Research and Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
This guideline for publication ethics is fully consistent with the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct.

Editors’ responsibilities

Publication decisions
It is the editor's responsibility to decide which of the articles will be published in the journal. The editor, who evaluates the authors' manuscripts, will evaluate them irrespective of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophies. The decision to be made will be based on the authenticity, validity and importance of the paper and the appropriateness of the scope of the journal. Existing legal requirements concerning slander, copyright infringement and plagiarism should also be taken into account.

Confidentiality
The editor or any editorial staff should not disclose information about a submission to anyone other than the relevant author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial consultants and publisher. The editors will ensure that the materials reviewed are kept confidential.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials described in a submitted article cannot be used in the editor's or their assistants' own investigations without the express written permission of the author.

Reviewers' responsibilities

Contribution to editorial decisions
The peer-review process assists the editor and editorial board in making editorial decisions. It can also serve the author in the preparation of the manuscript.

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 excuse from the review process.

Confidentiality
All manuscripts received for review should be considered as confidential documents. They must comply with confidentiality and do not share article information other than those permitted by the editor.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be made objectively. The author's personal critique is not appropriate. Referees must express their views with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify situations where the relevant published work referred to in the article is not shown in the reference section. Other publications should indicate whether the derived observation or variables are together with their source. Reviewers will report to the editor an important similarity or overlap between the manuscripts considered and other published papers with which they have personal information.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Information or ideas obtained through peer review should be kept confidential and should not be used for any advantage. Unpublished materials described in a submitted article cannot be used in the editor's or their assistants' own investigations. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts that have conflicts of interest linked to competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or to any of the authors, companies, or institutions affiliated to newspapers.

Authors’ duties

Reporting standards
Authors should present an accurate account of the work done and an objective discussion of its significance. The basic data should be shown correctly on the paper. An article should contain enough detail and references to allow others to replicate the job. Fraudulent or knowingly misrepresentations create unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review and professional editorial articles should also be accurate and objective, and editors' opinion should be clearly stated.

Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide raw data in connection with an article for editor review, and, if appropriate, should be prepared to provide public access to such data and in any case, should be prepared for storage of such data for a reasonable period of time after publication.

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of sources
Authors should ensure that their work is original, and if authors have used others' work and/or words, it should be appropriately cited. Publications that are effective in determining the nature of the reported work should also be indicated. Plagiarism constitutes unethical publishing behaviour in all forms and is unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not publish articles that generally describe the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submission of the same article to more than one journal at the same time brings with it unethical publishing behavior. In general, an author should not present a previously published manuscript for consideration in another journal.

No other copyrighted material may be published elsewhere. In addition, manuscripts reviewed by the journal should not be re-sent to copyright-protected publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retains the rights of the published material. The copyright remains with the authors (CC-BY), thus they can decide about eventual republication of their text. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. 

[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/], which allows others to copy, distribute and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it.

Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who make significant contributions to the thought, design, execution or interpretation of the reported work. All contributors should be listed as co-authors. The author ensures that all contributing authors and intruders are included in the list of authors.

Where there are others involved in certain aspects of the research project, they should be accepted or listed as contributors. All co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should include a statement explaining financial or other financial interest conflicts that may be interpreted to affect the results or interpretation of their articles. All financial support sources for the project should be explained. Potential conflicts of interest should be explained at the earliest possible stage. Readers should be informed about who funded the research and about the role of the fund-givers in the research.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a major mistake or mistake in his published work, it is obliged to inform the editor or publisher immediately and to work with the editor to withdraw or correct the paper. If the editor or publisher learns of a published work from a third party that contains a significant error, the author must immediately withdraw the manuscript or correct it or prove the authenticity of the original document to the editor.

References
Graf, C., Wager, E., Bowman, A., Fiack, S., Scott‐Lichter, D., & Robinson, A. (2007). Best practice guidelines on publication ethics: a publisher's perspective. International journal of clinical practice, 61, 1-26. Retrieved from http://publicationethics.org/files/ Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf