PJMS Crossmark Policy Statement

Research is no more a static process. It is rather a dynamic process; the process is a never-ending activity. With research through advancing tools, the knowledge base is expanding. Existing knowledge may be updated, modified, or replaced. Being a process, research is not completed with the publication, until it gets the consensus of a larger community of researchers in that field. 
The current literature may be questioned. Going through a series of authors, reviewers, and editors, when a research document is published, the global readers (research community) are supposed to appraise it critically for its design, population, sampling, data collection, data analysis & interpretation. 
With open access, research contents are readily available to readers. The authors, editors, and publishers should ensure that their contents are not only valid and reliable but also verifiable, replicable, and reproducible. 
“Crossmark is a multi-publisher initiative from Crossref to provide a standard way for readers to locate the current version of a piece of content. By applying the Crossmark logo, Peshawar Journal of Medical Sciences (PJMS) is committing to maintaining the content it publishes, and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the Crossmark logo will tell you the current status of a document, and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.”

Each content published in PJMS will bear a Crossmark. In case of minor changes in the contents such as spelling corrections or formatting changes, it will stay as current. In case of editorially significant changes that are likely to affect “the interpretation or crediting of the work”, its status will be updated. There are 12 defined types of accepted updates within Crossmark:
1. Addendum
2. Clarification
3. Correction
4. Corrigendum
5. Erratum
6. Expression of concern
7. New edition
8. New version
9. Partial retraction
10. Removal
11. Retraction
12. Withdrawal
Any such update in the contents will be published as a regular document in the coming issue, bearing regular pagination and DOI, with a link to its parent content/ document/ work. 
Readers are encouraged to submit their comments regarding our published work as “Editorial Correspondence”. These comments will be shared with the authors to respond and then these comments with author responses will be published in the coming issue. If the authors could not respond/ explain properly, then the editorial board will decide the fate of that document. 
The readers can also submit their comments online through “ADD COMMENT” option on each published work. The authors can respond online by post or email. These posts are saved and any reader can see these without registration.