Publication Ethics

Research and Publication Ethics

(i) Responsibilities of authors (Researchers)

• The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
• Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
• Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere.
• Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
• The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

For more detail please refer to about the standards for authors

(ii) Responsibilities of Editors

• Editors are accountable and should take responsibility for everything they publish.
• Editors should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process.
• Editors should adopt editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting.
• Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct.
• Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct.
• Editors should critically assess the ethical conduct of studies in humans and animals.
• Peer reviewers and authors should be told what is expected of them.
• Editors should have appropriate policies in place for handling editorial conflicts of interest.

(iii) Responsibilities of peer-reviewers

• Evenness: Honest, critical assessment of the research.
• Confidentiality: The manuscript for review is privileged information that the reviewer should never disseminate. A reviewer may only invite a colleague to assist him or her with the review if he had prior obtained approval from the editor or the editorial assistant.
• Plagiarism: A reviewer should not participate in plagiarism of the unpublished information.
• Conflict of Interest: The reviewer must avoid, or disclose, any conflicts of interest.
• Expertise: A reviewer should accept manuscripts for review only in his areas of expertise.
• Punctuality: A reviewer should agree to review only those manuscripts that can be completed on time.
• Ethical Concerns: The reviewer is responsible for reporting suspected duplicate publication, fraud, plagiarism, or ethical concerns about the use of animals or humans in the research.
• Nobility: A reviewer should write reviews in a collegial, constructive manner.