AUTHORSHIP POLICY

Based on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), a person can be one of the authors provided they satisfy one of the four criteria:

- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work

- Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content

- Final approval of the version to be published

- 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.

Changes to authorship after the publication of the manuscript is not accepted.

CONTRIBUTORSHIP POLICY

Each author should define their role in the body of mail during submission or attach a cover letter stating the same. Contributorship of each author should be defined based on the CRediT criteria.

ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) – ASSISTED TECHNOLOGY POLICY

Authors are required to disclose during the submission process when and where they took the help of AI. The scientific accuracy, integrity, legitimacy and originality of content generated through Large Language Models, Chatbots (like ChatGPT) or Image Creators can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. We urge the authors to not get intimidated by the authoritative-sounding output by AI and instead rely on scientific accuracy. Hence, The Quadrant does not accept AI models as authors. Furthermore, AI-generated material is not acceptable as a primary source.

The Quadrant uses tools that can identify AI generated content. Should the authors fail in disclosing the use of AI in the preparation of their manuscript, and if our initial screening reveals a substantially minimal human effort, the manuscript will be returned back to the authors. A fresh submission should then ensue.

ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY

By submitting to The Quadrant, a manuscript is subject to run through a plagiarism scan through commercial software. Plagiarism scores above 10% will be rejected. However, the authors will be notified of the areas where duplication was detected. They can start a fresh submission after the necessary changes.

PEER-REVIEW POLICY

The Quadrant follows an double-anonymized peer review process. Two reviewers who are subject experts of the submitted manuscript are blinded to the authors. The final decision for submitted manuscripts relies on the outcomes of peer review and the decision of the editorial team.

ETHICS & HUMAN PARTICIPATION

An approval by an ethics committee or institutional review board must be taken before conducting experimental studies. This not mandatory for review articles.

Reporting of experimental studies that involves human participants must be in accordance with the latest version of the Helsinki Declaration. It is a mandate to report informed consent within the manuscript as a justification for ensuring that the patient’s right to privacy is respected.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, distribute, search, or link full text of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSING POLICY

The Quadrant, published digitally on the website “doped.co.in”, has different copyright policies for both the journal and the website. The publisher has sole copyright over the website. Copyright policies for submitted journal articles are detailed below.

Authors retain copyright of their work along with publishing rights. All published manuscripts are distributed under a CC BY 4.0 license. The license is available here.

The licensing agreement emphasises on the following points:

- Authors can reuse their work without restriction.

- The publisher is given non-exclusive rights to publish and distribute the work.

- While open access permits republication, it must be done with acknowledgement of the first/original publication.

- The publisher does not reserve any right over the published work.

Authors have the right to withdraw the manuscript at any time before its publication.

PREPRINT POLICY

Authors can submit works that are already posted on a preprint server. Authors need to provide a link to the preprint during the submission process. However, authors need to understand that preprint servers on which their works are posted adhere to the following guidelines:

- Clearly identify preprints as work that is not peer reviewed

- Require authors to document disclosures of interest

- Require authors to indicate funding source(s)

- Have a clear process for preprint archive users to notify archive administrators about concerns related to posted preprints—a public commenting feature is desirable for this purpose

- Maintain metadata for preprints that are withdrawn from posting and post withdrawal notices indicating the timing and reason for withdrawal of a preprint

- Have a mechanism for authors to indicate when the preprint article has been subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal.

It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that they let the readers know in case the preprint version of their work is published in The Quadrant.

The Quadrant allows the authors to cite preprint works. However, they must use the word “preprint” at the end of the referencing style.

REPOSITORY POLICY

Articles published in The Quadrant are automatically deposited on Zenodo (Available here). These include the preservation of submitted versions, author accepted versions and published (and updated) versions of the paper.

All authors are free to share their work on non-commercial websites or repositories, provided they mention The Quadrant as the original source with proper citation containing the following information: Year of publication, Volume and Issue in which article is published, and DOI.

ARCHIVING POLICY

All published articles of The Quadrant are digitally preserved on Internet Archive (archive.org).

DATA SHARING POLICY

Data Sharing Policy is in accordance with the recommendations of the ICMJE (Available here). Data sharing statements pertain to the following: individual participant data, type of data shared, any other relevant document(s), availability of data, to whom the data is shared, reason behind the data being shared and mode of data sharing.

ADVERTISING AND SPONSORSHIP POLICY

The journal accepts both display and classified advertisements. Inquiries for advertisements should be made on thequadrant@doped.co.in. Advertisement that are of relevance in the field of pediatrics and preventive dentistry and research will be prioritized.

The appearance of advertising or product information in the various sections in the journal does not mean that the journal or its publisher approves or endorses the quality or value of the said product or the claims that are made by its manufacturer.

To know more about advertising and sponsorship details, click here.

POLICY INFORMATION