PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

I. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER’S RESPONSIBILITIES:

I.I. NORMS RELATING TO PUBLICATION DECISIONS:

As a member of the Board, you would be asked to assist the Journal,

  • In reviewing or checking of manuscripts;
  • Conducting reviews of those manuscripts for which the Journal needs a reviewer;
  • Assisting the Journal with submission cases where conflicting reviews exist;
  • The editorial board member will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy as the case may be.
  • The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s rationality and its significance to the journal’s scope. 

I.II. CONFIDENTIALITY:

The editorial board member must not reveal any information about a submitted document/paper/article to anyone other than the corresponding author(s), reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as suitable. There may also be some follow-up questions/discussions by email. Because of the nature of the matters to be discussed, members will be bound to keep the discussions secret. 

I.III. DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editorial board member for their own research purposes without the author’s clear written consent (the editorial board member must submit a copy of such written consent to the publisher).

II. AUTHORS’ DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES/OBLIGATIONS:

II.I. ORIGINALITY, PLAGIARISM AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES:

  • Authors are requested to submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others (merely citing the source does not eliminate the Plagiarism automatically).
  • Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication in general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal.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 behaviour 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.
  • However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material.
  • In case of publication, they permit the use of their work under a Creative Common License (which allows others to read and use the published material for study or research purposes only but, not for commercial purposes). 

II.II. 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 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.

NOTE: It is based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 07th March 2011), https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf.  

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