Ethical Policy

General guidelines

The journal aims to ensure all published content meets academic quality criteria, poses developments within its field and can be easily accessed and used by various audiences. To achieve this, editorial process must be public, transparent and trustworthy, and ethical guidelines must be set for authors, reviewers, editorial team and publisher. For the most part, the journal adheres to STM ethical guidelines, as stated in International Ethical Principles for Scholarly Publication.

Authors

Reporting standards and research conduct

• Authors should provide an accurate account of the activities or research performed to write the article and should clearly state the relevance for the field.
• Underlying data and sources should be represented and cited accurately in the paper.
• Authors should be transparent about their methodology, spell out the assumptions from which their research starts and avoid using assertions that lead to ambiguity and uncertainty.
• The article should contain sufficient information and references that allow others to challenge the research.
• Articles should never include personal criticisms.
• Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the research data supporting their paper for editorial review.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without proper citation), to claiming results from research conducted by others.  Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable. The journal uses the tool Turnitin to verify the originality of manuscripts and to ensure they are not similar with other contents that have already been published.

Originality and acknowledgement of Sources

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and appropriately cite or quote works of others as wells as obtaining appropriate permissions where necessary.

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the published work and that give the work appropriate context within the larger scholarly record. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Simultaneously submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the published article.  All those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors.

Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the paper they should be recognized in the acknowledgements section.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider (at their discretion) the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been submitted and the author must clearly flag any such request to the Editor. All authors must agree with any such addition, removal or rearrangement.

Authors take collective responsibility for the work.  Each individual author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects.  The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Editorial Team

Publication decisions

Final decisions to approve or reject submissions relay on the editor. For such decisions, he or she shall take into account peer review results and an editorial assessment on the manuscripts, according to criteria on quality, relevance, originality and development within the field.

Vigilance over published record

An editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should coordinate with the publisher (and/or society) to promote the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant.

Peer Review

The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. To achieve this:

• At least two peer reviewers should review manuscripts. When necessary, the editorial team can ask a third reviewer to assess the manuscript or have an editorial board member read for such purposes.
• The editorial team must solve any conflict of interest in the peer review process.
• The editorial team shall select reviewers according to their expertise and published works in the relevant fields.
• Reviewer and author identities must be concealed from both reviewers and authors throughout the review process.
• The editorial team can consider selecting reviewers suggested by authors, only if doing so does not compromise impartiality.

Fair Play

The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political inclinations of the authors. When nominating potential editorial board members, the editor shall consider the need for appropriate, inclusive and diverse representation.

The editorial policies of the journal should encourage transparency and complete, honest reporting, and the editor should ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected from them.

Journal metrics

The editor must not attempt to influence the journal’s ranking by artificially increasing any journal metric. In particular, the editor shall not require that references to journal’s articles be included except for genuine scholarly reasons and authors should not be required to include references to the editor’s own articles or products and services in which the editor has an interest.

Conflict of interest

The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers which s/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members, colleagues or editorial board members or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Moreover, any such submission must be subject to the journal’s usual procedures and peer review must be handled independently of the relevant author/editor and their research groups.

Vigilance over the Published Record

The editor should work to safeguard the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing reported or suspected misconduct (research, publication, reviewer and editorial), in conjunction with the publisher (or society).

Peer Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer reviewers assist editors in making editorial decisions and may also assist authors in improving their papers. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

Promptness

Any selected reviewer 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 him/herself from the review process.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be honest, objective and free from personal prejudice. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that authors have not cited. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously advanced by other authors should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Publisher

Editorial Independence

Publishers should respect the principle of editorial independence. Decisions about publication relay on the editorial team.

Published record

A publisher presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should coordinate with the editor (and/or the society) to ensure prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as deemed relevant.

Publisher role
The publisher has a supporting, investing and nurturing role in the scholarly communication process but is also ultimately responsible for ensuring that best practices are followed in its publications.