Introduction

Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Journals Publishing House is an Open Access (OA) university press affiliated to & owned by Tehran University of Medical Sciences, one of the oldest & reputable universities in Iran. TUMS Journals Publishing House is a part of Electronic Resources Provision & Journals Improvement Department, owned, managed & moderated by TUMS Central Library & Documentation Center.

TUMS publishes more than 60 academic journals independently or in collaboration with national academic societies. All these titles are Open Access, some published in Gold Open Access model, some in Green Open Access model & the others on Libre Open Access in compliance with the definition of open access in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

Overview

Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Journals Publishing House is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and endorses the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions. TUMS Journals Publishing House also observes International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. As an academic organization in journals publishing, we adopt and strive to adhere to the standards and requirements published & announced by International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) also National Guidelines Issued by Iran Ministry of Health & Medical Education.

Publisher Principles: Codes of Conduct and Ethical Guideline

All Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Journals are committed to apply the codes and principles of conduct of the publisher which is basically derived from "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing" published & updated 15 September 2022 by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Requirements & Codes for Publication of Manuscripts

As a Biomedical Publisher, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Journals Publishing House is committed to apply the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals advised & published by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The latest update version released on May 2023 will be observed by all TUMS Publishing House Journals.

Reporting Guidelines and Best Practices

To ensure the quality of articles, it is strongly advised to the submitting authors to strictly observe the following related resources in preparing & developing their manuscripts before submission. Some resources are:

• Animal Studies: ARRIVE and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
• Human Research: Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013
• Clinical Trials: CONSORT (for protocols, see the SPIRIT guidance)
• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: PRISMA guidelines (for protocols, see the PRISMA-P guidelines)
• Case Reports: the CARE case report guidelines

More Research and Reporting Guidelines could be maintained from the EQUATOR Network Resource Center.

Open Access Policy

All research articles published in TUMS journals are fully Open Access & immediately freely available to read, download and share (except for those noted or excluded). The TUMS journals are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transmit and adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited.

Self-Archiving Policy

Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) Journals Publishing House is a Sherpa Romeo registered publisher. All TUMS journals data are available there & the authors may use this to reach our Self-Archiving Policy per each journal. Routinely authors may archive any version of their article they find suitable, including the published version in their institutional repository or any other suitable hosting service. For more information see: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk

Authorship

We use the authorship criteria defined & published by ICMJE recommendations. Based on that authorship will be defined as following four criteria: Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND Final approval of the version to be published; AND Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Any person who had the four above criteria together should be mentioned as author & it is assumed that any person listed in the paper authors list, had achieved all above mentioned criteria simultaneously earlier.

Research & Publication Misconduct

Misconduct constitutes any violation of TUMS Publishing House editorial policy, journals own policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines or policies specified by COPE, WAME, ICMJE, STM & National Guidelines by Iran Ministry of Health & Medical Education. Any activities that threaten or compromise the integrity of the research or publication process can be considered as potential misconduct & will be treated accordingly. Any reported or found cases of misconduct will be investigated by TUMS Journals Publication House & the related journal Editor-in-Chief according to COPE & National Guidelines.