Submission Guidelines, Policies, and Resources

General Editorial:

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

Types of Articles* Considered for Publication:

Submission of Manuscripts:

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.

Prior to submitting a manuscript, please read these complete instructions and/or policies. Manuscripts that do not conform to guidelines will be delayed or returned. The Journal uses the ScholarOne electronic manuscript submission platform. The link to ScholarOne can be found below at the “SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT” button. All questions related to manuscripts should be addressed to:

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

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:

• Criteria for Authorship: All listed authors must 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 (See Manuscript Preparation, Acknowledgements section below).
• Manuscript Preparation: Please ensure that the manuscript is properly prepared (See Manuscript Preparation below) and that the manuscript adheres to the Journal’s ethics policies (See Ethics Policies below).
• Similarity with Previously Published Papers: Please ensure that there is no major repetition of language or content from previously published papers. Submitted manuscripts will be subjected to automated plagiarism detection.

In addition, as you prepare your manuscript for submission, please remember that if your manuscript is accepted, it will be posted in the Articles in Press section of JCOPDF website as an unedited, undesigned “Pre-Proof” pdf within days of acceptance—BEFORE going to copyediting and design. So please ensure that your submitted manuscript is free of errors—including ensuring that all authors’ names (first name, middle initial, last name), credentials and affiliations are correct, and funding information, author contributions, and Declaration of Interest sections are all included in your submitted manuscript.

Manuscript Preparation

Please use 12-point type with 1-inch (2.5 cm) margins. Use double spacing throughout. All papers should be organized to include: title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, declaration of interest, references, figure titles and legends, and tables. Figures should be submitted as separate files. See the Figures section below. Each of the preceding elements should begin on a separate page. Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the abstract.

Title Page:

The title page should include:

• a concise and descriptive title;
• the first name, middle initial, last name, and credentials of each author;
• the departmental and institutional affiliation of each author (including city, state [if applicable] and country);
• the telephone number as well as the email address of the corresponding author.
• A running head of no more than 50 characters (including characters and spaces) should be included.
• A list of the abbreviations contained within the text, in the order they appear in the text.
• A list of keywords that best represent the key topics of the article

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.

Abstract:

A concise abstract of no more than 250 words is required.

Body of the Manuscript:

Please refer to the above chart “Types of Articles Considered for Publication”

Acknowledgements:

An Acknowledgements should follow the last section of the manuscript’s text and include an “Author Contributions” paragraph that describes the role of each listed author (see the Criteria for Authorship paragraph above). For submitted manuscripts reporting clinical trial results, a “Data Sharing” paragraph/statement should also be included in the Acknowledgements section, according to ICMJE manuscript submission recommendations, These statements should address:

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

Writing assistance, using an agency or freelance writer, should also be disclosed in the Acknowledgement section of the manuscript.

Declaration of Interest:

A Declaration of Interest section must be included in every manuscript and must include conflict of interest statements for each listed author. For more information about disclosure of conflicts, perceived conflicts, and other relationships, see the Conflict of Interest Section below

References:

References should begin on a separate page, be numbered in the order that they appear in the text, and be formatted according to American Medical Association (AMA) style guidelines.

Examples of AMA Style References:

Tables

Tables should be grouped on separate pages at the end of the manuscript. Footnotes to the table should be placed below the table. (Note: Please use lowercase, superscript letters [a, b, c] rather than symbols [ *,^,#] for marking footnotes within the tables)

Figures

All figures should be submitted as separate digital files of sufficiently high resolution (300 dpi or higher) to enable journal reproduction. Illustrations should not be embedded in the text but should be submitted as separate files. Acceptable formats include JPG, TIFF, and GIF.

Image Manipulation: Electronically submitted figures must be accurate representations of actual research images. Specific features within an image should not be enhanced, obscured, moved, deleted, or added.

Online Data Supplements

Authors may submit materials supporting the manuscript to be posted as an Online Data Supplement. If material is being submitted for an Online Data Supplement, please include the following statement on the title page of the main manuscript, “This article has an online data supplement.” The supplementary material must be submitted simultaneously with the manuscript and will undergo peer review.

Human and Animal Rights/Studies:

We endorse the recommendations concerning human research that are contained in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki. All manuscripts containing human studies should conform to these recommendations: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ All manuscripts reporting human research must contain a statement in the text that the institutional review board for human studies approved the protocols and written consent was obtained from the subjects or their surrogates if required by the institutional review board. Use of animals in research should be compliant with all subsequent revisions of the Health Research Extension Act (public law 99-158, 1985 Animals in Research). 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/ All manuscripts reporting animal research must contain a statement in the text that all animal experiments conformed to the above-described policy.

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.

Open Access Publication Fees

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 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. See the “Types of Articles Considered for Publication” chart above for the specific publication fee charged for each type of article.

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 mayaccept 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.

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.

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 All authors, via the JCOPDF ScholarOne Manuscripts system and can be completed electronically. In completing the form, authors should follow the 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. This form must be completed by ALL authors before the manuscript can be processed to Articles in Press and publication. Authors are responsible for obtaining appropriate signed permission to reproduce any material (figures, tables, other) from another copyrighted source.

Public Access Policy:

The JCOPDF is an open-access journal and is indexed by PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science. Abstracts and citation information for articles scheduled for publication are submitted to PubMed when the article is posted to the Journal’s Articles in Press. These citations are updated when the article is published in a journal issue. Full text of all published articles is electronically submitted to PubMed Central for indexing within 90 days of being published in a Journal issue. (Scopus and Web of Science independently index published articles of the Journal following each issue launch.)

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 issue a complaint about publication ethics: Please email the Editor in Chief via the Journal’s peer review 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, the 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 Bethany Hendrix, JCOPDF staff member at bhendrix@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.