International Journal for Innovative Research in Multidisciplinary Field (IJIRMF) publishes peer-reviewed journals on various disciplines. This statement explains the ethical behaviour of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article for journal, i.e.: the author, the Managing Editor, Associate Editor, Advisor, the reviewer and the publisher. This statement is based on internationally accepted Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
DUTIES OF EDITORS:
In addition to many general duties, such as constantly improving the quality and integrity of the journal, striving to needs of authors and readers, encouraging academic research, and others, the editors accept obligation to apply best will and practice to cope with the following responsibilities:
Editorial Board
Editorial board will be generated from recognized experts in the field. The editor will provide full names and affiliations of the members as well as updated contact information for the editorial office on the journal webpage. Editors are the sole responsible persons for the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript, it may be subjected to peer review but the final decision is bound to the concerned editor. Any decision taken or matter of concern about a submitted article should not be revealed to anyone by an editor. If one of the editor is willing to publish an article the article should be processed by another editor.Editor should refrain from using the information, data, theories, or interpretations of any submitted manuscript in her/his own work until that manuscript is in press
Publication decisions
The editor should be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Peer review process
All of a journal’s content should be subjected to peer-review. Articles submitted for possible publication are subjected to a double-blind, peer review process. Articles are first reviewed by editors. The editor may reject it out of hand either because it is not dealing with the subject matter for that journal or because it is manifestly of a low quality so that it cannot be considered at all. Articles that are found original and suitable for review are then sent to two experts in the field of the paper. Referees of a paper are unknown to each other. Referees are asked to classify the paper as accept, reject or request revisions for the submitted paper/article. Referees’ evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript. Referees’ comments are then seen by the author.
Editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described process. Editors should not reverse decisions on publication unless serious problems are identified.
Editors should publish guidance to either authors and reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and will refer or link this code.
Fair play
Editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Editors´ decision to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper´s importance, originality and clarity, and the study´s relevance to the aim of journal.
Confidentiality
Editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. Editors will ensure that material submitted remains confidential while under review.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication.
Procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour – Unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone. Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence in order for an investigation to be initiated. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.
The editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, depending on the misconduct seriousness.
Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.
Serious misconduct might require application of one or more following measures:
- Informing or educating the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
- Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
- A formal letter to the head of the author’s or reviewer’s department or funding agency.
- Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer’s department
- Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period.
DUTIES OF REVIEWERS:
Reviewers should review and send the review comments in due time period. If the article is not in your area of interest then revert back to the editor so that the other reviewers can be approached.
Contributions of Reviewer
Reviewers are the main members contributing for the benefit of the journal being a peer reviewed journal; they are insisted not to disclose their identity in any form. Peer reviewer assists the Executive Managing Editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. A reviewer should immediately decline to review an article submitted if he/she feels that the article is technically unqualified or if the timely review cannot be done by him/her or if the article has a conflict of interest. All submissions should be treated as confidential, editorial approval might be given for any outside person’s advice received. No reviewer should pass on the article submitted to him/her for review to another reviewer in his own concern, it should be declined immediately.
Reviewers being the base of the whole quality process should ensure that the articles published should be of high quality and original work. He may inform the editor if he finds the article submitted to him for review is under consideration in any other publication to his/her knowledge.
What should be checked while reviewing an article?
There are no hard and fast rules to analyse an article, this can be done on a case to case basis considering the worthiness, quality, and originality of the article submitted. In general cases the following may be checked in a review
- Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to author guidelines
- Purpose and Objective of the article
- Method of using transitions in the article
- Introduction given and the conclusion/ suggestions provided
- References provided to substantiate the content
- Grammar, punctuation and spelling
- Plagiarism issues
- Suitability of the article to the need
- Any conflict of interest that may be detected
- Knowledge addition to the scientific community
- Author(s) involvement in preparing the article and their interest shown towards scientific development.
A reviewer’s comment decides the acceptance or rejection of an article and they are one major element in a peer review process. All our reviewers are requested to go through the articles submitted to them for review in detail and give the review comments without any bias which will increase the quality of our journals.
Contribution to editorial decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. Authors who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.
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 himself from the review process.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported 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.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer´s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
The Managing Editor, IJIRMF