Journal Policies

01 Peer Review Process

All original research, reviews, and other substantive submissions undergo external peer review. Editorials and letters may be evaluated by editors alone.

Model

OpenSource: Cardiology uses a single-anonymized review model by default: reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors, while authors are known to reviewers. Reviewers may waive anonymity at their discretion at the time of review submission.

Workflow

1. Editorial triage. The Editor in Chief or a designated Associate Editor performs an initial check for scope, methodologic adequacy, ethical compliance, and adherence to reporting guidelines. Manuscripts may be rejected at this stage without external review.
2. Reviewer assignment. Each manuscript sent for review is assigned to at least two independent reviewers selected for subject-matter expertise and absence of conflicts. Authors may suggest or oppose reviewers; suggestions are advisory and not binding.
3. Review. Reviewers are asked to disclose any conflicts at the time of invitation and again at submission of the review. Reviewers who cannot complete a review on time are asked to decline promptly.
4. Decision. The handling associate editor synthesizes reviews and renders one of: Accept, Minor Revisions, Major Revisions, or Reject. The Editor in Chief may override or confirm any decision.
5. Notification. All reviewers of a manuscript are informed of the final decision and, where appropriate, may receive co-reviewer comments to support their development.

Timelines

Our targets are: editorial triage within 5 business days; first decision after external review within 2–3 weeks for all article types. Authors may inquire about status at any time through the author portal.

Reviewer responsibilities

• Maintain strict confidentiality of the manuscript and any associated material.
• Disclose financial, professional, or personal relationships that could bias the review and recuse where appropriate.
• Decline to review work where confidentiality cannot be preserved — including refraining from uploading manuscripts to AI tools (see §16).
• Provide constructive, civil, evidence-based comments. Reviewers may not appropriate ideas from work under review.
• Destroy or delete copies of the manuscript after submission of the review.

Reviewer recognition

High-quality reviewers earn recognition within the journal community and may be invited to serve as Associate Editors or co-authors on commissioned content, consistent with our core mission.

02 Corrections, Retractions & Version Control

Honest errors are part of science. OpenSource: Cardiology publishes corrections and, where warranted, retractions following ICMJE and COPE retraction guidelines.

When we issue a Correction (Erratum)

When an error of fact does not invalidate the article's results or conclusions. The original article remains available, prominently linked to a citable correction notice, and a new version of the article is posted with a clear log of changes.

When we issue an Expression of Concern

When credible concerns about an article are raised but an investigation is pending. The notice is linked to the original article in both directions.

When we issue a Retraction

When errors or misconduct invalidate the article's central findings. The original article remains in the public domain, clearly watermarked as RETRACTED in all formats (HTML, PDF, abstract). Retraction notices explain the reason for retraction and are linked bidirectionally with the original.

Retraction with republication

Where honest error leads to substantively changed conclusions but the underlying science is sound, we may retract the original article and republish a corrected version with a transparent change log.

Version control

• All published versions are archived and remain retrievable.
• Each version carries a date stamp; readers are directed to the most recent version.
• Citations should reference the most recent version of the article.

Permanent preservation

Articles are not removed from the journal's website except where required by law. In such cases, the URL is preserved and the reason for removal is documented.

03 Scientific Misconduct & Complaints

Allegations of misconduct — including data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, plagiarism, undisclosed conflicts of interest, authorship misuse, or duplicate publication — are taken seriously and handled in accordance with COPE flowcharts.

How to raise a concern

Concerns about a submitted or published article may be sent to the editorial office at support@opensourcecardiology.org. Please include: the article title and DOI (if published), the specific concern, and any supporting evidence. Anonymous reports will be considered when sufficient evidence is provided.

How we investigate

1. The Editor in Chief screens the concern and, where credible, opens a formal review.
2. The corresponding author is contacted and given a fair opportunity to respond.
3. Where appropriate, we contact the authors' institution(s) and funder(s) and may request an institutional inquiry.
4. While the investigation is open, the journal may publish an Expression of Concern.
5. Outcomes may include: no action, a Correction, an Expression of Concern, or Retraction.

Confidentiality

Investigations are conducted confidentially. Confidentiality may be breached only when necessary to address misconduct, and parties will be notified before any such disclosure where feasible.

Manuscripts authored by editors or associate editors

Manuscripts submitted by editors or associate editors are handled by an independent editor with no professional or personal relationship to the submitting author. The submitting editor is excluded from all editorial decisions related to their manuscript and from access to reviewer identities.

This policy also applies when an editorial board member or associate editor who previously handled a manuscript later becomes a coauthor on a submission. In such cases, the manuscript will be assigned to another unbiased member of the editorial leadership team who has no prior involvement with the work or the authors.

04 Appeals

Authors who believe an editorial decision is in error may appeal once per manuscript.

How to appeal

• Submit a written appeal to support@opensourcecardiology.org within 30 days of the decision letter.
• Clearly state the basis for appeal: a specific factual error in a review, a methodologic misunderstanding, or new information not available at the time of submission.
• Disagreement with editorial judgment alone is generally not a basis for appeal.

How appeals are handled

Appeals are reviewed by the Editor in Chief or, where the original decision was made by the Editor in Chief, by an independent member of the Editorial Advisory Board. The decision on appeal is final. New submissions of substantially revised work are welcome and are not considered appeals.

Complaints about editorial process

Complaints about how an editor or reviewer handled a manuscript — separate from the editorial decision — should be sent to support@opensourcecardiology.org. Complaints unresolved by the journal may be escalated to COPE.

05 Copyright & Licensing

OpenSource: Cardiology is a fully open-access journal. Authors retain copyright in their work. The journal does not require transfer of copyright.

License

On acceptance, the corresponding author chooses one of the following Creative Commons (4.0 International) licenses under which the article will be published:

• CC BY 4.0 — Attribution. Default and recommended; permits commercial and adaptive reuse with credit.
• CC BY-NC 4.0 — Attribution, Non-Commercial. Permits adaptive reuse for non-commercial purposes with credit.
• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives. Permits sharing with credit; no commercial use or derivative works.

Some funders (e.g., NIH, Wellcome, cOAlition S) require CC BY. Authors are responsible for selecting a license compatible with their funder's policy.

Reuse of third-party material

It is the authors' sole responsibility to obtain written permission to reproduce any previously published figures, tables, or extended quotations and to cite the original source. OpenSource Journals, Inc. assumes no liability for any unauthorized use of third-party material in submitted or published manuscripts.

Government works

Articles authored as part of official duties by employees of governments that place such works in the public domain are published under that status with appropriate notice.

06 Preprints & Blogs

We welcome submissions that have been posted as preprints. Posting a preprint does not preclude consideration by OpenSource: Cardiology and is not considered duplicate publication.

Author responsibilities

• Disclose preprint posting at submission and include a link and DOI to the preprint.
• Choose a preprint server that clearly labels work as not peer-reviewed, requires disclosure of conflicts and funding, and supports withdrawal notices and links to subsequent peer-reviewed versions.
• Update the preprint record with a citation and link to the final published article on acceptance.
• Do not post the journal's accepted, copy-edited, or typeset versions to a preprint server.

Citing preprints

Preprints may be cited in submitted manuscripts when no peer-reviewed equivalent exists. Citations must clearly indicate that the reference is a preprint and include the DOI. Where a preprint has been subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal, cite the published version.

Blog posts, newsletters, and social media

Authors are encouraged to share ideas and engage public audiences through personal blogs, newsletters (e.g., Substack), social media threads, and similar platforms. Content shared in these venues does not constitute prior publication and will not disqualify a submission from consideration.

However, a manuscript submitted to OpenSource: Cardiology must represent a substantive scholarly development of any previously shared ideas — not a direct repost of that content. Submissions must be original works prepared for peer review, with new analysis, data, or synthesis that goes beyond what appeared in the informal post.

Images, figures, and other content previously posted online and used within a submitted manuscript must be original to the authors. Third-party images or content sourced from external publications or websites require written permission from the copyright holder prior to submission.

Reproduction and republication of published content

Content published in OpenSource: Cardiology — including articles, figures, tables, and images — is protected under the terms of the applicable license (see Copyright & Licensing). Reproduction or republication of published material by any party, including the authors, requires attribution to the original published work. Authors retain the right to share their published articles in accordance with the journal's open-access license, but may not represent published content as new or previously unpublished work.

07 Data Sharing

We endorse the ICMJE data-sharing requirement. Manuscripts reporting the results of clinical trials must include a data-sharing statement at submission. Data sharing is strongly encouraged for all other study types.

What the statement must address

1. Whether individual de-identified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared ("undecided" is not acceptable).
2. What specific data will be shared.
3. What additional documents will be shared (study protocol, statistical analysis plan, informed consent form, analytic code).
4. When the data will be available — start and end dates.
5. With whom the data will be shared (e.g., anyone, qualified investigators, via independent review).
6. For what types of analyses, and by what mechanism (link, repository, application process).

Data preservation

Investigators are expected to preserve primary data and analytic procedures for at least 10 years. Deposition in a recognized data repository (e.g., Dryad, Vivli, Zenodo, an institutional repository) is encouraged.

Citing shared data

Authors using shared data must cite the original data set using its persistent identifier and acknowledge the originating investigators.

08 Clinical Trial Registration

OpenSource: Cardiology requires prospective registration of all clinical trials in a public trials registry as a condition of consideration for publication.

What must be registered

Any research project that prospectively assigns people or groups to a health-related intervention to study its effect on a health outcome — including drugs, devices, surgical procedures, behavioral or educational interventions, dietary interventions, quality-improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes.

When

Registration must occur at or before the time of first participant enrollment. Retrospective registration (e.g., at the time of submission) does not meet ICMJE requirements and trials so registered will generally be inadmissible.

Where

Any primary registry of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or ClinicalTrials.gov. Registration must include the WHO/ICMJE minimum 24-item trial registration data set.

What authors must submit

• The trial registration number, displayed at the end of the abstract in the published article.
• A data-sharing statement (see §7).
• The trial registration acronym used at first mention in the manuscript.
• For trials registered in the EU CTIS or similar systems, confirmation that the trial record is publicly accessible (not in a "lock box").

Observational and other research

Registration is encouraged but not required for observational studies. Systematic reviews are encouraged to register prospectively in PROSPERO.

Exceptions

Exceptions to the prospective-registration requirement are rare. Where granted, the published article will include a statement explaining the circumstances and the date registration was completed.

09 Fees & Article Processing Charges (APCs)

We are committed to transparency about all fees. Authors will know the total cost of publication, if any, before they begin preparing a submission.

Submission fees

None. There is no fee to submit a manuscript or to undergo peer review.

Article processing charges (APCs)

Certain accepted article types are subject to an open-access APC, payable on acceptance. Current APCs by article type are listed in our FAQ: Article Types. APCs are charged only on acceptance and never on submission.

What APCs cover

Editorial handling, peer review coordination, copy-editing and typesetting, hosting, indexing submissions, and long-term preservation. OpenSource: Cardiology does not charge for color figures, supplementary material, or page count.

10 Advertising

OpenSource: Cardiology does not currently accept paid advertising on the journal website or in journal communications. Should this change, the following policies will govern advertising:

• Editorial decisions are never influenced by advertising or potential advertising relationships.
• Advertising will not be placed adjacent to editorial content covering the same product.
• Advertisements will be visually distinguishable from editorial content and clearly labeled.
• The Editor in Chief retains full and final authority over what advertising is accepted and where it appears.
• The journal will not carry advertisements for products demonstrated to be seriously harmful to health (e.g., tobacco).
• Sponsored supplements, theme issues, and special series will follow the journal editor's editorial judgment without funder editing or content control.

Corporate sponsorship of journal activities

Corporations and other commercial entities may sponsor general journal activities — for example, educational programming, fellowship or trainee initiatives, conferences, awards, or open-access support — but may not purchase advertising for specific products through the journal. All sponsorships are publicly disclosed, and sponsors have no role in editorial selection, peer review, or any other aspect of the journal's editorial content. This restriction governs advertising and sponsorship; it does not restrict industry authors from submitting manuscripts, which are handled under the policy below.

