Editorial Policies | Modern Sport | University of Baghdad

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Editorial Policies

Publication Policies

Adherence to COPE Guidelines

This journal adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and its editorial team holds membership in organizations such as DOAJ, Crossref, OASPA, CLOCKSS, and Academia. By submitting a manuscript, authors acknowledge that they have reviewed and agreed to the journal's policies and confirm their approval of the manuscript's content.

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The journal does not accept adverts from third parties.

Revenue Sources & Financial Transparency

In accordance with COPE Principle 14 (Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing), Modern Sport discloses the following information about the journal's revenue sources and financial model.

Modern Sport is institutionally supported by the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences for Women, University of Baghdad, which provides core funding for editorial operations, platform hosting via Elsevier Digital Commons, and digital preservation. Additional revenue is generated through article processing charges (APCs) paid by authors upon acceptance. The journal does not charge submission fees, access fees, or page charges beyond the standard APC for manuscripts within the standard length limit. The journal does not accept advertising from third parties. No revenue is generated from reprints, supplements, or editorial board membership fees. APC waivers are available for authors who demonstrate financial hardship; see the Author Fees policy for details.

Direct Marketing Policy

Modern Sport does not engage in unsolicited direct solicitation of manuscripts. All calls for papers and special issue announcements are disseminated through the journal's official website, registered email subscriber lists, and professional association networks. Any promotional communications accurately represent the journal's scope, peer review process, and article processing charges. The journal does not make unsolicited offers of editorial board membership or guaranteed acceptance.

Affiliations

Authors are required to disclose all relevant affiliations to indicate where the research was approved, supported, or conducted. For non-research articles, authors must provide their current institutional affiliation. If an author changes institutions before the article is published, the affiliation at the time the work was carried out should be listed as the primary affiliation. The current affiliation and contact information should be included in the acknowledgment section. A change in affiliation alone does not justify the removal of an author from a publication if they meet the established criteria for authorship.

Appeals and Complaints

All complaints, concerns, or appeals related to authorship issues or the peer-review process—including those raised after publication—must be directed to the Editors-in-Chief. They will conduct a thorough investigation by first gathering information from all parties involved and then recommending a course of action in accordance with the ethical guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The review or publication process may be paused until the matter is resolved. If the Editors-in-Chief are directly involved in the complaint, the investigation will be carried out by the Editorial Board, led by its most senior member, who will then determine the appropriate course of action.

Authorship Policy

Modern Sport requires that authorship of all submitted manuscripts be determined in accordance with the criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authorship is reserved for individuals who have made a genuine intellectual contribution to the work and who can take public responsibility for it.

Authorship Criteria

All four of the following conditions must be met by each listed author:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
Final approval of the version to be submitted for publication; and
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributor Roles (CRediT)

Authors are required to provide a Contributor Roles statement using the CRediT taxonomy (credit.niso.org), specifying each author's contributions from the 14 standardised roles: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing — original draft; Writing — review & editing. This statement must be included in the manuscript under the heading 'Author Contributions.'

Corresponding Author Responsibilities

One author must be designated as the corresponding author. This individual is responsible for all communication with the editorial office throughout submission, review, and post-publication correspondence, and for ensuring that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final submitted version.

Changes to Authorship

Any addition, removal, or reordering of authors after submission requires written approval from all listed co-authors and the Editor-in-Chief. Requests must be submitted in writing to the editorial office with a full explanation of the reason for the change. Post-publication authorship changes are handled as a corrigendum in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Non-Author Contributors

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section, with a brief description of their contribution and their written permission to be named.

Citations

Both research and non-research articles must reference relevant, timely, and verified literature preferably peer-reviewed when supporting claims made within the manuscript. Authors should avoid excessive or inappropriate self-citation, as well as any coordinated practices among author groups intended to artificially boost citation metrics. For further information, authors are encouraged to consult the COPE guidelines on citation manipulation.

Conflicts of Interest / Competing Interests

All authors, including co-authors, are required to declare any competing interests that are relevant to, or could be perceived as relevant to, the submitted article.

