Publication Ethics
Authors
- Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of research work as well as sufficient details and references.
- Authors should maintain accurate records of data associated with their submitted manuscript, and supply or provide access to these data, on reasonable request. Authors guarantee that all data used in the article are real and authentic. Where appropriate and where allowed by employer, funding body and others who might have an interest, authors should deposit data in a suitable repository or storage location, for sharing and further use by others.
- Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
- The authors should ensure that their work is entirely original, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this fact has been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Authors should not submit articles describing essentially the same re-search to more than one journal.
- Authors should acknowledge the financial support and help/guidance of others if appropriate.
- Authors should provide the disclaimer if appropriate.
- All co-authors should significantly contribute to the research. The corresponding author should ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication.
- Authors are obliged to participate in peer review process.
- Authors should notify promptly the editor if a significant error in their publication is identified, and cooperate with the editor to publish an erratum, addendum, corrigendum notice, or to re-tract the paper, where it is deemed necessary.
Editors
- Editors have complete responsibility and authority to accept/reject a manuscript.
- Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit. Editors act in a balanced, objective and fair way while carrying out their expected duties, without dis-crimination on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
- Editors accept the paper when reasonably certain.
- Editors must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
- Editors preserve anonymity of reviewers.
- When errors are found, editors promote publication of correction or retraction.
- Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been pre-sented concerning a submitted manuscript or published article.
Referees
- Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
- Reports should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Any relevant published work which is not yet cited should be pointed out.
- Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
- Referees should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
Publisher
- Publisher monitors and safeguards publishing ethics.
- Publisher communicates journal policies.
- Publisher respects privacy of all parties involved.
- Publisher fosters editorial independence.
- Publisher maintains the integrity of the academic record.
- Publisher protects intellectual property and copyrights.
- Publisher publishes corrections, clarifications, and retractions.
- Publisher constantly improves the quality of the journal.
Article withdraw policy
It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor/guest editor of a learned journal/series is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor/guest editor is guided by policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances, such as:
Article Withdrawal:
Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
Article Retraction:
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication.
Article Removal:
Legal limitations upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s).
Article Replacement:
Identification of false or inaccurate data that, if acted upon, would pose a serious health risk.