Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Digital Health & Telemonitoring Advances (DHTA) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, and responsible scholarly communication.

The journal's editorial and publication practices are guided by internationally recognized principles of ethical scholarly publishing, including relevant guidance and principles promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). DHTA expects authors, editors, reviewers, and all other participants in the publication process to follow responsible research and publication practices.

Digital Health & Telemonitoring Advances recognizes that research in digital health, telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, healthcare informatics, wearable technologies, artificial intelligence-based healthcare systems, digital therapeutics, and related fields may involve human participants, patient information, sensitive health data, and emerging technologies. The journal therefore places particular emphasis on research ethics, participant protection, privacy, confidentiality, transparency, data integrity, and responsible use of digital technologies.

1. Ethical Publishing Standards

DHTA considers manuscripts that demonstrate originality, academic integrity, methodological transparency, ethical conduct, and responsible reporting.

Authors must ensure that:

Submitted manuscripts represent original scholarly work and have not been published previously in substantially the same form or submitted simultaneously to another journal.
All sources, data, methods, ideas, figures, tables, and contributions from other researchers are appropriately acknowledged and cited.
Research findings are reported honestly and accurately without fabrication, falsification, inappropriate manipulation, selective misrepresentation, or misleading presentation.
Appropriate ethical approval has been obtained where required for research involving human participants, patient information, clinical data, healthcare interventions, or sensitive personal information.
Participant rights, privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, and applicable legal and ethical requirements are respected.
Any limitations, relevant risks, and potential conflicts of interest are disclosed transparently.

DHTA does not tolerate plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate or redundant publication, inappropriate authorship, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, or other forms of research and publication misconduct.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors submitting manuscripts to DHTA are responsible for the accuracy, originality, transparency, and ethical integrity of their work.

Authors are expected to:

Present research methods, results, interpretations, and conclusions accurately and honestly.
Provide sufficient methodological information to allow appropriate scholarly evaluation of the work.
Disclose all relevant sources of funding, sponsorship, institutional support, and potential competing interests.
Ensure that all listed authors have made appropriate contributions to the work.
Obtain approval from all authors for the submitted and final versions of the manuscript.
Appropriately acknowledge contributors who do not meet authorship criteria.
Disclose any substantial overlap with previously published or submitted work.
Cooperate with editorial inquiries concerning data, authorship, ethics, originality, or research integrity.

If authors identify a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they should promptly notify the journal and cooperate with any correction or other appropriate post-publication action.

3. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial scholarly contributions to the work.

Appropriate contributions may include:

Conception or design of the research.
Development of methodology.
Data collection, analysis, or interpretation.
Preparation of the manuscript.
Substantive intellectual revision.
Approval of the final version.
Accountability for the integrity and accuracy of the published work.

All listed authors should be able to take responsibility for their contributions.

DHTA discourages inappropriate authorship practices, including honorary authorship, guest authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, and exclusion of eligible contributors.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission should be supported by a clear explanation and may require written agreement from all affected authors.

4. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors of DHTA are responsible for maintaining a fair, confidential, independent, transparent, and academically rigorous editorial process.

Editors shall:

Evaluate manuscripts objectively on the basis of scholarly quality, originality, relevance, methodological soundness, and ethical acceptability.
Ensure that editorial decisions are independent of inappropriate personal, institutional, financial, commercial, or political influence.
Maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and editorial communications.
Select reviewers with appropriate expertise.
Manage competing interests appropriately.
Recuse themselves from manuscripts where a conflict could affect impartiality.
Investigate credible allegations of misconduct or ethical concerns.
Take appropriate action when errors or integrity concerns are identified after publication.
Protect the integrity of the peer-review and scholarly publication process.

Editorial decisions should be based on the merits of the manuscript and the journal's editorial policies.

5. Peer Review Integrity

DHTA uses an independent peer-review process to support the quality, reliability, and scholarly integrity of published research.

Reviewers are expected to:

Provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and professional evaluations.
Maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and related information.
Review manuscripts only within their areas of appropriate expertise.
Disclose any competing interests before accepting a review assignment.
Refrain from using unpublished information obtained through peer review for personal, professional, or commercial advantage.
Report suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data concerns, ethical issues, or other potential misconduct to the editor.
Avoid inappropriate influence, coercion, or requests for unnecessary citations.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. Final editorial decisions are made by the responsible editor in accordance with the journal's editorial policies.

6. Plagiarism and Originality

Plagiarism is considered a serious breach of publication ethics.

Plagiarism may include:

Using another person's words, ideas, data, images, or other material without appropriate acknowledgment.
Close paraphrasing without proper citation.
Presenting another person's work as one's own.
Inappropriate reuse of previously published material without disclosure or citation.
Substantial text recycling or self-plagiarism where such reuse is misleading or inadequately acknowledged.

Manuscripts may be screened using similarity-detection software as part of the editorial assessment process.

A similarity score alone does not establish plagiarism. Editors evaluate the nature, source, extent, and context of any identified overlap before making a decision.

Where plagiarism is suspected or confirmed, DHTA may request clarification, require revision, reject the manuscript, or take appropriate post-publication action.

Detailed procedures are described in the journal's Plagiarism Policy.

7. Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal.

DHTA does not permit duplicate or redundant publication in which substantially the same research, data, findings, or conclusions are published more than once without appropriate disclosure, justification, and citation.

Authors should disclose:

Related manuscripts under consideration elsewhere.
Previously published work that substantially overlaps with the submission.
Previous reports, preprints, conference materials, or other publications where relevant to editorial assessment.

Suspected duplicate or redundant publication will be investigated. Depending on the circumstances, the journal may reject the manuscript or issue an appropriate correction, expression of concern, or retraction after publication.

8. Research Misconduct and Unethical Practices

DHTA does not tolerate research or publication misconduct.

Examples may include:

Plagiarism.
Fabrication of data, observations, or results.
Falsification or inappropriate manipulation of data.
Inappropriate image manipulation.
Duplicate or redundant publication.
Inappropriate authorship.
Citation manipulation.
Peer-review manipulation.
Misrepresentation of research findings.
False or misleading ethical approval information.
Unethical use or disclosure of confidential participant or patient information.

When allegations of misconduct are received, the journal may:

Conduct an initial editorial assessment.
Request clarification or supporting evidence from the authors.
Review relevant manuscript, editorial, or publication records.
Seek advice from appropriate experts where necessary.
Contact institutions, ethics committees, funders, or other relevant organizations where appropriate.
Take proportionate editorial or post-publication action based on available evidence.

Possible actions may include manuscript rejection, correction, expression of concern, or retraction.

9. Human Participants, Patient Data, and Research Ethics

Research involving human participants, patient information, identifiable clinical data, or human biological material must comply with applicable ethical, institutional, and legal standards.

Where required, authors should provide:

The name of the approving ethics committee, institutional review board, or equivalent body.
The approval or reference number, where available.
Confirmation that informed consent was obtained where required.
Information explaining how participant privacy and confidentiality were protected.

Where ethical approval was not required, authors may be asked to provide an appropriate justification or exemption statement.

Research involving identifiable individuals must include consent for publication where applicable.

10. Digital Health Research and Data Responsibility

Because digital health research may involve electronic health records, remote monitoring systems, wearable devices, mobile health applications, biometric data, connected devices, cloud platforms, and other sensitive healthcare information, authors are expected to manage data responsibly.

Authors should:

Protect patient and participant privacy.
Avoid inappropriate disclosure of personally identifiable information.
Describe relevant data collection, storage, processing, sharing, and protection procedures.
Follow applicable ethical and legal requirements relating to health data.
Explain relevant risks, limitations, and potential harms associated with the technology being studied.
Use secure and responsible methods for handling sensitive information.

Where appropriate, manuscripts should include a Data Availability Statement explaining whether supporting data are publicly available, available in a repository, available on reasonable request, or restricted because of ethical, legal, privacy, or confidentiality requirements.

11. Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Research

Research involving artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive models, automated healthcare systems, or clinical decision-support technologies should be reported transparently.

Authors should, where applicable:

Describe the development and validation of the model.
Explain the origin and characteristics of training and validation data.
Report relevant performance measures.
Discuss limitations and possible sources of bias.
Address issues of fairness, generalizability, explainability, privacy, and clinical safety where relevant.
Clearly distinguish research findings from speculative or unsupported claims.

Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all submitted content.

Generative AI or AI-assisted tools must not be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the work.

Where required by journal policy, substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in manuscript preparation, analysis, image generation, or other relevant activities should be disclosed transparently.

AI tools must not be used to fabricate references, data, images, results, or other scholarly content.

12. Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose relationships, circumstances, or interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, peer-review process, or editorial decision-making.

Potential competing interests may include:

Financial relationships.
Employment.
Consultancy arrangements.
Institutional relationships.
Personal or professional relationships.
Intellectual or academic competition.
Commercial interests.
Patents or intellectual-property interests.
Funding relationships.

The existence of a competing interest does not automatically prevent publication or participation in editorial activities. Appropriate disclosure allows the journal to manage such interests transparently.

Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves where a competing interest could compromise impartiality.

13. Funding Disclosure

Authors must provide accurate information regarding financial support, grants, sponsorship, or other funding related to the research.

Funding statements should identify:

The funding organization.
Grant or award information where applicable.
The role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit for publication.

Where no specific funding was received, this should be stated where required.

Funding or sponsorship must not improperly influence editorial decisions or peer-review outcomes.

14. Complaints and Appeals

DHTA provides a mechanism for authors and other stakeholders to raise concerns regarding editorial procedures, ethical issues, or published content.

An appeal may be considered where an author believes that a significant factual, procedural, or ethical error affected an editorial decision.

Complaints or appeals should clearly identify:

The manuscript or published article concerned.
The nature of the complaint or appeal.
The reasons for requesting reconsideration.
Relevant supporting evidence.

Complaints and appeals will be reviewed fairly and, where practicable, by an individual who was not directly responsible for the original matter.

Further details should be provided in the journal's Complaints and Appeals Policy.

15. Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

DHTA is committed to maintaining an accurate, transparent, and reliable scholarly record.

If significant errors or integrity concerns are identified after publication, the journal may issue:

A correction for limited errors that do not invalidate the main findings.
An expression of concern where serious questions exist but an investigation is incomplete or inconclusive.
A retraction where findings are unreliable, serious misconduct has occurred, ethical violations are confirmed, or other circumstances justify retraction.

Retraction does not normally mean deletion of the published article. The article should generally remain part of the scholarly record and be clearly identified as retracted, together with an appropriate retraction notice.

Removal of published content should be considered only in exceptional circumstances involving legal requirements, serious privacy concerns, or other compelling ethical reasons.

16. Post-Publication Discussion

DHTA supports responsible scholarly discussion and correction of the published record.

Readers, researchers, institutions, or other stakeholders may report concerns regarding the accuracy, ethics, originality, or reliability of published articles.

Where appropriate:

Authors may be invited to respond.
Relevant evidence may be reviewed.
External expertise may be sought.
The journal may issue a clarification, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other editorial notice.

Post-publication decisions will be based on the available evidence and the seriousness of the concern.

17. Reporting Ethical Concerns

Readers, authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, and other stakeholders may report suspected research or publication misconduct to the journal.

Reports should provide sufficient information to allow the concern to be evaluated.

DHTA will seek to:

Treat credible allegations seriously.
Protect confidentiality where appropriate.
Avoid premature conclusions.
Provide relevant parties with a reasonable opportunity to respond.
Manage competing interests during investigations.
Take proportionate action based on the evidence.

Anonymous reports may be considered where sufficient supporting evidence is provided.

18. Intellectual Property and Copyright

Authors must respect copyright, licensing, and other intellectual-property rights.

Previously published figures, tables, images, questionnaires, or other protected materials must be appropriately acknowledged and, where required, used with permission.

19. Related Journal Policies

This Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement should be read together with the journal's related policies, including:

Authorship and Contributorship Policy
Plagiarism Policy
Peer Review Policy
Conflict of Interest Policy
Duplicate and Redundant Publication Policy
Human Research and Ethical Approval Policy
Data Availability and Research Data Policy
Artificial Intelligence Use Policy
Complaints and Appeals Policy
Corrections and Retractions Policy
Copyright and Licensing Policy

Where separate policy pages are maintained, their wording should remain consistent with this Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

20. Commitment to Responsible Scholarly Communication

Digital Health & Telemonitoring Advances is committed to promoting trustworthy research, ethical innovation, responsible use of emerging technologies, protection of research participants, and accurate communication of scientific findings.

Through transparent editorial practices, fair peer review, responsible investigation of concerns, and appropriate post-publication action, DHTA seeks to protect the credibility and integrity of the scholarly record.