Industry-authored manuscripts and the Industry Perspective

Authors employed by, funded by, or otherwise affiliated with a commercial entity may submit manuscripts to OpenSource: Cardiology, including manuscripts that discuss, evaluate, or name that entity's own products. The journal also offers a dedicated Industry Perspective article type for this purpose, which carries a publication fee. Because a fee is involved, the following conditions apply without exception:

• Peer review is not optional and not abbreviated. Industry Perspective manuscripts undergo the same independent peer review, on the same criteria, as every other submission. The fee purchases consideration and production, never acceptance — a paid manuscript can be and will be rejected if peer review does not support publication.
• Editorial control remains with the journal. The Editor in Chief has final authority over acceptance, content, and revisions. No sponsor, funder, or paying author may edit, approve, veto, or condition payment on the content of a published article, on the reviewers selected, or on the editorial decision.
• Every such article is labeled. Industry Perspective articles are clearly and permanently identified as industry-authored on the article page, in the PDF, and in the table of contents, so a reader never has to infer the origin of the work.
• Full disclosure is mandatory. Employment, consultancy, equity, patents, and the funding source for the work must be disclosed, along with the fact that a publication fee was paid and by whom. Undisclosed commercial affiliation is grounds for rejection or, after publication, retraction.
• Product claims must be evidenced. Claims about a product's safety, efficacy, or performance must be supported by data presented or cited in the manuscript. Promotional language, comparative claims unsupported by evidence, and off-label promotion are not published.
• These articles are not advertising and are not sold as such. They are peer-reviewed scholarly content that happens to be industry-authored. Advertising placement remains separately governed by the rules above, and the journal will not place an advertisement adjacent to an article covering the same product.

11 Editorial Independence & Governance

OpenSource: Cardiology is published by OpenSource Journals, Inc., a nonprofit corporation whose application for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status is pending with the IRS. As a nonprofit, it has no shareholders or owners. The Editor in Chief has full authority over the editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication.

Editorial freedom

Editorial decisions are based on the validity, originality, importance, and clarity of submitted work. They are not influenced by commercial interests, the personal interests of the publisher or its directors, or by political or institutional pressures. Editors are free to express critical but responsible views about all aspects of cardiology without fear of retribution.

Editor appointment and dismissal

The Editor in Chief is appointed and may be dismissed only by the Board of Directors of OpenSource Journals, Inc., on the basis of evaluations by an independent panel of experts. Dismissal may occur only for substantial reasons such as scientific misconduct, agreed-upon performance failures, or behavior incompatible with a position of trust — not for editorial decisions disagreeable to the publisher or its directors.

Editorial Advisory Board

The journal maintains an independent and diverse Editorial Advisory Board that supports the Editor in Chief in establishing editorial policy and provides an independent body for appeal and conflict-of-interest decisions involving editors.

Roles

• Editor in Chief — final authority on all editorial content.
• Associate Editors — handle individual manuscripts and supervise peer review in their subject areas.
• Editorial Board — provide expert review and contribute to journal direction.
• Authors — submit and revise work for publication.

Our governance, bylaws, and conflict-of-interest policy documents are available on request from the editorial office.

12 Editor Disclosures

All editors complete a written disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships and activities annually, and update those disclosures whenever new relationships arise.

What is disclosed

• Employment, consultancies, and advisory roles.
• Equity, stock options, and patents.
• Honoraria, paid expert testimony, and travel reimbursement.
• Research funding directed to the editor or their institution.
• Leadership or fiduciary roles in related organizations.
• Personal or institutional relationships that could reasonably be perceived as biasing.

Where disclosures are published

A current summary of editor disclosures is maintained on the About Us page. Detailed disclosure forms are available on request.

Recusal

Editors recuse themselves from any manuscript where they have a competing interest. Recused manuscripts are reassigned to an independent editor (see §3).

13 Patient Consent & Privacy

Patients have a right to privacy that must not be violated without informed consent. This policy applies to every article type and to every part of a submission — text descriptions, tables, photographs, imaging and imaging metadata, pedigrees, video, audio, supplementary files, and shared datasets. Compliance is the responsibility of the corresponding author, who attests to it at submission.

