Ethics & Transparency
Conflict of Interest Policy
The International Journal of First Aid Education is committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity in the content published. This Conflict of Interest policy complies with international, national and/or institutional standards on research involving Human Participants and/or Animals and Informed Consent.
The journal utilizes the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and subscribes to its principles on how to deal with acts of misconduct thereby commit ourselves to investigate allegations of misconduct in order to ensure the integrity of research (including undeclared Conflicts of Interest, plagiarism, or falsification of data). The Editor-in-Chief and/or the majority of the Editorial Board may conduct and inform each other of actions taken when allegations of misconduct occur.
The journal may use plagiarism detection software to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.
Any person (reader, author, reviewer, editorial board member) may raise concerns of misconduct or formally complain through the editor-in-chief (editor@firstaid-revolution.org) or a senior editor in the case of misconduct includes the editor-in-chief.
A Conflict of Interest exists if a person or an institution has a relationship, which has the potential to compromise or in any way interfere with professional objectivity or judgment in issues related to the relationship.
A Conflict of Interest is actual if a relationship exists, or apparent if the possibility for a relationship could be inferred by others. In either case, it is the responsibility of IJFAE Editors, Associate Editors, Editorial Board members, authors and reviewers to declare Conflicts of Interest, actual or apparent, in order that appropriate mitigating action is taken.
Electronic backup & Preservation
OAKS uses Amazon S3 Standard storage for its public file system. The data stored in S3 is replicated to three or more zones within Amazon’s infrastructure to ensure the data stored will not be lost. In addition to being stored in Amazon S3, a nightly copy of our entire S3 filesystem is also made to our local, custom dark archive solution to ensure we also have a local copy of all data. Nightly, weekly, monthly, and yearly copies of the database/metadata for OAKS are also saved and backed up. Preservation of the IJFAE is taken on by OAKS at Kent State University.
Editorial Board
The all-volunteer Editorial Board takes responsibility to identify and prevent academic misconduct. We proactively work with authors to encourage ethical and valid research. The Editor-in-chief may be made aware of any allegation of misconduct by reviewers and other editorial board members and will facilitate any recourse including, but not limited to, the public retraction of a manuscript, updating of manuscript with corrections, publish apologies, and , where appropriate, denial of future submissions. The IJFAE has in place procedures by which potential conflict-of-interest information is obtained from all Editors and Associate Editors on a regular basis; annually, or upon appointment or re-appointment. Such information includes identification of editorial service with related or competing journals, institutional affiliations, identification of frequent collaborators, etc.
Editors, in consultation with IJFAE Editorial Board, manage their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their Associate Editors, staff, authors, reviewers and Editorial Board members. They maintain a summary of relevant interests (financial, academic and other kinds) of all editorial staff and members of editorial boards (which is updated at least annually). Article submissions from the Editors or Editorial Board members are managed so that no details of the review process, other than the anonymous reviews and decision, are accessible to the section Editor.
Authors
All manuscripts should be original works, not previously published nor simultaneously submitted to another journal. Each author has the obligation to reveal any personal interest or relationship that has the potential to be affected by publication of the submitted manuscript. Sources of funding must be acknowledged in the manuscript. All authors must report any financial interest in corporate or commercial entities dealing with the subject matter of the manuscript. On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author has the responsibility to advise the Editor of an actual or apparent conflict of interest at the time of submission of the manuscript. Such conflicts will be acknowledged in the Acknowledgement section of the published article. Authors must also submit corrections if conflicts of interests are revealed after publication.
Peer Reviewers
All journal content is subject to peer review. Peer reviewers are entrusted by readers and the editorial board to provide an unbiased assessment of the scientific merit of a manuscript under review. Any situation or relationship (intellectual, moral, or financial) that could bias or be construed to bias this assessment must be reported to the Editor. These include personal relations to the authors, any research on the same subject in the manuscript, or professional or financial ties to an organization with interests in the subject under review. In such cases where an actual or apparent Conflict of Interest is disclosed, the Editor-in-chief will discern a course of action, which may include rescinding an invitation to review.
Peer reviewers are provided with clear guidance and rubrics to support their review. Their judgements are required to be objective, and they are required to treat manuscripts with confidentiality.
Copyright and Access
Access to all articles published in the IJFAE is free. Authors are requested to indicate copyright and licensing preferences on acceptance of their article.