Sriwijaya Journal of Radiology and Imaging Research (SJRIR) · Published by Phlox Institute
Aligned with the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the editorial selection criteria of Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection.
Sriwijaya Journal of Radiology and Imaging Research (SJRIR) is a rigorously peer-reviewed, open-access medical journal devoted to diagnostic radiology, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging science. The Journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity in scholarly publishing. This statement defines the ethical responsibilities of all parties involved in the act of publishing—authors, the editorial board, peer reviewers, and the publisher—and the procedures the Journal follows to detect, prevent, and remedy publication malpractice.
All policies set out below are constructed upon the COPE Core Practices, the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Submission of a manuscript to SJRIR constitutes acceptance of these terms by all authors.
1. Editorial Independence and Governance
The Editor-in-Chief holds full authority over the entire editorial content of the Journal and over the timing of publication of that content. Editorial decisions are made independently of the publisher, the journal owner, advertisers, sponsors, and any commercial or political interest. No marketing or financial consideration may influence editorial judgement. The publisher guarantees that the editorial board operates free from interference, and the editorial board in turn ensures that decisions rest exclusively on scholarly merit and ethical compliance.
2. Duties of Editors
Publication Decisions and Fair Play. The Editor-in-Chief, supported by the editorial board and informed by peer review, is responsible for deciding which submitted manuscripts are published. Decisions are driven solely by the validity, originality, clinical and scientific significance, methodological rigour, and relevance of the work to the scope of the Journal. Manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, institutional affiliation, or political philosophy. Editors are bound by the legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism in force at the time.
Confidentiality. Editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
Ethical Oversight. Editors critically assess the ethical conduct of all reported research. Any study involving human participants must explicitly state compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and provide evidence of approval by a recognised Institutional Review Board (IRB) or research ethics committee. Editors must take reasonably responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised regarding a submitted or published manuscript, and have a duty to act even when such concerns are brought to their attention years after publication.
Conflicts of Interest and Recusal. Editors must not handle manuscripts in which they have a competing interest arising from collaborative, competitive, financial, personal, or institutional relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the work. In such cases, the manuscript is reassigned to another member of the editorial board. Decisions on manuscripts authored by an editor are managed under an independent editorial process that excludes the conflicted editor entirely.
Investigation and Cooperation. Editors will take all reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of work where research misconduct has occurred. Where misconduct is alleged or substantiated, the editor will follow the relevant COPE flowcharts, seek a response from the authors, and, if necessary, escalate the matter to the authors' institutions. The Journal is prepared to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and expressions of concern as required.
3. Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions. Peer review assists the editor in reaching editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the scientific and clinical quality of the manuscript. SJRIR operates a double-anonymised peer-review process; reviewers must respect the confidentiality of this process and not seek to identify the authors.
Promptness. Any reviewer who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript, or who knows that prompt review will be impossible, should promptly notify the editor and decline the invitation so that alternative reviewers may be approached without undue delay.
Confidentiality. Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such. They must not be shown to, or discussed with, others except as authorised by the editor. This restriction also applies to reviewers who decline the invitation. Reviewers must not use artificial-intelligence tools that retain or transmit manuscript content to external servers, as this would breach confidentiality.
Standards of Objectivity. Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting, evidence-based arguments, distinguishing constructive critique from unsubstantiated opinion, and should give particular attention to the soundness of the imaging methodology, statistical analysis, and the interpretation of diagnostic findings.
Acknowledgement of Sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. They should also bring to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and any other published work of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers must decline to evaluate manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, financial, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or healthcare institutions connected to the work.
4. Duties of Authors
Reporting Standards. Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data must be represented accurately. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Authors are expected to follow the relevant reporting guidelines hosted by the EQUATOR Network—for example STARD and CLAIM for diagnostic-accuracy and AI imaging studies, CONSORT for randomised trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, and CARE for case reports.
Originality and Plagiarism. Authors must ensure that they have written and submitted entirely original work, and that where the work or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately cited or quoted and, where required, permission obtained. Plagiarism in all its forms—including verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, and the appropriation of ideas—constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Data Integrity and Image Manipulation. Fabrication or falsification of data, including the manipulation of radiological images beyond legitimate adjustments that do not obscure, move, remove, or introduce diagnostic information, constitutes serious misconduct. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Authors must retain the raw data and original, unprocessed images associated with their manuscript and provide them upon editorial request.
Redundant, Duplicate, and Concurrent Publication. Authors should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical behaviour and is unacceptable. Preprints and prior presentation of an abstract at a scientific meeting must be disclosed at submission.
Acknowledgement of Sources and Fundamental Errors. Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
5. Protection of Human Subjects
For all research involving human participants, human material, human tissue, or identifiable human data, authors must include a statement confirming that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The manuscript must identify the approving Institutional Review Board or research ethics committee by name and quote the approval reference number. Authors must affirm that written, informed consent was obtained from every participant (or from a legal guardian where applicable). Where a study qualifies for a waiver of consent, the basis for the waiver and the approving body must be stated.
