• Ownership and Management:The Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal belongs to Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and is managed and published by the Center for Studies and Development of Medical Education, with the scientific support of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.
• Authorship:The journal presents new experiences in curriculum development and evaluation, course design, e-learning, faculty development, management and leadership, teaching and learning issues, social accountability, assessment and evaluation in medical education, educational research methods, and other relevant topics.
• Submission Policy in Persian:Articles by authors must be submitted in Persian.
• Publication Ethics:The Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal adheres to the ethical guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), meaning that COPE’s flowcharts and guidelines for dealing with any unethical behavior are provided. The journal also follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). These principles are in conjunction with specific national and international regulations for research and will supersede them. National ethical codes provided by the National Ethics Committee of Iran in biomedical research can be found here.
• Conflict of Interest:According to the ICMJE, a conflict of interest occurs when there is a financial or personal relationship between any participants in the peer review and publication process - authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the journal’s editorial board - that could influence or bias their role. Any conflicts of interest in a specific manuscript must initially be reported by submitting the ICMJE Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form on the "Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal" website. We then use the COPE workflow to manage it transparently.
• The Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal requests authors to disclose all competing interests in their work and reveal interests that are directly or indirectly related to the submitted manuscript for publication. All submissions must include a "Conflict of Interest" section at the end of the article listing all potential interests (financial and non-financial). Interests to be considered and disclosed include, but are not limited to:
  • Employment:Recent employment (during a research project), current, or anticipated employment by any organization that may benefit financially or suffer a loss from the publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).
  • Funding:Research funding from funding agencies (please mention the research grant and grant number) and/or research grants (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursements for symposiums, and other expenses) from organizations that may gain or lose financially from the publication.
  • Financial Interests:Stocks and shares in companies that may benefit or suffer financially from the publication of this article. Consulting fees or other forms of compensation from organizations that may be financially beneficial or adverse. Inventions or patent applications whose value may be influenced by the publication of this article.
  • Non-Financial Interests:Additionally, authors are asked to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could lead to bias in the work submitted for publication, such as professional interests, personal relationships, or personal beliefs.
• Plagiarism Detection:Manuscripts must not contain verbatim text from previously published articles or manuscripts submitted elsewhere. Therefore, we evaluate all submitted manuscripts based on plagiarism and request authors to rewrite the manuscript if necessary. COPE flowcharts and guidelines will be utilized to address instances of plagiarism. Plagiarism will be reported to the research and technology departments of universities and relevant organizations through official correspondence.
• Copyright and Permissions:If the manuscript contains any previously published images or text, the responsibility of obtaining permission from the copyright holders lies with the corresponding author. The corresponding author is required to obtain original written permissions for all copyrighted materials used in their manuscript and submit them to the journal.
• The Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal encourages authors to share data and any other materials related to the methodology and results of submitted papers in a suitable public repository or as freely accessible supplements to the article. Therefore, clinical trial results should include a data sharing statement. However, in other manuscripts, we recommend, in accordance with ICMJE recommendations, that a data sharing statement for manuscripts reporting clinical trial results is required regarding whether and how the data will be made available. For more information, please refer to the ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html#two).
• Peer Review Policy:This journal employs a double-blind peer review process aimed at providing a thorough and fair critical review of all submitted articles. To submit an article, the author must register on the journal’s website (http://HMED.mums.ac.ir).
• Publication Costs:This journal is published and supported by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Therefore, there are currently no fees for submission, review, or publication for authors.
  It should be noted that if an article has been peer-reviewed and authors subsequently request withdrawal, they are obliged to pay an amount of 1,000,000 IRR for approval of the request.
• Open Access Agreement:This journal is an open-access journal; upon submission of an article, authors are asked to indicate their agreement to comply with the Creative Commons open access license (CC BY-NC 4.0). The Creative Commons license permits this work under the  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.
• Revenue Sources:It is fully supported by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and has no other source of revenue.
• Direct Advertising/Marketing:No advertisements will be accepted on the site or as an article.
• Permissions:The responsibility for maintaining all permissions, even before submitting the manuscript to the journal, lies with the corresponding author. Therefore, please ensure the copyright status of the content you wish to use in your article and identify relevant copyright holders before submitting the manuscript, and determine whether you may be able to obtain permission from them.
• Complaints Policy:Our editors, staff, and the chief editor respond promptly to any complaints to ensure complete satisfaction. If any criticism is found to be valid, we express our appreciation and strive to improve our system.
• Data Sharing and Reproducibility:Authors are encouraged to submit datasets (including raw or processed data files, software, code, models, algorithms, protocols and methods, tools including questionnaires or checklists) that represent the results reported in the final manuscript as complementary materials.
• Journal Archiving:To ensure long-term digital preservation, all published articles are archived on the website of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and preprint servers for public access.

