have been used to generate, revise, summarize, translate, or edit any part of the manuscript beyond basic spelling or grammar correction, authors must disclose this in the manuscript under an "AI Use Statement" or in the Acknowledgements section. The disclosure should include the name of the AI tool and a brief description of how it was used.
• Authors must verify all AI-generated content, including factual statements, references, tables, and interpretations. Any errors remain the responsibility of the authors.
• AI-generated or AI-manipulated images, figures, or data must not be used unless explicitly stated, scientifically justified, and approved by the journal.
• Authors must not use AI tools to fabricate, falsify, manipulate, or misrepresent research data or results.

AI Use by Reviewers

Peer reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts submitted for review.

• Reviewers should not upload any confidential manuscript or its contents into public or commercial AI tools unless explicit permission has been obtained from the journal.
• AI tools must not be used to generate the reviewer's scientific opinion or recommendation.
• If reviewers use AI-assisted tools for limited language editing or grammar checking, they remain fully responsible for the accuracy, completeness, confidentiality, and integrity of their review.
• Reviewers must ensure that confidential information obtained during peer review is not disclosed or shared with any AI system that may retain or use submitted content.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to request additional information regarding the use of AI tools during manuscript preparation or peer review whenever necess

Editorial Independence Statement

The Journal of Nobel Medical College is committed to maintaining editorial independence and integrity in all aspects of the publication process. Editorial decisions are made independently by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board based solely on the scientific quality, originality, ethical standards, and relevance of submitted manuscripts. Decisions are not influenced by the journal owner, publisher, patrons, advisors, authors, or any other individual or organization.

Patrons and Advisors provide academic and strategic guidance to support the journal's development but do not participate in or influence editorial decisions regarding the peer review, acceptance, rejection, or publication of manuscripts.

Editors are expected to manage conflicts of interest appropriately and conduct the editorial and peer-review process fairly, transparently, confidentially, and in accordance with internationally accepted publication ethics and best practices.

Handling Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

JoNMC publishes corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern as appropriate and as quickly as possible, adhering strictly to the guidelines established by COPE and the ICMJE.

1. Corrections

JoNMC will issue an official notice of correction to maintain the integrity of the scientific record:

• Erratum: Issued when an unintended mistake or omission is identified that impacts the clarity or accuracy of the published article.
• Addendum: Issued when crucial additional information or data needs to be appended to a previously published article.

2. Retractions

A publication will be formally retracted if the Editorial Board finds clear evidence of the following:

• Unreliable Findings: The core conclusions are invalid due to severe honest errors (e.g., mathematical miscalculations or experimental flaws) or confirmed research misconduct (e.g., data fabrication or falsification).
• Redundant Publication: The findings have already been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or legal justification.
• Ethical Violations: The manuscript is found to involve plagiarism or breaches of ethical research standards.

3. Expressions of Concern

JoNMC will issue an official Expression of Concern under any of the following conditions:

• Inconclusive Evidence: There is strong but inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors.
• Unresolved Investigations: An official investigation into alleged misconduct is actively underway, but a definitive judgment will not be available for a considerable time.
• Institutional Failure: There is evidence that the findings are unreliable, but the authors’ host institution refuses to investigate, or its investigation appears biased, unfair, or inconclusive.

Ethical Oversight Policies

1. Policy on Human Rights and Informed Consent

All research published in JoNMC must be conducted within an appropriate ethical framework. The journal reserves the right to reject any manuscript with questionable ethical standards.

