Ethics & Editorial Policies

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Authors’ Rights & Responsibilities

What rights do I claim as an author?

The right to be recognized and fully attributed as the author of your work;

The right to reuse your work for a variety of scholarly and professional purposes or future publications subject to full referencing and credit of the original (or forthcoming) publication;

The right to reproduce your work in copies (e.g., through photocopying);

The right to distribute further copies of your work (print or electronic), and to authorize others to exercise this right including for commercial purposes, personal use, sharing with professional colleagues or your own teaching needs;

The right to publicly perform or display your work at a scientific meeting or conference or professional presentations and to distribute copies to the delegates attending it;

The right to post and share your work (in full or in part) to personal or university websites sometimes referred to as “self-archiving” (including preprint or revised versions), in a discipline archive or to deposit it in an institutional digital repository for scholarly purposes without any restrictions; when posting or re-using your work, please provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the published version of your work;

The right to incorporate or convert the refereed journal article, in part or in whole, into another article, thesis or dissertation to be compilations of such prior work;

The right, subsequent to publication, to adapt the journal article or any part thereof free of charge for use in a printed compilation of your works, such as collected writings, theses or lecture notes, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal, including the appropriate bibliographic citation for the article’s publication in the journal;

The right to prepare transitional or other derivative works based upon the work, to extend the journal article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use sections or excerpts in other works.

Copyright

We are dedicated to protecting your rights as an author, and ensuring that any and all legal information and copyright regulations are addressed.

“Transfer of copyright agreement”

Once the article has been accepted for publication, I, as the author and representative of the coauthors, hereby grant to transfer the exclusive rights and licenses herein with respect to the article in whole or in part, alone or in compilations, including those pertaining to electronic formats and media, and by any method, device, or process, and through any channels, now known or later conceived or developed under existing copyright laws, except those set forth above; the exclusive right to license or otherwise authorize others to do all of the foregoing.

Publication ethics

The editor-in-chief and editorial board are solely and independently responsible in making the final editorial decision on any submitted article. Based on the review report of the editors and reviewers, the editor-in-chief can accept, reject, or request modifications to the article.

The editor is also responsible for the contents and the overall quality of the articles to be published. In addition to such substantial responsibilities, the editor is supposed to establish an appropriate, reliable and fair process of referee review.

Fair play

The articles submitted to the journal are evaluated in a manner completely free of prejudice. While evaluating the articles, only the intellectual and academic values are taken into consideration by the editors, not the ethnicity, race, gender, sexual preference, religious belief, nationality and political views of the author(s).

The editorial staff of the journal encourages transparency and complete, honest reporting, by ensuring that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Along with the publisher, the editor establishes a transparent mechanism for appeal against editorial decisions.

Confidentiality

In exceptional circumstances and in agreement with the publisher, the editor may share limited information with editors of other journals where necessary to investigate suspected research misconduct (research, publication, reviewer and editorial).

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

The editor, editor assistants, and the publishing committee must not release the article-related data and information to anyone else but the author(s) of the article, the referees, any other editor assistants and the publisher. The unpublished materials involved in the articles submitted to the Journal are not allowed to be used by anyone else without the clear written permission from the author(s) of the article.

The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers which s/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest.

The editor shall apply journal’s policy relating to the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by authors and reviewers.

Prevention and Fight against Plagiarism

Authors of the journal must be aware and understand that we intend to prevent, and also sanction attempts and acts of plagiarism! Therefore, the editorial board will judge any case of plagiarism on its limits. Authors are hereby advised that:

If plagiarism is detected by the editorial board member or reviewer, in any stage of article process-before or after acceptance, then this will automatically lead to:

  • rejecting the manuscript from being published;
  • totally dismissal of the author as future potential author of the journal;
  • informing the higher education or research institution of the author’s affiliation as well as the scholarly community and public opinion.