Section A: Publication and Authorship

• All submitted articles undergo a thorough review process by at least two experts in the specific field of the manuscript. Deputy editors and the editor-in-chief are responsible for selecting reviewers.
• Editors are responsible and authorized to reject/accept the manuscript.
• Editors should not have any conflicts of interest regarding the manuscripts they accept/reject.
• In case of errors in a manuscript, editors pursue open publication retractions or corrections.
• Reviewers and authors will remain anonymous to one another.
• All authors of the manuscript will receive an email upon submission, acceptance, or rejection of the article.
• No research can be included in more than one publication, whether in one journal or another.

Section B: Responsibilities of Authors

 We ask authors to understand and accept the ethical policy, particularly:

• Declaration of Interests:It is essential to declare the funding that made this research possible.
• Registration of Clinical Trials:Clinical trials must be registered in public registries.
• Respect for Confidentiality:Protecting patients from identification if involved in research and publication.
• Protection of research subjects, patients, and experimental animals.
• Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
• To publish an original article in the Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal, the author or authors must obtain ethical approval (ethics approval code) from their institution, in which case authors agree on accepted ethical behavior. Ethical considerations must be stated in the article.
• All subjects must be informed about the research objectives and any potential side effects of interventions.
• In the request letter for review of the article, it must be expressly stated that the article has not been published in any journal, either domestic or foreign, and until the completion of the review and peer review of the article and the final opinion is stated, the article will not be sent to another journal.
• All manuscripts are screened for authenticity at the time of submission and prior to publication using plagiarism detection software.
• Rejected articles will not be reconsidered.
• All authors mentioned in the article must have made a significant contribution to the research. Their level of contribution should be defined in the "Author Contributions" section of the article.
• Authors must state that all data in the article is real and valid.
• Authors must report any errors discovered in their published article to the editors.
• Authors must declare that informed consent has been obtained from all adult human participants and from the parents or legal guardians of minors. Name the appropriate Institutional Review Board that approved the project.
• Authors should adhere to the WMA Helsinki Declaration – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and should clearly state this in their manuscripts.
• Authors are encouraged to adhere to the guidelines of Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) for reporting animal studies.
• Use of verbatim texts from other sources without approval is not permissible. All manuscripts should be an original work of the authors, and plagiarism from other studies is prohibited. The COPE guidelines and flowcharts will be applied in instances where plagiarism is found.
• A declaration form should be signed by all authors indicating that it is an original work that has not yet been published and is not currently under consideration for publication in another journal, either electronically or in print.
• Data Falsification/Fabrication:Falsification is defined as the manipulation or omission of data, materials, or research processes in such a way that the resulting research findings are no longer accurately represented. Fabrication refers to the invention of findings or data and the reporting of such data in a study. Such misconduct constitutes fraud that alters the integrity of research. Therefore, manuscripts must comply with original data, and the use of fabricated or falsified data is strictly prohibited.
• Financial support is mentioned at the end of the article in the funding section.
• In the Horizon of Medical Education Development Journal, authors are encouraged to submit original charts and in accepted manuscripts, digital images will be evaluated for inappropriate manipulation. Contrast adjustments, color balance, or brightness may be accepted when applied uniformly across the entire image, and such adjustments should not misrepresent any data, including the background. Authors are requested to submit original data for comparison with manipulated charts if there are suspicions of improper manipulation.
• Authors of manuscripts containing any previously published text or images must obtain permission from copyright holders and submit it as original written permission letters.

Section C: Peer Review Responsibilities for Reviewers

• Reviews should be objective and free of personal criticism of the author. No knowledge of the author(s) should influence their opinions and decisions.
• Judgment should be based on objectivity.
• Reviewers should not have any conflicts of interest concerning the authors, the research, and/or the research funders.
• Reviewers should refer to relevant published works that have not yet been cited.
• Reviewed articles should be kept confidential.
• Suggested comments and revisions by reviewers are encouraged. However, final decisions are made by the editors.
• Reviewers should provide constructive feedback to improve the quality of the article.

Section D: Editorial Responsibilities

• Editors (deputy editors or editor-in-chief) have full responsibility and authority to reject/accept articles.
• Editors are responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication.
• Editors should always consider the needs of authors and readers when trying to improve the publication.
• Editors should ensure the quality of articles and the accuracy of educational records.
• Editors should have a clear understanding of the financial sources of a research project.
• Editors should base their decisions solely on the importance, originality, clarity, and relevance of articles to the publication field.
• Editors should not change their decisions or overturn those of previous editors without serious reason.
• Editors should maintain the anonymity of reviewers.
• Editors should ensure that all research content they publish complies with accepted international ethical guidelines.
• Editors should only accept an article when they are reasonably confident.
• Editors should act if there is suspected misconduct, whether published or unpublished, and make reasonable efforts to arrive at a resolution to the issue.
• Editors should not reject articles on the basis of suspicion. They should have evidence of misconduct.
• Editors should not allow conflicts of interest between staff members, authors, reviewers, and board members.
• Editors should not change their decisions after submission decision (especially after rejection or acceptance) unless there is a serious reason.

Section E: Ethical Considerations for Authorship

• • HMED is a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and follows its guidelines. For authorship, all four criteria below must be met simultaneously.
  • An author must have made a significant and effective contribution in at least one of the subcategories of study design or research idea, data analysis or interpretation, or data collection.
  • An author must have collaborated in the preparation of the manuscript draft or in the substantial revision of it so that the manuscript is subjected to promotion and changes in scientific content. Scientific expertise for substantive review is necessary concerning the scientific experience and requisite qualifications.
  • The final authors must read and approve the manuscript before publication. After acceptance, they cannot make substantial changes to the article without serious cause.
  • An author must be accountable for all aspects of the study that result in the manuscript, such as responsibility for following ethical guidelines in conducting, designing, and publishing the manuscript. Authors must either conduct various studies according to technical, scientific, ethical, and different standards or ensure the integrity and scientific ability of those who conducted different phases of the study.
  • You cannot add the name of any individual or individuals who do not meet the authorship criteria (guest authors).
  • All authors have legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that individuals among the authors of the manuscript meet the criteria for authorship or that they are removed from the author list if they do not meet these criteria.
  • The obligation to meet authorship criteria applies to multi-person research teams, and mere membership in the research group or presence as a person in a research project does not create the required criteria for authorship. Even if they no longer work with that research team or institution, they can still participate as authors.
  • In manuscripts extracted from theses, authors including advisors, co-advisors, and students involved must all meet the listed authorship criteria.
  • Merely collaborating in funding and conducting research, providing consultation such as methodological and statistical consultation, supplying or establishing laboratory facilities, conducting experimental procedures on research samples or patients, or referring patients to investigators does not qualify as authorship. Even if the individuals mentioned did not receive payment for providing these services.
  • All individuals collaborating in the execution, design, support, or other stages of research who do not meet all of the authorship criteria mentioned must be listed in the "Acknowledgment" section.
  • Those who serve as editors or translators of a manuscript do not meet the criteria for authorship. Such cases can be mentioned in the "Acknowledgment” section.

  • Corrections to author details may be considered if specific conditions are met.
    These corrections may include changes to the list of names (changes in authors’ responsibilities, changes in the order of authors, or changes in the acceptance letter) and changes in authors’ affiliations (without changing the list of names).
    These guidelines are based on the COPE guidelines and are as follows:

    Removal of an Author - After Publication

    Removing an Author Before Publication

    Adding an Author After Publication

    Adding an Extra Author - Before Publication

    1. Any changes in the list of names must be agreed upon by all authors. To ensure this, the request for name changes must include both the previous list and the new list, signed by all authors. The commitment file and publication ethics compliance form provided in the attached files must be completed again and attached to the requested email.
    2. In the body of the email requesting changes to the author details, after providing the complete file details, such as the article code, names of authors, and mobile numbers, state the request and include the institutional email addresses of all authors.
    3. Requests will be reviewed by the journal, and if they comply with the principles of publication ethics, the changes will be accepted.
    4. The workflow for reviewing and implementing changes will take 7 working days.