No patient health information in submitted files

Authors must not upload any file containing patient health information (PHI) or other identifying details. Remove all of the following before submission:

• Names, initials, and the names of relatives, employers, or household members.
• Medical record numbers, accession numbers, study or account numbers, health-plan and insurance numbers, device serial numbers, biometric identifiers, and any other unique code.
• Dates of birth and death, and all dates more specific than the year that relate to an individual (admission, discharge, procedure, imaging, or clinic dates). Report intervals instead — "day 3 after admission," not "3 March 2025."
• Ages over 89 (report as "≥90").
• Geographic detail smaller than a state or country, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, email addresses, URLs, and IP addresses.
• Full-face photographs and any comparable image, and any recognizable distinguishing feature (tattoos, scars, jewelry, implanted device labels).
• Embedded and burned-in identifiers in imaging — DICOM header fields, burned-in text on echocardiographic, nuclear, CT, CMR, and angiographic stills and loops, scanner-generated banners, and PACS overlays. Export de-identified images; do not rely on cropping or drawn boxes that can be reversed.
• Document metadata — author fields, tracked changes, and comments in the manuscript file that reveal patient or institutional identifiers.

De-identify to the HIPAA Safe Harbor standard, or the equivalent standard of your institution and jurisdiction (for example the GDPR in the EU/UK, or PIPEDA in Canada), whichever is stricter.

When written informed consent is required

Where a patient remains identifiable after de-identification, consent is required — de-identification alone is not a substitute. Consent is required:

• Whenever an individual patient could be identified — directly (name, initials, hospital number, recognizable face or distinguishing features) or indirectly (a combination of details).
• For all clinical photographs, including those with masked eye regions.
• For case reports, Imaging Pearls, and any narrative describing rare conditions or unusual presentations where the patient could be identifiable to themselves, their family, or their clinicians.
• For video and audio in which a face, voice, or other identifying feature appears.
• For genetic pedigrees, which frequently identify multiple living family members. Where individuals other than the proband are identifiable, consent is required from each.
• For personal narratives — including The Long View essays — that describe an identifiable patient, colleague, or family member.

Special circumstances

• Minors. Written consent must come from a parent or legal guardian; the assent of the child should also be sought where the child is old enough to understand. For patients who reach the age of majority before publication, obtain the patient's own consent where feasible.
• Patients who lack capacity. Consent must be given by the legally authorized representative.
• Deceased patients. Seek consent from the next of kin or the estate. Death does not remove the obligation of confidentiality; if consent cannot be obtained, the material must be fully non-identifiable, and the journal may still decline to publish.
• Consent cannot be obtained. If the patient cannot be located or declines, the manuscript may proceed only if no identifiable detail remains. Editors make the final determination and may decline the submission.

Form of consent

Consent must be written, obtained from the patient or their legal representative, and obtained after the patient has reviewed the manuscript or images as they will appear. Patients must be told that the material may be available on the open Internet in perpetuity, may be reproduced by third parties under the article's open-access license, and may be used in journal promotion including social media. Consent must not be conditioned on the patient's clinical care.

The corresponding author retains the signed form and supplies it to the journal on request; the journal requires it at submission for some article types. Do not upload the signed form itself with the manuscript — it usually contains the patient's name. Send it only when the editorial office requests it, by the route the office specifies.

Statement required in the manuscript

Every manuscript describing an identifiable patient must contain an explicit consent statement — for example, "Written informed consent for publication of this report and the accompanying images was obtained from the patient." Manuscripts reporting research must state IRB or ethics-committee approval, or the basis of a waiver, in the Methods.

De-identification and altered details

Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Identifying details must not be fabricated or swapped for false ones as a substitute for consent. Where details are altered for de-identification, the manuscript must include an assurance that such changes do not distort scientific meaning.

Withdrawal of consent

A patient may withdraw consent at any point before publication, and the journal will remove the material or halt publication. After publication, the article has been distributed to indexers, aggregators, and readers under an open license; the journal will act on a withdrawal request and will amend or retract the record where warranted, but cannot guarantee removal of copies already distributed. Patients should be told this before they sign.

Research participants

Research involving human participants must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki (2024 revision) and have prior approval from an institutional review board, ethics committee, or equivalent. The Methods section must report this approval, including the name of the approving body and the protocol number where available. Where consent was waived — as is common for retrospective registry and database research — the manuscript must state that the waiver was granted and by whom.

Shared data and supplementary files

Datasets deposited or shared under our data-sharing policy, and all supplementary files, must meet the same de-identification standard as the manuscript. Individual participant data must not be posted in a form that permits re-identification, whether alone or in combination with other available data.

Animal research

Studies involving animals must report adherence to institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals, and follow ARRIVE reporting guidelines where applicable.

