Current Views in Dentistry

Current Views in Dentistry is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial independence, and responsible scholarly communication. As an independent, not-for-profit, open-access journal, the journal seeks to promote the timely dissemination of meaningful ideas while ensuring that all published content is grounded in intellectual honesty, evidence-informed reasoning, methodological transparency, and respect for ethical principles.

The journal’s publication ethics policy is guided by internationally recognized standards in scholarly publishing, including the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). All authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members are expected to act in accordance with these principles throughout the submission, review, editorial decision, publication, and post-publication processes.

1. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted manuscripts are original, accurate, appropriately documented, and ethically conducted. By submitting a manuscript to Current Views in Dentistry, authors confirm that the work has not been published previously, is not under consideration elsewhere, and does not contain fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, or misleading content.

Authors should present their work with sufficient clarity and detail to allow readers, reviewers, and editors to understand the rationale, methods, evidence base, interpretation, and limitations of the manuscript. Conclusions should be supported by appropriate evidence and should not overstate the implications of the findings or arguments.

For all submissions, authors must disclose any financial, institutional, professional, personal, or other relationships that could be perceived as influencing the work. Full and transparent disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is essential to maintaining trust in the scientific process. ICMJE emphasizes that transparent disclosure allows readers to judge whether authors’ relationships or activities may be relevant to the content of a manuscript.

2. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the work and who accept responsibility for the content of the manuscript. Authorship should not be granted solely on the basis of seniority, institutional position, supervision, funding acquisition, or general administrative support.

All listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to be accountable for the integrity of the work. Individuals who contributed to the study or manuscript but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged appropriately, with their permission.

Any change in authorship after submission, including addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors, must be explained to the editorial office and approved by all authors. The journal does not permit guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, or any other inappropriate assignment of authorship. ICMJE notes that authorship confers both credit and accountability for published work.

3. Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

Submitted manuscripts must be original. Authors must not submit manuscripts that contain plagiarism, self-plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling, duplicate publication, redundant publication, or unattributed use of another person’s words, data, images, ideas, or intellectual property.

All sources must be properly cited. Direct quotations, reproduced figures, adapted materials, and previously published content must be clearly identified and used only with appropriate permission when required.

The journal may use plagiarism-detection or similarity-checking tools during the editorial process. Detection of plagiarism, duplicate publication, or substantial unattributed overlap may result in rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, notification to authors’ institutions, or other editorial action depending on the severity of the case.

4. Research Ethics Involving Humans, Animals, and Biological Materials

Manuscripts reporting research involving human participants, human data, human tissue, animals, or biological materials must comply with applicable ethical standards, institutional requirements, and relevant national or international regulations.

For research involving human participants, authors must state that the study was reviewed and approved by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, unless formal exemption was granted. The manuscript should include the name of the approving body and, where applicable, the approval number. Authors must also confirm that informed consent was obtained when required.

For studies involving animals, authors must state that the research was approved by an appropriate animal care and use committee and conducted in accordance with relevant ethical and welfare standards.

For case reports, clinical images, or other materials in which an individual may be identifiable, authors must obtain appropriate consent for publication. Personal information should be removed or anonymized unless it is scientifically necessary and consent has been obtained.

5. Data Integrity, Image Integrity, and Transparency

Authors must ensure the accuracy and integrity of all data, figures, tables, images, and analyses presented in the manuscript. Fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, inappropriate image manipulation, misleading statistical analysis, and suppression of relevant findings are forms of research misconduct.

Images should not be altered in a way that misrepresents the original data. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable only when applied to the entire image and when they do not obscure, eliminate, or exaggerate information.

When appropriate, authors are encouraged to provide data availability statements and to make supporting data, protocols, analytic code, or supplementary materials available in a responsible manner, subject to ethical, legal, privacy, and institutional constraints.

6. Clinical Trials and Reporting Guidelines

Clinical trials should be registered in a publicly accessible registry before enrollment of the first participant whenever required by applicable standards. The trial registration number should be provided in the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to follow relevant reporting guidelines according to the study design, such as CONSORT for randomized trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews and scoping reviews, STROBE for observational studies, CARE for case reports, ARRIVE for animal studies, and other appropriate guidelines. The use of reporting guidelines strengthens transparency, completeness, and reproducibility.

7. Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Tools

Authors must disclose any substantive use of artificial intelligence or AI-assisted tools in the preparation of a manuscript, including use for text generation, image generation, data analysis, literature synthesis, translation, or editing when such use has materially influenced the content.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy, or ethical compliance of the work. Authors remain fully responsible for all content generated or modified with the assistance of AI tools, including the accuracy of references, the absence of plagiarism, the protection of confidential information, and the validity of scientific claims.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, figures, data, or peer-review materials to AI tools or external platforms unless explicit permission has been granted and confidentiality can be ensured.

8. Peer Review Ethics

Current Views in Dentistry uses peer review to support editorial decision-making, improve the quality of manuscripts, and protect the integrity of the scholarly record. Peer review should be conducted fairly, constructively, confidentially, and without personal, institutional, financial, or ideological bias.

Reviewers must evaluate manuscripts objectively and provide comments that are clear, respectful, and relevant to the scientific or scholarly merit of the work. Reviewers should not use unpublished information obtained through peer review for personal advantage or for the benefit of others.

Reviewers must decline an invitation to review if they have a conflict of interest, lack sufficient expertise, cannot provide a timely review, or cannot evaluate the manuscript impartially. COPE emphasizes that peer review processes should be transparently described and well managed.

9. Editorial Responsibilities and Independence

Editors are responsible for making fair, timely, and evidence-informed decisions based on the scholarly quality, relevance, originality, integrity, and ethical acceptability of submitted manuscripts. Editorial decisions should not be influenced by the authors’ nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, political views, seniority, or personal relationships.

The journal maintains editorial independence from sponsors, donors, institutions, advertisers, and other external parties. Financial support for the journal, including donations or institutional support, must not influence editorial decisions.

When editors, editorial board members, or individuals closely associated with the journal submit manuscripts, the review and decision-making process must be handled by independent editors without relevant conflicts of interest.

10. Conflicts of Interest

All participants in the publication process, including authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members, must disclose potential conflicts of interest. Conflicts may be financial, institutional, academic, professional, personal, political, or ideological.

Disclosure of a conflict of interest does not automatically disqualify a manuscript from consideration. However, undisclosed conflicts may undermine trust in the publication process and may require editorial action before or after publication.

11. Research and Publication Misconduct

The journal takes allegations of research or publication misconduct seriously. Misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

• fabrication or falsification of data
• plagiarism or inappropriate text recycling
• duplicate or redundant publication
• image manipulation
• citation manipulation
• peer-review manipulation
• undisclosed conflicts of interest
• inappropriate authorship
• paper mill activity
• unethical research involving humans or animals
• misuse of confidential information
• intentional misrepresentation of methods, findings, or conclusions

When misconduct is suspected, the journal will follow a fair and confidential process. Authors may be asked to provide explanations, original data, ethics approval documents, consent forms, or other relevant materials. When necessary, the journal may contact institutions, ethics committees, funders, or other journals.

12. Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

The journal is committed to correcting the scholarly record when errors or ethical concerns are identified after publication.

A correction may be issued when a published article contains an error that does not invalidate the overall findings or conclusions. An expression of concern may be issued when serious concerns have been raised but the available evidence is inconclusive or an investigation is ongoing. A retraction may be issued when the findings or conclusions are unreliable due to misconduct, major error, unethical research, plagiarism, redundant publication, manipulated peer review, or other serious violations of publication ethics.

Retraction is intended to correct the literature and protect its integrity, not to punish authors. COPE’s retraction guidance explicitly emphasizes that the purpose of retraction is correction of the scholarly record rather than punishment.

13. Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal editorial decisions when they believe that a decision was based on a factual error, misunderstanding, procedural irregularity, or potential bias. Appeals must be submitted in writing with a clear explanation and supporting evidence.

The journal will also consider complaints regarding editorial conduct, peer review, publication ethics, conflicts of interest, corrections, or other aspects of the publication process. Complaints will be handled respectfully, confidentially, and as promptly as possible.

14. Confidentiality

Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must treat submitted manuscripts and all related correspondence as confidential. Manuscripts under review must not be shared, discussed, copied, quoted, or used for personal or professional advantage outside the editorial and peer-review process.

Confidentiality applies to manuscript content, reviewer identities where applicable, editorial discussions, decision letters, and unpublished data or ideas.

15. Open Access, Copyright, and Responsible Dissemination

Current Views in Dentistry is an open-access journal committed to broad dissemination of scholarly knowledge. The journal believes that access to scientific ideas should be as open as possible while respecting authorship, intellectual property, ethical obligations, and proper attribution.

The journal will provide clear information regarding copyright, licensing, author rights, and reuse conditions. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted material when necessary.

16. Article Processing Charges and Editorial Integrity

As an independent, not-for-profit journal, Current Views in Dentistry aims to avoid or minimize article processing charges whenever feasible. Any publication fee, waiver, donation, sponsorship, or financial support must not influence editorial evaluation, peer review, acceptance, rejection, correction, or retraction.

Editorial decisions are based solely on the scholarly merit, ethical integrity, relevance, clarity, and contribution of the manuscript.