A competing interest may arise when you—or your employer, sponsor, or close associates such as family or friends—have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations or individuals that could influence the research or its interpretation.
Competing interests can be both financial and non-financial in nature.

For the sake of transparency, you must also disclose any associations that could reasonably be perceived by others as a potential conflict of interest.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

Modern Sport publishes post-publication notices in accordance with COPE Core Practice 4 and the COPE Retraction Guidelines (2019). Three mechanisms are applied:

Correction / Erratum: issued for minor errors — including typographical, factual, or methodological errors — that do not affect the principal findings or conclusions of the article. Corrections are published promptly, linked to the original article via DOI, and dated.
Expression of Concern (EOC): published when a formal investigation into an article's findings is ongoing and it is necessary to alert readers. The EOC is permanently linked to the original article and removed or replaced by a definitive notice upon conclusion of the investigation.
Retraction: issued when published findings are determined to be unreliable, whether due to research misconduct or significant honest error. Retractions are clearly labelled 'RETRACTED' in the article title, state the reason(s) for retraction, and are permanently linked to the original article.

All post-publication notices are freely available and are not removed upon author request. For the investigation procedure that may lead to these notices, see the Research Integrity Policy.

For any manuscript that includes details or images relating to an individual, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from the individual (or their parent or legal guardian if the individual is under 18). In the case of a deceased person, consent must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement confirming that written informed consent for publication has been obtained.

Authors may use a consent form to obtain approval for publication, or use a consent form provided by their institution or region, if applicable. The consent form must clearly state that the details or images will be publicly available on the internet and accessible to the general public. Additionally, the consent form should indicate that the work will be published under the CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International) license.

Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is treated as confidential material. Modern Sport will not disclose submitted manuscripts to anyone other than those involved in the processing and preparation for publication (if accepted). This includes editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential and actual reviewers, and editors. However, in cases of suspected misconduct, the manuscript may be disclosed to members of the Modern Sport ethics committees or institutions/organizations that may require it to resolve the issue. Modern Sport will follow the appropriate COPE flowcharts as necessary.

Privacy Policy

Modern Sport (published by the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences for Women, University of Baghdad) is committed to protecting the privacy of all individuals whose personal data we process, including authors, reviewers, readers, and editorial board members.

Data We Collect

We collect personal data including names, email addresses, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, manuscripts, review reports, and correspondence. Submission and review data is processed through the Elsevier Digital Commons platform.

How We Use Your Data

Personal data is used to: process manuscript submissions; manage the peer review process; publish articles and associated contributor information; communicate regarding editorial decisions; and maintain records of the journal's editorial activity. We do not use personal data for commercial marketing purposes.

Data Retention

Editorial correspondence, review reports, and submission records are retained for a minimum of seven years following the final decision on a manuscript. Published author information (names, affiliations, ORCIDs) is retained permanently as part of the scholarly record.

Third Parties

Personal data may be shared with: Elsevier Digital Commons (platform operator); Crossref (DOI registration); iThenticate/Turnitin (plagiarism screening); CLOCKSS (digital preservation); and ORCID (author identifier). All third-party processors are subject to data protection obligations.

Your Rights

Individuals have the right to access, correct, or request deletion of their personal data, subject to legal retention requirements. To exercise these rights, contact the editorial office. For data processed by Elsevier Digital Commons, see the Elsevier Privacy Policy at elsevier.com/legal/privacy-policy.

Open Access Policy

Modern Sport is a fully open-access journal. All articles are made freely and permanently available online immediately upon publication, without embargo, access fees, or subscription requirement.

Copyright

Authors retain copyright in their published work. By submitting a manuscript to Modern Sport, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish, distribute, and archive the work under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license described below.

License

All articles published in Modern Sport are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under this license, readers and users are free to: (a) share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format; and (b) adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial purposes. The only condition is that appropriate credit must be given to the original authors, a link to the license must be provided, and any changes must be indicated. The CC BY 4.0 license deed is available at: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Note: CC BY 4.0 permits commercial reuse. Authors who require a more restrictive licence (e.g., CC BY-NC 4.0, which prohibits commercial use) should contact the editorial office before submission. The use of CC BY is required for compliance with many funder mandates, including the NIH Public Access Policy (zero-embargo, January 2025), Plan S (cOAlition S), and the Welcome Trust open access policy.

Self-Archiving

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, authors may post the published version of their article (the Version of Record) in any repository, including institutional repositories, PubMed Central, or personal websites, at any time and without embargo. Sherpa/Romeo (sherpa.ac.uk/romeo) provides detailed guidance on the journal's self-archiving permissions.

Data Falsification/Fabrication

Authors submitting a manuscript must ensure that all data included is accurate and reflects their research truthfully. All raw data should be retained to facilitate evaluation. If the original data cannot be provided upon request, the manuscript may be rejected or retracted.

Research Data Policy

Modern Sport encourages the sharing of research data to promote transparency, reproducibility, and the advancement of knowledge within the academic community. We understand the significance of making data accessible to other researchers while adhering to ethical and legal standards. In light of this, we have established the following guidelines for including research data declarations in submitted manuscripts:

Data Sharing Expectations:

Authors are encouraged to make their data publicly available whenever possible, except where privacy, confidentiality, or legal restrictions apply. Data should be shared in a way that enables verification of results and allows for reuse in future research.

Data Availability Statements:

Data Available in a Public Repository: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT LINK TO DATASETS].
Data Available on Request: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
No Data Available: No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Reporting Guidelines

Modern Sport is committed to transparent and complete reporting of research methods and findings. Authors are required to adhere to the appropriate reporting guidelines for their study design, as published by the EQUATOR Network (equator-network.org).

The following guidelines apply by study type:

Randomized controlled trials: CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA 2020 checklist and flow diagram
Observational studies (cohort, case-control, cross-sectional): STROBE checklist
Studies of diagnostic or measurement accuracy: STARD checklist
Qualitative research: COREQ or SRQR checklist
Case reports: CARE guidelines
Animal research: ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines

Authors must submit the completed reporting checklist for their study type as a supplementary file alongside the manuscript. Editors may require completion of the relevant checklist as a condition of advancing the manuscript to peer review. The checklist should indicate the page number in the manuscript where each reporting item is addressed.

Desk Rejection Policy

Manuscripts may be rejected without review if:

The topic or scope is not relevant to the journal.
There are publication ethics problems, non-adherence to standards, or high similarity index (>25%) indicating plagiarism.
The topic lacks sufficient impact or does not contribute new knowledge.
There are flaws in the study design.
The objectives are not clearly stated.
The organization or components are problematic or missing.
Writing issues or grammatical errors are present.
The manuscript does not follow submission guidelines.

Duplicate Submission/Publications

Authors must confirm that their manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere. Previously published articles in another language are considered an intentional duplicate and must be disclosed.

Preprint Policy

Modern Sport recognizes the value of preprints in accelerating scholarly communication and supports the responsible use of preprint servers by authors.

Authors may post their manuscript as a preprint on a recognized preprint server before, during, or after peer review. Acceptable preprint servers include SportRxiv, bioRxiv, PsyArXiv, OSF Preprints, and institutional repositories. Posting a preprint does not constitute prior publication and does not disqualify a manuscript from consideration by Modern Sport.

Authors who have posted a preprint must disclose this in the cover letter at the time of submission, providing the URL and preprint DOI. Upon publication of the accepted article, authors are requested to update the preprint record with a link to the final published version, including its DOI, and to indicate that the manuscript has undergone peer review and been published in Modern Sport.

Images and Figures

Images and figures should only be included if relevant and valuable to the work. Unauthorized use of third-party material requires written permission, including proprietary text, illustrations, tables, data, audio, video, etc.

Misconduct

Modern Sport takes misconduct seriously and will act in line with COPE guidelines to maintain scholarly integrity.

Cultural Sensitivities

Authors should respect cultural sensitivities, especially regarding images of human remains or deceased individuals. Ethical guidelines and community approval should be considered.

Accuracy and Modifications

Experimental images must accurately represent the original. Any modifications must be explicitly stated with full explanations in the manuscript and figure legends. Original images should be available upon request.

Permissions for Re-use

Images or figures from other sources may only be reused if proper permissions have been obtained or if reuse is permitted under a license.

Examples of Misconduct

Modern Sport takes all forms of misconduct seriously and will take all necessary actions, in accordance with COPE guidelines, to safeguard the integrity of the scholarly record. The following are examples of misconduct that will be addressed:

Affiliation Misrepresentation: Misleading representation of an author's affiliation.
Copyright Breaches: Use of third-party material without obtaining appropriate permissions.
Citation Manipulation: Manipulating citations to inflate metrics.
Duplicate Submission/Publication: Submitting or publishing the same work in multiple venues.
Ethics Dumping: Conducting unethical research in regions with less stringent ethical standards.
Image or Data Manipulation/Fabrication: Altering or fabricating images or data.
Peer Review Manipulation: Manipulating the peer review process.
Plagiarism: Using someone else's work without proper attribution.
Text-Recycling/Self-Plagiarism: Reusing one's own previous work without proper citation.
Undisclosed Conflicting Interests: Failing to disclose conflicts of interest.
Unethical Research: Conducting research that does not adhere to ethical standards.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that have been previously published or are simultaneously under review by another journal will face sanctions for duplicate submission or publication. If authors include content from their own previously published work or work currently under review, they must properly cite the original source and clearly explain how the submitted manuscript offers new and original contributions beyond the prior work.

Citation Manipulation

Manuscripts that include citations primarily intended to increase the citation count of a specific author's work or articles published in a particular journal will be subject to sanctions for citation manipulation.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Manuscripts that contain fabricated or falsified experimental data, including altered or manipulated images, will face penalties for data fabrication and falsification.

Improper Author Contribution or Attribution

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and must approve all its claims. It is essential to include everyone who made a meaningful contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

Redundant Publications

Redundant publications include the inappropriate division of study outcomes into numerous articles.

Image Manipulation

Misconduct is defined as any violation of this editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines/policies set by COPE, WAME, ICMJE, and STM. It also includes any activities that threaten or compromise the integrity of the research and publication process. Suspected cases of misconduct will be thoroughly investigated in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Artificial Intelligence Policy (AI policy)

The journal adheres to the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including the COPE 2023 Position Statement on Authorship and AI Tools, as well as the regulations and guidelines issued by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the University of Baghdad concerning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in scholarly research.

The journal reserves the right to use similarity detection software and artificial intelligence detection tools, including Turnitin and iThenticate, to verify authors' compliance with this policy. If undisclosed or inappropriate use of artificial intelligence is identified, the journal may request clarification from the authors, require appropriate revisions, and take suitable actions in accordance with the journal's Research Integrity Policy and COPE guidelines. Such actions may include rejection of the manuscript, publication of a correction, retraction of the article, or notification of the author's affiliated institution in cases of serious research misconduct.

The journal does not permit the use of artificial intelligence to generate or fabricate research findings, invent references or citations, or analyse research data without appropriate scientific oversight. Artificial intelligence tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors under any circumstances. Such practices constitute research misconduct and are inconsistent with the principles of research ethics and research integrity.

Artificial intelligence tools may be used for limited purposes only, including language editing, text formatting, and the generation of graphical content, provided that such use is fully disclosed in accordance with this policy.

AI-generated images, figures, or graphical abstracts must be explicitly identified as AI-generated in the relevant figure caption and declared in the AI Disclosure Form submitted at the time of manuscript submission.

The use of AI tools for language editing or formatting does not diminish the authors' full intellectual responsibility for the manuscript's content, arguments, and conclusions.

Authors must disclose the name of the AI tool, the version used, and the specific purpose for which it was employed (e.g., language editing of Section 3) by submitting the journal's AI Disclosure Form at the time of manuscript submission.

The authors bear full responsibility for the entire content of the submitted manuscript, including the accuracy of all information, data, analyses, figures, tables, references, citations, and any content generated or assisted by artificial intelligence.

Editors, reviewers, and members of the Editorial Board are strictly prohibited from uploading manuscripts, peer-review reports, editorial correspondence, or any confidential journal documents to any artificial intelligence platform or service, as doing so may compromise confidentiality, intellectual property rights, and the integrity of the editorial process.