Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement (PEPMS)

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. (The guidelines are based on Elsevier policies and COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors). We have great respect and we generally follow the guidelines, given by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE); Core Practices; and the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice for any publication disputes, authorship disputes, etc. For these kinds of disputes, we generally visit and follow the COPE website and author(s) are also requested to do so. Excellent guidelines, related to COPE’s Code of Conduct and its advice to tackle cases of suspected misconduct, are available in this link (COPE Guidance).

Plagiarism

The Editorial Board of our journal will immediately screen all articles submitted for publication in that journal. Plagiarism is not limited to the Results and Discussion sections; it can involve any part of the manuscript, including figures and tables, in which material is copied from another publication without attestation, reference, or permission. Note that wording does not have to be exact to be copyright infringement; use of very similar words in almost the same sequence can also be infringement. Any suspected misconduct ends up with a quick rejection.

Redundant or duplicate publication

Duplicate or redundant publication is a publication that overlaps substantially with one already published, in press, or in an electronic media submission.

Duplicate or redundant submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to different journals at the same time. International copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost effective use of resources require that readers can be assured that what they are reading is original.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published or currently submitted elsewhere. Duplicate publication is a violation of the APA code of ethics (APA Publication Manual, 2010) and will be grounds for prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript. If the editor was not aware of the violation and the article has been published, a notice of duplicate submission and the ethical violation will be published.

Publication decisions

The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Copyrights

The copyrights of all papers published in this journal are retained by the respective authors as per the 'Creative Commons Attribution License'. The author(s) should be the sole author(s) of the article and should have full authority to enter into agreement and in granting rights to Publication, which are not in breach of any other obligation. The author(s) should ensure the integrity of the paper and related works. Authors should mandatorily ensure that submission of manuscript to Publication would result into no breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy.