Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases:Journal of the COPD Foundation

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation
Policies

General Editorial:

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation (JCOPDF) is an Open Access journal which publishes original manuscripts on all aspects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, including human clinical studies.

Types of articles* considered for publication:

Original Research

Description

These articles are reports of original, primary COPD-related (and bronchiectasis and nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease-related) research (conducted by the authors) which should contain conclusions from the collected data. The reports should include the research question/hypothesis, research methods used (including detailed statistical methods and analysis and relevant approvals), detailed results, a robust discussion of the results, acknowledgements, a data sharing statement, declaration of interests, and references. The JCOPDF generally does not accept reports from Phase I clinical trials as these are often outside the interest of our readership. If submitting a Phase 1 trial, authors should include justification for consideration (based on novelty, innovation, or other unique factors) in a cover letter. Research reported may include:

  • Human Clinical Studies
  • Epidemiology
  • Outcomes Research
  • Basic Science

Must contain a structured abstract of 250 words or less and no more than 50 references.

Word Count

4,500 (not including references);
50 references or less.

Tables/Figures

6 Tables, max
6 Figures, max
(Tables may not exceed 10 Word pages in length)

Publication Fee

$2,450

Reviews

Description

A review article should provide an in-depth overview or summary of developments within a specific COPD/ bronchiectasis/nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease-related topic. The review should provide a comprehensive discussion of the available information on the topic. Both systematic and narrative reviews will be considered.

For narrative reviews, an unstructured abstract of 250 words or less should be provided.

Systematic reviews should include the methods used to locate, select, and incorporate the information provided in the review. A structured abstract of 250 or less words should be provided and while a review should include considerably more references than original research articles, these should be limited to a maximum of 125.

Word Count

5,000 (not including references);
maximum 125 references.

Tables/Figures

6 Tables, max
6 Figures, max
(Tables may not exceed 10 Word pages in length)

Publication Fee

$2,450

Perspective

Description

These brief articles of commentary should focus on a topic of interest related to COPD research, clinical care, drug development, epidemiology, or advancements, and should reflect the author(s)’ viewpoint on the presented topic while also presenting a comprehensive discussion of the available literature relevant to the topic. Similar to a review article but with a declaration of position from the author(s) and without the systematic rigor expected of a review.

Must include an unstructured abstract of 250 words or less.

Word Count

3,000 words or less (not including references);
maximum 80 references

Tables/Figures

No tables;
3 or less figures

Publication Fee

$1,500

Brief Report

Description

A Brief Report is a short summary (1500 or less words) of original research. An abstract is not required but if provided should be unstructured and 150-200 words

Word Count

1,500 words or less (not including references);
maximum 30 references

Tables/Figures

2 or less tables;
3 or less figures

Publication Fee

$1,500

Practice/Treatment Guidelines

Description

Organizations, professional societies, or governmental bodies may submit their expert-generated recommendations for the treatment or diagnosis of COPD or COPD-related disorders. Communication should be made directly with the Editor in Chief prior to submission.

Word Count

Approx. 5-6,000 not including references.

Tables/Figures

Preferably: 6 Tables or less;
6 Figures or less

Publication Fee

$2,450

Letter to the Editor

Description

Only Letters to the Editor which provide succinct comment and critique of a previously published JCOPDF article will be accepted. These Letters should:

  • be an objective and useful critique
  • have 3 or less authors
  • be submitted well in advance (6 weeks out) of the next JCOPDF issue launch (January, April, July, October) to allow time for the authors of the original article to respond.

The Letter to Editor and the Author(s)’ response will be published in the same issue.

Letters will be initially reviewed by the Editor in Chief and could be sent through peer review—at the Editor’s discretion.

No abstract should be submitted.

Conflict of interest disclosure, author criteria guidelines, and JCOPDF copyright all apply to Letters to the Editor.

Word Count

1,000 words or less;
10 references or less

Tables/Figures

No tables. Figures should be avoided but if necessary to the critique/commentary, should be confined to 2 or less and must be complete and requiring no JCOPDF design team assistance. If using previously published figures (from other than the JCOPDF) permission must be obtained.

Publication Fee

No charge

Images in COPD

Description

These articles feature unusual cases of COPD as well as COPD mimics and include “images” (CT, X-ray, etc.) of the presented cases.

Submitted manuscripts should include a brief introduction, case history, and discussion along with quality, clinical radiographic/computed images illustrating the discussed case.

Word Count

500-1000 words (not including references);
10 or less references

Tables/Figures

No tables, no traditional figures. Must include radiographic/computed images in jpeg or tif format at 300 dpi or higher.

Publication Fee

No charge

Editorial

Description

Invitation only—all others received will be categorized as either a Perspective article or Brief Report and subject to a publication fee, unless otherwise directed by the Editor in Chief.

Publication Fee

No charge—invitation only

*Updated 2022

All submissions must be in English and conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals www.icmje.org.

By virtue of submitting a manuscript to the JCOPDF, the authors certify that:

(a) The material is original, has not been published except in abstract form, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere, including publicly accessible websites;

(b) All authors have read the manuscript and approve its submission;

(c) All clinical trials have been registered in a public trial registry.

