We have clear and publicly available statements of Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice for every journal. We always work hard to stay listed in the database accountable for the performance and compliance with standard, policies and procedures. Thus, our publication ethics and malpractice statement is comprised of at least of the following ten main headings,
- Editorial Board: journals should have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are recognized experts in the field; the full names and affiliations of the members should be provided on the journal’s web site; and journals shall provide contact information for the editorial office on the journal’s web site.
- Authors and Authors responsibilities: any fees or charges that are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the journal shall be clearly stated in a place before authors begin preparing their manuscript for submission; authors are obliged to participate in peer review process; all authors have significantly contributed to the research; the author(s) are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes; and authors should provide a list of references, financial support; it should also be forbidden to publish same research in more than one journal.
- Peer-review process: all of a journal’s content should be subjected to peer-review; peer-review is defined as "obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers’ expert in the field of publication,"; the process should be clearly described on the journal’s web site; all judgments and findings in the peer-review process should be objective; reviewers should have no conflict of interest; reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited; and reviewed articles should be treated confidentially prior to their publication.
- Publication ethics: publishers and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred; in no event shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place; in the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations appropriately; the journal should have available guidelines for retracting or correcting articles when needed; and finally publishers and editors should always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
- Copyright and access: copyright and licensing information shall be clearly described on the journal’s web site; and the way(s) in which the journal and individual articles are available to readers and whether there are associated subscriptions (or pay-per-view fees) should be clearly stated.
- Archiving: a journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content in the event a journal is no longer published shall be clearly indicated.
- Ownership and management: information about the ownership and/or management of a journal shall be clearly indicated on the journal’s web site; publishers shall not use organizational names that would mislead potential authors and editors about the nature of the journal’s owner.
- The web site: a journal’s web site (including the text that it contains) shall demonstrate that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.
- Publishing schedule: for serial publications, this is the periodicity at which a journal publishes. This should be clearly indicated.
- Name of the journal: the journal name shall be unique and not be one that is easily confused with other journal(s) or that might mislead potential authors and readers about the journal’s origin or association with other journals.
For additional guidelines and resource on the importance of Ethics in Research and Publication,
ELSEVIER - Publishing Ethics Resource Kit for editors, Elsevier Inc. (Corporate Office) Suite 800, 230 Park Avenue New York, NY 10169 USA. Tel: +1 212309|8100| http://www.ethics.elsevier.com | webinar.
Cambridge University Press | One Liberty Plaza 20th Floor, New York NY 10006 USA. Americas: +1 844 682 0042| online@cambridge.org | UK: +44 (0)1223 326098| journals@cambridge.org
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Promoting integrity in scholarly research and its publication, Guidelines | Core Practices | New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler's Ford Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO53 3LG, United Kingdom. E.: publishingethics@cambridge.org