Publication Ethics
Overview
The statement below explains the code of ethics of all parties involved in publishing articles in the journal, including Authors, Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Associate Editors, Reviewers, and Publishers. Our ethics statement is based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
Duties of editor
Publication decisions
The Editor in Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. In making decisions, the Editor in Chief can be assisted by Associate Editors and limited by legal provisions regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Editor in Chief may confer with associated editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Fair play
The Editor in Chief will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the author's race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
Confidentiality
Editor in Chief and Associate Editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to parties other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's research without the author's written consent.
Duties of reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists the Editor in Chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the article.
Promptness
Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor in Chief and excuse himself from the article review process.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor in Chief.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers must identify relevant published works that have not been cited by the author. A statement that observations, derivations, or arguments that have been previously reported must be accompanied by relevant citations. Reviewers should also inform the Editor in Chief if there is a substantial overlap between the article under consideration and any other articles that have been published from the personal knowledge they have.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through the peer review process must be confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts with conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.
Duties of authors
Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the article. An article should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data access and retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publications
An author should not generally publish manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unacceptable publishing behavior.
Acknowledgment of sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the nature of the reported work.
Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the Editor in Chief or publisher and cooperate to retract or correct the paper.
Dealing with unethical behavior
Anyone could submit reliable material to the Editor in Chief to initiate an investigation into suspected unethical or improper activity.
The chief editor decides to initiate an investigation. During an investigation, evidence should be confidential and shared only with those directly involved. Whenever practicable, the accused shall be permitted to respond to the charges against them. If misconduct occurs after the investigation, it will be categorized as minor or severe.
Minor misconduct (such as misunderstanding or erroneous application of publication rules, which does not compromise the integrity of the article or journal) will be handled directly by authors and reviewers without the involvement of any other parties.
In case of serious misconduct, the Editor in Chief may take the following actions:
- The misconduct is described in an official announcement or editorial.
- Could Notifying the author's/affiliating reviewer's institution formally.
- The journal's formal, public retraction of publications conforms to the Retraction Policy.
- An individual's submissions are prohibited for a set length of time.
- A case is sent to a professional body or a legal authority for further examination and action.
Plagiarism prevention
Our journal does not accept papers that contain plagiarism. Turnitin and Grammarly are applied to every published paper. According to the Editorial Board, plagiarism, defined as passing off one's own ideas, words, or other creative expressions of another, is a blatant breach of scientific ethics. Copyright violations may also result from plagiarism, leading to legal action.
Any manuscript that looks to include plagiarism will be rejected automatically. If plagiarism is identified in an article that has already been published in the journal, the article will be retracted following the Retraction policy.
Retraction policy
Due to legal limits of the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), as well as violations of professional, ethical rules such as numerous submissions, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, and any major misbehavior, an article must be retracted.
A retraction can rectify numerous important errors that are not addressed by infrequent fixes. If both parties agree, the Editor in Chief, the author(s), or both parties may publish a retraction.
The retraction is presented in a separate section of the material titled "Retraction." Except for a watermark on each PDF page stating that the item has been "retracted," the original article has not been modified.