• Ethical Approval: For all studies involving human subjects, authors must obtain prior institutional ethical approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB), Institutional Review Committee (IRC), or an equivalent recognized ethics committee. Every research article must include an explicit statement confirming this approval, including the official name of the ethics committee and the specific approval protocol number/ID. If institutional approval was not required, a formal statement explaining the exact justification must be provided.
• Countries Without a Formal Ethics Approval System: Where a country does not have a formal ethics approval system or independent ethics committee, authors must include a link to an official national or government policy confirming this, where possible. If no such reference is available, authors must state this explicitly and provide a justification in the manuscript.
• International Standards: Authors must ensure that the work was carried out in strict accordance with the World Medical Association’s Code of Ethics (Declaration of Helsinki) and aligns with the ICMJE Recommendations for Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
• Dual Informed Consent: Authors must include a statement in the manuscript confirming that free, informed consent was obtained from all adult participants, or from parents/legal guardians in the case of minors. This consent must explicitly cover two components:

ü  Consent for study participation.

ü  Consent for the publication of the data collected.

• Consent Formats: For studies where verbal, rather than written, informed consent was obtained, the exact reasons and protocol for obtaining verbal consent must be fully explained and justified within the manuscript.
• Diversity and Reporting: Submissions should aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity). The terms "sex" and "gender" must be used correctly in accordance with the SAGER (Sex and Gender Equity in Research) guidelines.

2. Research Involving Animal Subjects

• Ethical Approval: Studies involving animal models must be conducted according to internationally accepted welfare standards. Authors must secure prior approval from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or an equivalent animal ethics body.
• Reporting Compliance: The exact name of the approving ethics committee and the relevant permit/approval numbers must be provided at the time of submission. Animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal research.

3. Case Reports & Patient Privacy Policy

• Consent for Publication: For all case reports, case series, or clinical images involving human subjects, explicit written informed consent for the publication of clinical details, identifiable images, audio recordings, or video materials must be obtained from the patient (or their legal guardian) prior to submission. A statement confirming this must be explicitly written in the manuscript text.
• Anonymization & Privacy: Patient anonymity and privacy rights must be strictly maintained at all stages. Authors must completely remove all identifying information including patient names, initials, hospital record numbers, and precise geographic data from text, tables, and imaging files (such as X-rays, MRIs, and echocardiograms) before upload.

Ethics Policy on Clinical Trials and Multi-Tier Conflict of Interest

The Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) enforces rigorous ethical standards across all stages of the publication process.

Clinical Trial Registration Policy

In accordance with ICMJE and COPE recommendations, all clinical trials submitted to JoNMC must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible registry prior to the enrollment of the first participant. Acceptable registries include the Clinical Trials Registry India (CTRI), ClinicalTrials.gov, the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), or any primary registry operating within the WHO Registry Network. The trial registration name, registry URL, and unique registration number must be explicitly stated at the end of the abstract and within the “Materials and Methods” section of the manuscript. Retrospective registration will result in immediate rejection.

Multi-Tier Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy

A conflict of interest exists when financial, personal, or institutional relationships inappropriately bias research or its publication. Full disclosure of all actual or potential conflicts is an absolute requirement for all submissions, applying across all operational layers of the journal.

• For Authors: Authors must explicitly disclose all funding sources, institutional affiliations, or commercial relationships within their manuscript. If no competing interests exist, authors must explicitly state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.”
• For Peer Reviewers: Reviewers must decline a review invitation immediately if they work at the same institution as the authors, have co-authored papers with them within the past 3 years, or possess any direct financial or competing intellectual interests in the research findings.
• For Editors: Editors, guest editors and the Editor-in-Chief must completely recuse themselves from managing any manuscript where a personal, financial, or institutional bias exists.
• For Editorial Board Submissions: If a manuscript is submitted by an internal editorial board member, JoNMC enforces a strict firewalled workflow. The submitting member is completely recused, loses all backend tracking system access, and the file is reassigned to an independent external editor who manages a completely blind peer review.
• For Journal Staff and Publishers: All administrative journal staff, technical assistants, and representatives of the publishing institution (Research and Publication Unit of Nobel Medical College) must disclose any potential commercial or institutional conflicts and recuse themselves from handling files that could compromise evaluation integrity.

