Editorial Responsibilities

The Archives of Clinical and Experimental Orthopaedics (ACEO) editorial team is responsible for maintaining the highest levels of publication ethics and ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. Editorial decisions must reflect fairness, objectivity, and adherence to international best practices as established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), WAME, and ICMJE.

“Editors are entrusted with safeguarding both the credibility of science and the trust of the research community.”

1. Editorial Independence and Integrity

• Editors have full authority over editorial content and publication decisions.
• Editorial independence must not be influenced by political, commercial, or institutional pressures.
• Editors must recuse themselves when conflicts of interest exist.

2. Decision-Making Responsibilities

• Manuscripts should be evaluated solely on academic merit and relevance.
• Editorial decisions must be supported by constructive reviewer feedback and journal scope alignment.
• Rejections should be communicated courteously with clear justification.

3. Managing Peer Review

Editors must ensure the integrity and transparency of the peer review process by:

• Selecting qualified, unbiased reviewers with relevant expertise.
• Preserving reviewer and author anonymity in double-blind systems.
• Ensuring timely and efficient review timelines.
• Monitoring reviewer conduct and performance.

4. Ethical Oversight and Misconduct Handling

• Editors are responsible for investigating suspected cases of plagiarism, falsification, or data manipulation.
• COPE’s flowcharts should guide misconduct investigations and retraction decisions.
• Authors must be given an opportunity to respond before any public correction or retraction.

5. Transparency and Accountability

• All editorial policies, peer review criteria, and processing fees must be disclosed publicly on the journal’s website.
• Editors must publish annual reports summarizing review statistics, rejection rates, and publication timelines.

6. Conflict of Interest Management

Editors must avoid handling manuscripts in which they have a financial, professional, or personal interest. Any such conflicts must be disclosed and reassigned to an independent editor.

7. Confidentiality

• All manuscripts and correspondence must be kept strictly confidential.
• Information from unpublished manuscripts must not be used for personal research or shared externally.

8. Ensuring Fairness and Diversity

Editors should foster inclusion and representation within the editorial board and reviewer community. Biases based on gender, ethnicity, or nationality must be actively prevented in editorial processes.

9. Correction, Retraction, and Withdrawal

• Editors must oversee prompt correction of errors or omissions in published content.
• Retractions should include a clear reason and remain linked to the original article.
• Withdrawals before publication must follow the journal’s official Withdrawal Policy.

10. Collaboration and Training

Editors are encouraged to participate in ongoing training through COPE and WAME to stay updated on evolving publication ethics, AI-driven manuscript screening, and digital archiving practices.

11. Relationship with the Publisher

• The publisher supports editorial independence and is responsible for journal infrastructure, indexing, and archiving.
• Editors and publishers collaborate to ensure transparent communication, ethical marketing, and compliance with COPE’s “Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.”

12. Appeals and Complaints

Editors must establish a formal mechanism for appeals and complaints regarding editorial decisions, misconduct investigations, or reviewer behavior. Appeals must be handled impartially by an independent editorial committee.

13. Editorial Record Keeping

All editorial actions—submission decisions, reviewer assignments, and communications—must be recorded in the journal’s editorial management system (OJS) for accountability and COPE compliance.

14. Ethical Leadership

Editors serve as ethical leaders who model best practices for the research community. They must promote integrity, accuracy, and reproducibility as fundamental pillars of medical research publication.

15. Contact Information

16. Conclusion

The Editorial Responsibilities Policy ensures that editors at ACEO uphold integrity, equity, and transparency in scientific publishing. By adhering to these ethical obligations, the journal sustains trust among authors, readers, and the wider orthopaedic research community.