If some or all of the dataset for a submitted manuscript was also used for the results in another manuscript, this must be stated explicitly.

Prior to submission, the corresponding author is responsible for:

  • Ensuring that all listed authors meet the ICMJE guidelines for authorship. All listed authors should have substantially participated in the creation of the submitted work. This participation may include the conception and/or design of the study; the acquisition of the data, data analysis and/or interpretation; writing the article and substantial involvement in its revision prior to submission. All authors should significantly contribute to the intellectual content of the article and give final approval of the version to be published. A statement of author contributions should be provided in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.
  • Ensuring that the manuscript is properly prepared (See the Instructions for Authors: Manuscript Preparation).
  • Ensuring that the manuscript adheres to the Journal’s ethics policies (See Ethics Policies below).
  • Ensuring there is no repetition of language or content from previously published papers. Submitted manuscripts will be subjected to automated plagiarism detection.

Genomics Data:

Genomics data should conform to Minimal Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) guidelines. Primary genomic data should be placed in appropriate public repositories such as the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). GEO supports data from microarray-based experiments that measure gene expression or detect genomic gains and losses (array CGH), detect SNPs, or identify protein-binding genomic regions in conjunction with ChIP-chip, or locate transcribed regions. GEO also accepts non-array-based high-throughput data, including SAGE, MPSS, and some peptide profiling techniques such as MS/MS. Instructions for GEO data submission, from the National Library of Medicine, can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/info/submission.html .

Clinical Trials:

Reports on clinical trials should conform to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement http://www.consort-statement.org/ .

Declaration of Interest:

All submitted manuscripts should contain a Declaration of Interest section. See the Conflicts of Interest section below.

Statement of Funding Support:

A Statement of Funding Support for the article’s research and work including but not limited to grant support, funding sources, provision of equipment and supplies and role of the sponsor must be included.

Data Sharing:

All submitted manuscripts reporting clinical trial results, must include a data sharing statement, according to ICMJE manuscript submission recommendations, in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. These statements should address:

  1. Whether individual, de-identified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared.
  2. What data will be shared.
  3. Whether additional, related documents will be made available (study protocols, statistical analysis plan, etc).
  4. When the data will become available and for how long.
  5. The access criteria by which the data will be shared—with whom, for what types of analyses and by what mechanism.

Pre-Print Servers:

The JCOPDF does allow for the posting of preprint versions of manuscripts (the author’s original manuscript created prior to submitting to peer review) to noncommercial preprint servers.

The JCOPDF will not consider the posting of a preprint version of a manuscript on a preprint server/repository to be a case of prior publication, however, the following guidelines should be maintained:

  • Authors must inform the JCOPDF, at the time of submission, that the submitted manuscript has been posted to a preprint server AND provide a link to this posting.
  • Authors should maintain copyright of the manuscript when posting to a preprint server. However, once the manuscript has completed peer review, has been accepted and is scheduled for publication, authors will be asked to sign over copyright to the JCOPDF. The JCOPDF maintains a traditional copyright for all works published in the Journal.
  • After the manuscript is published in the JCOPDF, authors should add the following to the preprint version of the manuscript on the preprint server:

“The final version of this article has been published in [insert full JCOPDF citation] following peer review and can be viewed on the journal’s website at [insert the article’s JCOPDF doi here].

Preprints are early versions of work/manuscripts that have NOT been peer reviewed. As a result, preprint versions should not be used to direct clinical practice, advise health/medical conduct or guide health/medical policy. Preprint versions of manuscripts should not be reported in the media as accepted, established research information. health/medical policy.

The JCOPDF reserves the right to reject any manuscript which does not meet the above requirements/guidelines. Please review the Instructions for Authors pdf for more manuscript formatting guidelines.

Open Access Publication Fee:

As an open access journal, the JCOPDF is not supported by subscription fees and therefore, must rely on an open-access industry standard—the publication fee—to help cover JCOPDF production and management costs. The COPD Foundation charges a publication fee of $2,450 to offset production costs (editing, design, management) and website management costs (design, hosting, archiving). No payment information is requested before an article is accepted, so the ability to pay cannot affect editorial decisions. This fee is billed at the time a manuscript is accepted for publication.

Publication Fee Assistance Policy:

The JCOPDF understands and appreciates that some authors may not have access to funds to cover the publication fee. Beyond their own personal resources, we encourage authors to consider these options for publication fees:

  • Does your funder provide for publication fees within your grant/funds?
  • Does your institution have an Open Access fund?

If none of the above options are available, the JCOPDF may accept a partial payment where only limited funds are available. We offer partial or full fee waivers to authors in exceptional circumstances. These waivers are dependent on availability of funds for fee waivers. Our full fee waiver programs are primarily considered for researchers whose manuscript research was funded by an institution or organization in a low income country, as defined by the World Bank Country Classification table. Partial payment waivers will be considered for researchers from lower middle-income countries. To apply for partial payment or fee waiver consideration, please provide the following information in an email to jcopdf@copdfoundation.org .