Procedures for Handling and Investigating Conflicts

Disclosed conflicts are evaluated by the editorial team to determine if an independent review path is required. If an undisclosed conflict of interest is discovered during the evaluation phase or arises after a manuscript has been published, the Editorial Board will launch an official investigation following COPE guidelines and flowcharts. Confirmed infractions will result in immediate manuscript rejection, formal institutional warnings, or a permanent, public Retraction Notice depending on the severity of the violation.

Final Content Requirements

To maintain complete public transparency, an explicit conflict of interest disclosure statement (or a formal note confirming that none were declared) is a mandatory requirement that must appear printed on the full-text version of all published articles.

Funding Policy & Role of the Funding Source

• Disclosure of Research Funding: Authors must declare all financial support received for the research or manuscript preparation. Submissions must include the full name of the funding organization(s) and specific grant numbers. A mandatory funding statement must be included in all full-text versions of the published article.
• Role of the Sponsor: Manuscripts must describe the sponsor’s role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or the submission decision.
• If the funder had no involvement: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”
• If no funding was received: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”
• Funder Mandates & Publication Fees: Authors must ensure compliance with funder open access mandates. JoNMC is a no-fee journal; it does not charge any Article Processing Charges (APCs) or submission fees.

Copyright and Licensing Information

Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License to all works it publishes. Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content without restriction and grant the journal the right of first publication. This open license allows anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and copy the content, provided the original authors and source are properly cited. Authors are fully permitted and encouraged to deposit all versions of their work (submitted version, accepted version, or published version) in any personal, institutional, or third-party repository without any embargo period. A statement confirming the copyright and CC BY 4.0 license terms appears on the full-text version of every published article (PDF), and is also displayed on the article's HTML page via the journal's NepJOL platform

Privacy and Confidentiality Policy

The Journal of Nobel Medical College is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. Personal information submitted to the journal, including names, affiliations, email addresses, and contact details, will be used solely for editorial, peer-review, publication, and journal management purposes. Such information will not be disclosed to third parties except as necessary for journal operations, legal obligations, or with appropriate authorization.

All manuscripts submitted to the journal are treated as confidential documents. Editors, reviewers, and other individuals involved in the editorial process must not disclose, discuss, or use unpublished manuscript content except as necessary for the peer-review and editorial decision-making process. Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality and must not share or upload manuscript content to unauthorized third parties or public/commercial AI tools.

The journal is committed to handling personal data and confidential information in accordance with accepted standards of publication ethics and applicable data protection principles.

Post-Publication Discussions

JoNMC provides a transparent mechanism for post-publication discussion, allowing readers to submit official critiques, scientific commentaries, or Letters to the Editor regarding published articles. All submissions must be written in professional, objective language and focused strictly on the scientific or methodological aspects of the work. If a critique is deemed valid by the Editorial Board, it will be shared with the original authors to provide an opportunity for a formal rebuttal. Both the accepted commentary and the author's response will be published concurrently in the next scheduled biannual issue and permanently linked to the original article to maintain an open and accurate scientific record.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors have the right to appeal a manuscript rejection or file a complaint regarding editorial decisions or staff behavior by sending a formal, written request to the Editor-in-Chief at editorjonmc2012@gmail.com. In addition to appeals of editorial decisions, JoNMC welcomes complaints from authors, reviewers, readers, or any other party regarding the journal's policies, procedures, or published content. The Editorial Board will evaluate the appeal or complaint impartially based on scientific merit and journal policies, providing a definitive resolution within 30 days. If a complaint involves the Editor-in-Chief directly, or if the complainant remains unsatisfied with the resolution, the matter may be escalated to the Editorial Advisors for a final institutional review.

Note on Legacy Content

Articles published prior to August 2026 may show variations in referencing typography and flat (non-hyperlinked) license metadata due to older typesetting templates; the copyright and license terms remain present on these articles, though not hyperlinked. All issues from December 2026 onward strictly enforce our updated, hyperlinked CC BY 4.0 and modified Vancouver formatting standards.

Downloadable Link : 1. JoNMC_Confidential_Peer_Review_Assessment_Form