Publisher Business Model

This statement outlines the ethical responsibilities of all parties involved in publishing articles in our journals, including authors, editors, peer reviewers, and the publisher. The guidelines are based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication

Publication Decisions: The editors are responsible for deciding which submitted articles should be published based on the validation of the work and its importance to researchers and readers. They must adhere to the journal's editorial policies and legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Fair Play: Editors evaluate manuscripts solely based on their intellectual content, without bias towards the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality: Editors and editorial staff must maintain confidentiality regarding submitted manuscripts, sharing information only with authorized parties such as authors, reviewers, and the publisher.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Editors must not use unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts for their research without the authors' consent.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Reviewers assist editors in making editorial decisions and help authors improve their papers.

Promptness: Reviewers should promptly notify editors if they feel unqualified to review a manuscript or cannot complete the review process promptly.

Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat submitted manuscripts as confidential and not discuss them with unauthorized individuals.

Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively, without personal criticism of the authors. Reviewers should cite relevant published work and alert editors to similarities between the manuscript under review and other published papers.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Reviewers should disclose any conflicts of interest and refrain from reviewing manuscripts with such conflicts.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards: Authors should accurately present their research findings and provide sufficient detail and references for replication. Fraudulent or inaccurate statements are unethical.

Data Access and Retention: Authors should provide access to raw data and retain it for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure their work is original and properly cite sources when using others' work.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication: Authors should not submit the same manuscript to multiple journals simultaneously.

Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the study. All authors should approve the final version of the manuscript.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: Authors should identify any hazards associated with their work.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Authors should disclose any financial or substantive conflicts of interest that could influence their manuscript.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works: Authors should promptly notify editors of any significant errors in their published work and cooperate with retractions or corrections.