  • Author’s name and address
  • Institution and country where the research was funded
  • Funder of research
  • Partial payment request or full fee waiver?
  • Statement as to the reason for the partial payment or fee waiver request.

Peer Review:

All submitted manuscripts are subjected to a rigorous Peer Review process.

Upon receipt of a manuscript, the Editor in Chief assigns an Associate Editor (AE) to the manuscript who is responsible for monitoring the manuscript’s peer review process. The AE selects reviewers (a minimum of two in most cases). (Exceptions include editorials and letters to the editors. These submissions are reviewed by the Journal’s editors.)

The Journal encourages authors to suggest up to 3 potential reviewers (who are not currently working with any of the listed authors and are not affiliated with the authors’ institutions) during the submission process.

A single blind review process is applied to the manuscript (the reviewers remain anonymous to the author(s), but author names are known to the reviewers).

Completed reviews are forwarded to the AE who provides a recommendation for the manuscript to the Editor in Chief. The Editor in Chief will make a final determination as to whether the manuscript should be accepted, revised or rejected. The reviewers’ comments are compiled and provided to the author(s) in a decision letter.

If revisions are required, authors must provide:

  • A revised manuscript with revisions clearly noted via Track Changes
  • A “clean” revised version of the manuscript
  • A “response to the reviewers’ comments”

The Editor in Chief will review all revisions and make the final decision on the revised manuscript’s acceptability for publication. Manuscripts are accepted for publication based on medical and scientific merit, significance, and suitability for the COPD community.

Ethics:

Human Rights

The JCOPDF endorses the recommendations of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki of 1964, revised in 2013.The full recommendations can be found at:

https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/

Investigators conducting research involving human participants, human material, human tissues, or human data should follow these recommendations including seeking approval from the appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board. Manuscripts reporting on this human research and submitted to the Journal must contain:

  • A statement about the institutional review board/ethic committee’s approval of the study’s protocols.
  • A statement declaring that written consent was obtained from all participants or their surrogates if required by the institutional review board.

Animal Rights

The JCOPDF will only consider publishing research in which animals were used if the research is compliant with all subsequent revisions of the Health Research Extension Act (public law 99-158, 1985 Animals in Research). In addition, all animal experiments must conform to the revised: Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council. Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 1996. These documents may be obtained at the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Animal Welfare: https://olaw.nih.gov/

  • Authors must provide a statement that all use of animals/animal experiments in their research conformed to the above guidelines.

The Editor reserves the right to reject any manuscript reporting on studies that do not conform to the above recommendations.

Conflicts of Interest

A Declaration of Interest section must be included in all submitted manuscripts. The section should follow the ICMJE Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest guidelines and address the following, for each author listed on the manuscript:

  • any financial compensation received for the work of the submitted manuscript;
  • any financial relationships outside of the submitted work (sources of revenue paid to the authors or authors’ institutions on their behalf ,within the last 36 months; monies from sources with relevance to the submitted work; interactions with the works’ sponsor outside of the submitted work; any interactions with ANY entity that could be considered broadly relevant to the work);
  • intellectual properties—patents and copyrights (owned, planned or pending) that are broadly relevant to the work;
  • any other relationships or activities that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that gives the appearance of influencing, the manuscript;

The JCOPDF will not consider manuscripts that are funded in any part by tobacco companies.

At the time of acceptance, all authors must complete an ICMJE Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest form. These forms will be emailed to authors, via the JCOPDF ScholarOne Manuscripts system and can be completed electronically. In completing the form, authors should same guidelines stated above for use in creating the manuscript’s Declaration of Interest section. Completed forms must be received from all authors before a manuscript can be finalized and processed for publication.

Copyright:

After manuscript acceptance, all authors will be required to complete an Assignment of Copyright form which will be sent, electronically via the ScholarOne Manuscripts system. Authors are responsible for obtaining appropriate signed permission to reproduce any material (figures, tables, other) from another copyrighted source.

Allegations of Misconduct:

The JCOPDF takes seriously any allegations of research misconduct and recognizes its responsibility and right to investigate any allegations, in accordance with guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity: https://ori.hhs.gov/

Complaints Process:

To appeal an editorial decision, file a complaint about the journal’s processes or to issue a complaint about publication ethics: Please email the Editor in Chief via the Journal’s editorial office: jcopdf@copdfoundation.org.

If the Editor in Chief is the subject of the complaint, please contact the publishing management team via an email to the managing editor at ccarlomagno@copdfoundation.org

Reprints:

While the JCOPDF is an open access journal and free access to its content is encouraged, reproduction of JCOPDF content for bulk and commercial distribution/ use must be purchased from the COPD Foundation, sole copyright holder of all JCOPDF content. If you are interested in ordering (or obtaining a quote for) paper reprints or e-prints of an article, please contact scsreprints@sheridan.com. If you wish to request information about reproducing figures or tables, please contact Emily Eggleston, JCOPDF staff member at EEggleston@COPDFOUNDATION.ORG. Authors should contact the Foundation directly related to their requests for personal use of articles, figures, charts, etc.

Advertising/Publication Policies:

Please click here to download the COPD Foundation Publications Policy.