Submissions

Submission preparation checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

I confirm that neither this manuscript, nor any other with substantially similar content by one or more of the same authors, has been published, accepted or is currently being assessed by another journal with a view to publication.
I certify that all authors have participated sufficiently (1) in the conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published and that they agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
If the article is reporting results of prospective research using human subjects or samples or results of animal
research, a statement that the study obtained ethics approval, including the name of the ethics committee(s) or
institutional review board(s) and the number/ID of the approval(s), has been added to the methods section.
If figures or tables from other publications have been included in the article, permission was obtained from the rights holder and a copy of this permission will be uploaded with this submission.

Privacy statement

This is the website of Swiss Medical Weekly (SMW), which is an open access, continuous online journal based on Open Journal Systems (OJS). The Public Knowledge Project (PKB) hosts and maintains the associated servers, which are located in Canada.

Users of the website can register themselves as author or reviewer: Without explicit consent, we will never give out your email addresses to third parties and we will never discuss the details of the accounts with anyone apart from you.

The publications of SMW are accessible without registration.

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of SMW falls within the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting anonymized data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking anonymized geographical and social elements of scholarly communication.

The SMW editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will help develop this publishing platform may be shared with its developer PKP in an anonymized and aggregated form, with exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by SMW or PKP, nor will we will use it for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in SMW are exclusively responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal comply with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

Authors

When someone registers as an author on smw.ch, we ask them to provide a username, an email address and a name. If registration is successful, a user account is created, which stores the author's email address and name. We use that email address to correspond with the author about the ongoing reviewing and publishing process. Particularly, we use the email address

to inform the author about the results of the reviewing process,
to request additional files necessary for the reviewing process, or the publication of an accepted paper, and
to publish the email of the corresponding author of an accepted paper in the published issue.

Upon registration, OJS offers fields to provide other information such as the ORCID-ID, institutional affiliation, etc. The respective data elements fall within the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals and will not be used for other purposes. The author names, the corresponding author’s email, the authors’ affiliations and ORCID-IDs may be published on the SMW website and will be used by standard databases and libraries (e.g., Medline).

Reviewers

When someone registers as a reviewer on smw.ch, we ask them to provide a username, an email address and a name. If registration is successful, a user account is created, which stores the reviewer's email address and name. We use that email address to correspond with the reviewer about the ongoing reviewing process. Particularly, we may use the email address

to remind reviewers about the deadlines for the review,
request reviews of a revised version of a paper, and
to invite reviews of newly submitted papers.

Upon registration, OJS offers fields to provide other information, such as research interests, etc. The respective data elements fall within the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals and will not be used for other purposes. The provided information may be used by SMW editors and the SMW editorial office to identify suitable reviewers for a specific submission. SMW editors may also use their scientific network to contact and correspond with reviewers. Furthermore, reviewer network data from previous SMW platforms (especially Editorial Manager) may be used by SMW editors and the SMW editorial office to ask potentially suitable reviewers whether they would be available for reviewing a given manuscript.

Other information

Upon registration, OJS offers fields to provide other information such as the ORCID-ID, affiliation, etc. The respective data elements fall within the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals and will not be used for other purposes. Please also note our separate cookie notice.

Opting out

You may access, review, edit, and delete your account details by logging into your SMW account.

Withdrawing consent

You can withdraw your consent for us to store and process your personal data at any time by submitting an email to the editorial office of SMW (office@smw.ch). The primary contact person is Dr. Natalie Marty, Managing Director of the SMW supporting association.

Complaints

If you need to complain about how SMW has handled your request to withdraw consent, or any other aspect related to the information detailed in this privacy information notice, please email the editorial office of SMW (office@smw.ch). The primary contact person is Dr. Natalie Marty, Managing Director of the SMW supporting association.