Upon notification on allegation of plagiarism for any article that has been previously published and following the thorough verification of the notification, the Editorial Staff will take the following steps:

  • officially inform the higher education or research institution of the author’s affiliation, making available all necessary documents (including the author’s responsible declaration of originality)
  • then the Editorial Staff will advise the most important international databases about the allegation of plagiarism, and
  • will publish (onsite, etc.) its official position on the matter.

As conceptual and general guidelines on plagiarism “What Constitutes Plagiarism?”, in “Harvard Guide to Using Sources” http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342054

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

The submitted articles are subject to a peer review process. Your submitted article will be evaluated by at least two independent reviewers whose promptly and objectively feedback will contribute to the editor’s decision on whether to accept or reject the article.

Promptness

Any selected referee who is assigned to review an article feels that he/she is not competent enough to evaluate the article must inform the editor accordingly and resign from the review process.

Confidentiality

The articles accepted to be evaluated are to be considered confidential documents. Such articles must not be released to and/or discussed with anyone but the persons authorized by the editor. Any information and/or views gained through the referee review process are to be kept confidential and must not be used for personal interests.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviewers must express their objective comments and clear views that do not include personal criticism of the author with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers are supposed to define or recognize, the relevant published studies which have not been involved in the articles being reviewed. They are also supposed to draw the attention of the editor to any considerable similarity, and/or equivalence he/she has detected between the article under review and any other studies he/she has known.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

As a general rule, when asked to assess an article, the reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest to the editor and, if serious, simply refrain from reviewing it.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Submitted articles to the journal must be original. The data used in the article must be inserted into the study with utmost care, and the article must comprise details and sources at a satisfactory extent. Deceitful and deliberately made mistakes are not acceptable as they are likely to tend to unethical situations.

Data Access and Retention

Authors might be required to submit any raw data related to the article that could be needed during the evaluation process. So, they are supposed to get ready to provide access to such data and retain it for a reasonable period following the article has been published.

Originality and Plagiarism

By submitting their articles, the authors are thought to have guaranteed, or ensured, that their articles are original and compliant with ethics standards, all the sources used have rightfully been cited, and they have no similarities and/or equivalence with any other articles already published or at the process/stage of being published.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Submitting the same contents simultaneously to more than one journal is not ethical and not acceptable. Authors that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. Authors should not have been published or currently submitted their work elsewhere. Duplicate publication is a violation of the code of ethics and will be grounds for prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Authors must acknowledge the original source and ensure that they describe their methods and material sources in sufficient detail including grant support or funding sources that supported their research in connection to the submitted article.

Authorship of the Paper

The author(s) must be limited to referring to the person(s) who make(s) meaningful and effective contributions to the concept, design, implementation or interpretation of the article/study reported. All the parties/persons who make substantial contributions to the study must follow the first author in the list of the authors. He/she is the one entitled to handle contacts and correspondence with the editor of the journal and recognized as a contact address who must have all the co-authors get involved in the article.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

Authors must highlight very clearly, in their experimental details, any hazards or risks associated with the reported work and include appropriate warnings. Authors must call attention to any hazardous materials or operations and it is vital that any relevant safety precautions or standard codes of practice are explicitly cited, or included as supplementary information, as appropriate.

When a study involves the use of live animals or human subjects, authors must include in the ‘methods/experimental’ section of the manuscript a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the author’s institute’s policy on animal use and ethics; where possible, details of compliance with national or international laws or guidelines should be included. The statement must name the institutional/local ethics committee which has approved the study; where possible, the approval or case number should be provided. A statement that informed consent was obtained for any experimentation with human subjects is required. Reviewers may be asked to comment specifically on any cases in which concerns arise.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All the authors are liable to declare, or disclose any financial sources or interest conflicts that are likely to affect the conclusion or the evaluation and/or interpretation concerning their article.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author notices an important mistake in his/her article that has already been published, he/she has got to inform the editor of the Journal accordingly and cooperate with him/her in correcting the mistake.