This journal will follow COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics) Core Practices.
*IT IS MALPRACTICE
For authors: to plagiarize and self-plagiarize; to submit what they have already published or have already submitted to another publication (multiple submissions); to overlap – present the same data in more than one publication without justification and cross-referencing (redundant publication); to duplicate hypotheses from one paper to another, duplicate methodology without properly referencing the previous use, to recycle conclusions, re-use figures and tables without clear justification and copy-right permissions (text recycling); to use a single study to write two or more articles (salami publication); to fabricate, falsify and manipulate data; to ignore context and previous relevant publications in the field of their article; to deny responsibility for submitted work; not to reflect individual contributions accurately; to hide potential conflicts of interest
For reviewers: to breach manuscript confidentiality; to evaluate papers based on criteria other than academic/scientific merit only; to hide any potential conflicts of interest; delay manuscript review without justification; to ask authors to cite their (reviewers) own work as a condition for publication; to use unpublished material in their own work
For editors: to manipulate citations – ask authors to cite their (editors) articles or articles from their journal as a condition to publication.
*EDITORIAL DUTIES
The editor-in-chief is responsible for ensuring the academic integrity of the published material. Thus, papers will be selected only after a double-blind peer-review process, except for the book reviews, which are only evaluated by the editorial team. The editor will inform authors and reviewers properly, through the Guidelines for Authors and the For Reviewers section, respectively, which are also based on COPE’s guidelines. Authors and reviewers are also welcome to ask for any further information they may need, via e-mail. The editor will not impose his/her own publications, the editorial and advisory board publications, or articles already published in the journal on authors, as condition to publication. Corrections, retractions and apologies will be published when needed, following COPE’s guidelines and flowcharts. No business interests will affect the integrity of the material published.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS AND MANUSCRIPT CONFIDENTIALITY
As stated in the Guidelines for Authors and For Reviewers sections, the editor-in-chief will be responsible for finding reviewers and ensure a fair, unbiased and as timely as possible double-blind peer-review process based on the paper’s originality, relevance to the field, structure, methodology, quality of argumentation and bibliography, regardless of nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or sexual orientation. The editor will only send the manuscript to the reviewers, who will be asked to respect its confidentiality. The identities of the reviewers and of the authors will be kept anonymous from each other. The editor-in-chief will mediate the dialogue between author and reviewer. The authors will receive reviewers’ comments from the editor, and clear justifications in cases of rejection. Appeals to such decision will be dealt with as stated in the *Complaints and Appeals paragraph from Guidelines to Authors. Conflicts of interest will be dealt with as stated in the *Conflicts of Interest paragraph from Guidelines to Authors.
POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS
Comments to the editor may be transmitted via e-mail. Comments/ Enquiries only for the authors should be only transmitted to them, via the e-mail attached at the end of each article.
The editor will consider issuing a correction on an already published article if the author list is incorrect or honest error is found on a small portion of the article: e.g. flawed data. The correction will take the form of an erratum, if it is a production error, caused by the journal. Or the form of a correction (corrigendum) if it is caused by an author. A correction will also be published if only a few sentences prove to be plagiarized.
The editor will consider retracting an already published article if clear evidence is received that there was data fabrication, falsification and manipulation in the said article; in cases of proved redundant publication; in cases of proved plagiarism; in cases of proved reported unethical research.
Authors will be consulted and asked to cooperate with editors to write a clearly and informative correction or retraction, acceptable to all parties. However, if serious misconduct has been proved, but authors delay the retraction too much, editors will consider publishing it without consent. The correction and the retraction will be published on the journal website and linked to the corrected/retracted article.