AI processing of submissions

Submitted manuscripts are processed by a commercial AI API for editorial-support tasks such as metadata extraction, preliminary review, and copy editing (see §16). Under the provider's commercial terms, submitted content is not used to train AI models and is not retained beyond the immediate processing request. This does not relieve authors of the obligation to remove PHI before uploading — that obligation is a fundamental requirement of biomedical publication and rests with the corresponding author.

If identifying information is discovered

Manuscripts found to contain PHI before publication are returned to the corresponding author and are not advanced in review until corrected. If identifying information is discovered after publication, the journal will remove or replace the material and issue a correction, or retract the article where the breach cannot be remedied, under our corrections and retractions policy. Notify the editorial office immediately if you believe published material identifies a patient.

14 Predatory Journal Advisory

Predatory or pseudo-journals accept and publish almost all submissions for a fee, do not perform meaningful peer review, often impersonate legitimate journals, and may falsely claim membership in organizations such as ICMJE or COPE.

How to recognize a predatory journal

• Aggressive solicitation of submissions, often by mass email.
• Unrealistically short peer-review or publication timelines.
• APCs not disclosed until after acceptance, or hidden fees.
• Names and branding similar to well-established journals.
• No verifiable editorial board, or board members listed without consent.
• Claims of indexing in PubMed, Scopus, or Web of Science that cannot be verified at the indexing source.

Resources

• Think. Check. Submit. — checklist for evaluating a journal before submission.
• WAME: Identifying Predatory or Pseudo-Journals
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) — indexes vetted open-access journals.
• ICMJE: Journals following the recommendations

Citing

Authors should avoid citing articles published in predatory journals. The editorial office may flag such citations and request substitution during peer review.

15 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

OpenSource: Cardiology is committed to broad and equitable participation in cardiology scholarship.

In the editorial process

• We actively recruit authors, reviewers, and editorial board members from diverse geographies, career stages, institutions, genders, and backgrounds.
• We invite local investigators from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as authors when research uses data from those settings, consistent with ICMJE guidance.
• We monitor reviewer and editorial board composition and report on it periodically.

In published research

• Authors are asked to follow the SAGER guidelines for reporting sex and gender.
• Authors should report representative inclusion criteria and discuss how the study sample relates to the population of interest.
• Authors should describe how race and ethnicity, where collected, were determined, and interpret results in the understanding that these are social rather than biological constructs.
• Images of identifiable people must respect dignity and avoid depictions that could reinforce stigma or stereotypes.

Language

We welcome submissions from authors whose primary language is not English and provide editorial assistance to support clear scientific communication. Use of language editing — including with AI tools — is permitted and must be disclosed (see §16).

16 Use of Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and AI-assisted tools are widely available and can be useful at many stages of scholarly work — frequently helping with concept generation, brainstorming, and improving the readability of a manuscript. There is no penalty for using AI; it simply must be disclosed. Because such tools can produce confident but inaccurate, biased, or fabricated output, OpenSource: Cardiology applies the following requirements to all participants in the editorial process.

For authors

• Disclosure is required. Any use of AI in the production of a submission — for writing, editing, figure or image generation, data analysis, or literature search — must be disclosed at submission and in the appropriate section of the manuscript (acknowledgments for writing assistance; Methods for data, analysis, or figure generation).
• AI cannot be an author. Chatbots and AI tools cannot bear responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, or originality of work and must not be listed as authors or cited as authors.
• Humans are accountable. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all content, including any text or images produced with AI, and must ensure that there is no plagiarism, that quoted material is properly attributed, and that no fabricated references appear in the manuscript.
• AI as a primary source is not acceptable. AI-generated material may not be cited as the primary source of a factual claim.

For reviewers

• Confidentiality. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts or any portion of them into AI systems where confidentiality cannot be assured. Manuscripts under review are privileged communications.
• Permission and disclosure. Reviewers who wish to use AI in any aspect of preparing their review must request permission from the editorial office in advance and disclose the tool and how it was used in the review submission.
• Accountability. Reviewers remain responsible for the accuracy and validity of their review, including any portion produced with AI assistance.

For editors and journal staff

• The journal uses AI assistance for limited editorial-support tasks — including metadata extraction from submitted files and reviewer matching — within infrastructure that preserves confidentiality. Authors consent to this use at submission.
• AI may be used in copy-editing and production of accepted manuscripts.