6. Animal Welfare
For experiments involving animals, authors must state that the procedures were carried out in accordance with the relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals, and provide the approval number issued by the institutional animal ethics committee. Reporting must conform to the ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines. Authors should describe the steps taken to reduce pain, suffering, and the number of animals used.
7. Patient Privacy and Confidentiality
Patients have a right to privacy that must not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information—including names, initials, hospital or record numbers, dates, and recognisable features within radiographs, computed-tomography, magnetic-resonance, ultrasound, or photographic images—must not be published unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or guardian) has given written informed consent for publication. Authors must remove all embedded patient identifiers and DICOM metadata from imaging files before submission. Consent for publication must be documented and, where applicable, the consent statement included in the manuscript.
8. Clinical Trial Registration
In accordance with ICMJE policy, any clinical trial must be prospectively registered in a public trials registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform or in ClinicalTrials.gov, before the enrolment of the first participant. The trial registration name and number must be stated at the end of the abstract. Failure to register a trial prospectively may be grounds for rejection.
9. Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship must be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the work. SJRIR applies the four ICMJE criteria: each author must (i) make substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; (ii) draft the work or revise it critically for important intellectual content; (iii) give final approval of the version to be published; and (iv) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Those who contributed but do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors meet these criteria and that no one who qualifies has been omitted. Honorary, guest, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Any change to the authorship list after submission requires the written agreement of all authors. The use of paper mills and the sale or transfer of authorship is strictly forbidden.
10. Conflicts of Interest and Funding
All authors must disclose, at submission, any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work—including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications, grants, and other funding, in particular from pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and contrast-agent suppliers. All sources of financial support for the project must be declared, together with a statement of the role, if any, of the funder in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; and the decision to submit for publication. Where there is no conflict of interest and no funding, this must be stated explicitly.
11. Use of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial-intelligence tools and large language models cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the work or its integrity. Authors who use AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of a manuscript or in the conduct of the research—including for the generation, segmentation, or analysis of images—must disclose this use in the methods or acknowledgements, naming the tool and describing how it was used. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all content, including any text or image produced with AI assistance. AI-generated or AI-manipulated images may not be presented as authentic clinical data.
12. Originality and Plagiarism Screening
Every submission is screened with professional similarity-detection software (ORCA/ Originality Recognition and Citation Analyzer) before peer review and again before acceptance. Manuscripts showing unacceptable levels of textual overlap, self-plagiarism, or undisclosed reuse will be returned to the authors or rejected. Confirmed plagiarism after publication will lead to a correction or retraction in accordance with COPE guidance.
13. Data Sharing and Reproducibility
SJRIR encourages authors to make the data underlying their findings available, subject to ethical and legal constraints on patient data. A data-availability statement describing where the data, including anonymised imaging datasets and analysis code, can be found—or explaining why they cannot be shared—is required for all research articles. Authors should deposit data in a recognised, citable repository where feasible.
14. Misconduct, Corrections, and Retractions
The Journal takes all allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously—including data fabrication and falsification, image manipulation, plagiarism, redundant publication, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and ethical breaches concerning human or animal subjects. Allegations are investigated following the relevant COPE flowcharts, irrespective of whether the manuscript is at submission or already published. Authors are given the opportunity to respond. Depending on the outcome, the Journal may issue a correction (erratum), a clarification, an expression of concern, or a retraction. Retraction notices are linked to the original article, clearly labelled, and made freely available. Editors will, where appropriate, inform the authors' institutions and relevant authorities.
15. Complaints, Appeals, and Post-Publication Debate
SJRIR welcomes substantive criticism of published work and provides a mechanism for authors to appeal editorial decisions. Appeals must be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief and should set out the grounds in detail; they are considered by an editor not previously involved in the decision. Complaints regarding the conduct of editors, reviewers, or the editorial process are handled promptly, fairly, and confidentially. Readers are invited to submit letters to the editor or post-publication comments, which the original authors are given the opportunity to address.
16. Intellectual Property and Archiving
Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence, with authors retaining copyright of their work; the licence terms are stated on each article. The Journal respects the intellectual-property rights of third parties, and authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any previously published material. To guarantee the permanence of the scholarly record, the Journal assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to every article and maintains long-term digital preservation through a recognised archiving arrangement, ensuring continued access in the event that the Journal ceases to publish.
17. Duties of the Publisher
Phlox Institute, as publisher, is committed to ensuring that editorial decisions remain independent of commercial considerations and that good publication practice is observed. The publisher supports the editorial board in handling allegations of misconduct, facilitates the timely publication of corrections and retractions, safeguards the integrity of the academic record, and provides the infrastructure for the secure, permanent preservation of published content. The publisher and editors will take all reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred and will under no circumstances encourage or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
Sriwijaya Journal of Radiology and Imaging Research (SJRIR)
Published by Phlox Institute · https://phlox.or.id/index.php/sjrir
This statement is reviewed periodically by the editorial board to reflect evolving best practice in publication ethics. Questions regarding these policies may be directed to the editorial office through the contact details on the Journal website.