Authorship criteria
All authors listed must meet the following four criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE):
More information can be accessed on the ICMJE website.
All Veterinary Evidence submission templates outline these criteria. It is the corresponding authors responsibility to confirm authorship and the author order prior to submission.
Where all criteria are not met, individuals should be acknowledged in an acknowledgements section at the end of the main text.
Acknowledgements section
The purpose of this section is to acknowledge those who have contributed to the research and/or writing of the paper but who do not qualify as an author. See Authorship criteria above. This may include those who provided intellectual assistance, technical aid (including writing and editing support), or contributed special equipment or materials.
As stated in the ICMJE guidelines: "All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgments, and what they did should be described." All individuals listed in the acknowledgment section should also be made aware of their inclusion.
It is essential to keep the information presented in the acknowledgment section brief and focus only on individuals directly involved in the research and/or writing of the paper.
Adding, removing or changing the author order
The editorial office must be made aware of any changes to the author list at proof stage. The corresponding author must contact the editorial office and state why the change is taking place and provide written confirmation from all authors, including the author(s) being added/removed, that they agree with the change. The corresponding author must also confirm that all authors meet the four ICMJE criteria detailed above.
Images and copyright
It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure they have acquired the necessary permissions to use figures, images or extracts from previously published articles.
All material must be properly referenced and authors must have written consent of the copyright holder (this may be the publisher rather than the author). This includes the author’s own previously published material, where the author is not the copyright holder.
Ethical responsibilities of authors
ORCID
ORCID is a system of identification for authors. An ORCID identifier is unique to an individual and acts as a persistent digital identifier to ensure that authors (particularly those with relatively common names) can be distinguished and their work properly attributed.
Our submission system supports ORCID, allowing authors to enter their unique identifier.
Conflict of interest
Declaring a conflict of interest
Veterinary Evidence strives to uphold the principles of best practice in scholarly publishing. We therefore aim to be transparent when it comes to any conflicts of interest that may arise during the publication process.
To make the best decision on how to proceed with a submission or peer-review process, Veterinary Evidence asks authors, reviewers and Editors to declare any competing interests, so that Veterinary Evidence can make informed decisions regarding submissions and reviews.
What is a conflict of interest?
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) states that:
The potential for conflicts of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.
Authors, reviewers and Editors should therefore ask themselves if there is anything that may bias their judgement when performing the task required of them and to state this within their declaration of interest.
All disclosures of potential conflicts of interest are reviewed by the Editor in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.
Declaring conflicts of interest: Authors
Potential conflicts of interest must be declared. These include relevant financial, personal, political or intellectual interests that may bias the work, as well as disclosing:
Authors are required to fill in the conflict of interest section within the article submission template (there is a link in this section of the submission template to this policy), as well as within the submission system for every author. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors have been asked to disclose any conflicts of interest.
Authors can provide names, affiliations and contact details of potential reviewers. Suggested reviewers will be used at the Editor’s discretion, and if the reviewers contact details can be verified from an independent source.
All disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made by authors are reviewed by the Editor in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.
Please see our full Conflict of interest policy for more information.
Open access policy
Veterinary Evidence has a diamond or platinum open access model. Papers are made open access as soon as they are published, and there are no article processing charges, paywalls or barriers to access for either authors or readers.
No matter where you are in the world, you have unrestricted access to the evidence published in Veterinary Evidence. You can submit to, read and share our peer-reviewed content for free and use it to enhance the quality of care you provide to animals.
Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. The content must be credited appropriately. In all cases, the requirement to link to the Veterinary Evidence website is designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record.
Licence
All content published in the Veterinary Evidence journal is licenced under a CC-BY licence.
CC BY 4.0: This license allows others to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Copyright and author’s rights
Authors (or their employers) retain copyright in their work.
Upon submitting their article authors are asked to sign a declaration agreement and a non-exclusive license to publish. Authors retain the copyright of their article and retain publishing rights.
By signing the non-exclusive license to publish, the author gives RCVS Knowledge permission to edit, adapt, translate, publish, reproduce, distribute and display the article in printed, electronic or any other medium and format whether now known or yet to be developed.
Self-archiving policy
Authors are free to deposit the pre-print, post-print and publisher’s version/PDF to their institution's repositories or personal websites immediately on publication.
Authors can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)
Authors can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing)
Authors can archive publisher's version/PDF
Attribution must be made. Doing so protects the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record.
Veterinary Evidence is registered with the database SHERPA/RoMEO.
Publication fees
It is free to publish in and read Veterinary Evidence.
There are no submission fees or article processing charges (APCs). All articles undergo a thorough open peer-review process, and accepted articles are published open access immediately upon publication.
Data sharing
Please see our Data sharing policy for information on how to cite and share data.
For more information please see our Editorial policies.