Ethical Guidelines & Plagiarism Statement
Peer Review Process
All manuscripts
will be subject to a well-established, fair, unbiased
peer review and refereeing procedure, and are considered
on the basis of their significance, novelty and
usefulness to the Journals readership. The review output
will be either accept or reject. A paper once rejected
will not be considered again for review. The review
process may take approximately one month to be
completed. For accepted paper, should authors be
requested by the editor to revise the text and minor
changes, the revised version should be submitted within
15 days
Open Access Policy
This journal
provides immediate open access to its content on the
principle that making research freely available to the
public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Publications Ethics
Publication Ethics and
Publication Malpractice Statement
Our publication
ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly
based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice
Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication
Ethics, 2011).
I. Responsibilities of Editorial
Board
1.1 Publication Decisions
The editorial
board is responsible for deciding which of the papers
submitted to the journal will be published. The
Editor-in-Chief's decision to accept or reject a paper
for publication is based on its importance, originality,
clarity, and its relevance to the scope of the journal.
1.2 Fair Play
The Editorial Board and the
reviewers evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual
content without regard to the author’s race, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs,
citizenship, or political ideology.
1.3
Confidentiality
The Editorial Board must ensure that
all material submitted to the journal remains
confidential while under review. The editorial board and
the editorial staff must not disclose any information
about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the
corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers,
other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as
appropriate.
1.4 Disclosure and Conflicts of
Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a
submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the
members of the editorial board for their own research
purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
1.5 Journal Self Citation
An editor should never
conduct any practice that obliges authors to cite his or
her journal either as an implied or explicit condition
of acceptance for publication. Any recommendation
regarding articles to be cited in a paper should be made
on the basis of direct relevance to the author’s
article, with the objective of improving the final
published research. Editors should direct authors to
relevant literature as part of the peer review process;
however this should never extend to blanket instructions
to cite individual journals.
1.6 Involvement and
Cooperation in Investigations
An editor should take
reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints
have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or
published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or
society). Such measures will generally include
contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and
giving due consideration of the respective complaint or
claims made, but may also include further communications
to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if
the complaint is upheld, the publication of a
correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other
note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of
unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even
if it is discovered years after publication.
1.7
Publication Decisions
The Editor-in-Chief of the
journal is responsible for deciding which of the
submitted articles should be published. The
Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the
journal's Editorial Board and constrained by such legal
requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel,
copyright infringement and plagiarism. The
Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or
reviewers in making this decision.
II.
Responsibilities of Reviewers
2.1 Contribution to
Editorial Decisions
The peer-reviewing process
assists the editor and the editorial board in making
editorial decisions and may also serve the author in
improving the paper.
2.2 Promptness
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 withdraw from the review process.
2.3
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review
must be treated as confidential documents. They must not
be disclosed to or discussed with others except as
authorized by the editor.
2.4 Standards of
Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively.
Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
Referees should express their views clearly with
supporting arguments.
2.5 Acknowledgment of
Sources
Reviewers should identify cases in which
relevant published work referred to in the paper has not
been cited in the reference section. They should point
out whether observations or arguments derived from other
publications are accompanied by the respective source.
Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial
similarity or overlap between the manuscript under
consideration and any other published paper of which
they have personal knowledge.
2.6 Disclosure and
Conflict of Interest
Privileged information or ideas
obtained through peer review must be kept confidential
and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers 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 associated with the
papers.
III. Duties of Authors
3.1
Reporting Standards
Authors of original research
reports should present an accurate account of the work
performed as well as an objective discussion of its
significance. Underlying data should be represented
accurately in the paper. A paper should contain
sufficient detail and references to permit others to
replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate
statements constitute unethical behavior and are
unacceptable.
3.2 Data Access and Retention
Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their
study together with the paper for editorial review and
should be prepared to make the data publicly available
if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure
accessibility of such data to other competent
professionals for at least ten years after publication
(preferably via an institutional or subject-based data
repository or other data center), provided that the
confidentiality of the participants can be protected and
legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude
their release.
3.3 Originality, Plagiarism
Authors will submit only entirely original works, and
will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words
of others. Publications that have been influential in
determining the nature of the reported work should also
be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing
off” another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to
copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s
paper (without attribution), to claiming results from
research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its
forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is
unacceptable.
3.4 Multiple, Redundant or
Concurrent Publication
In general, papers describing
essentially the same research should not be published in
more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more
than one journal constitutes unethical publishing
behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts which have
been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot
be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by
the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted
publications.
3.5 Acknowledgement of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always
be given. Authors should cite publications that have
been influential in determining the nature of the
reported work. Information obtained privately, as in
conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third
parties, must not be used or reported without explicit,
written permission from the source. Information obtained
in the course of confidential services, such as
refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not
be used without the explicit written permission of the
author of the work involved in these services.
3.6 Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be
limited to those who have made a significant
contribution to the conception, design, execution, or
interpretation of the reported study. All those who have
made significant contributions should be listed as
co-authors.
The corresponding author ensures that all
contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are
included in the author list. The corresponding author
will also verify that all co-authors have approved the
final version of the paper and have agreed to its
submission for publication.
3.7 Disclosure and
Conflicts of Interest
All authors should include a
statement disclosing any financial or other substantive
conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence
the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All
sources of financial support for the project should be
disclosed.
3.8 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 journal
editor or publisher and to cooperate with the editor to
retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.
References
Committee on Publication Ethics
(COPE). (2011, March 7). Code of Conduct and
Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
Retrieved from
http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf