Publishing Ethic
It is essential that all who participate in producing the journal, who conduct themselves as authors, reviewers and editors, strictly adhere to the highest level of professional ethical standards. By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards from the author and coauthors including proper statistical investigations and thorough ethical reviews by the data owning organisations.
IMR Press journals follow the best practices such as those outlined by these organizations:
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
Council of Scientific Editors (CSE)
National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
World Medical Association (WMA)
- Authors must certify that the work reported in the manuscript is original and free from any plagiarism.
- Authors must state that all data in the article are real and authentic.
- Authors must certify that the work has not been published elsewhere or submitted to any other journal(s) at the same time.
- Authors must disclose any potential conflict of interest associated with the manuscript.
- Authors should actively participate in the peer-review process and provide suitable responses to the comments raised by peer reviewers on time.
- All authors must have significantly contributed to the research and fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the ICMJE.
- Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
Responsible research publication international standards for authors
To manage authorship disputes we follow COPE guidelines, particularly How to spot authorship problems. In case of any authorship disputes, a clear explanation from the authors should be submitted to be evaluated by the journal and the decision will be made based on the recommendations of the COPE and other related organizations including but not limited to the ICMJE. If not, we require an authoritative statement from the authors' institution(s) concerning authorship qualification.
- Reviewers should comply with the editor’s written instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, and quality of the review.
- Reviewers should determine scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work; indicate ways to improve it; and recommend acceptance or rejection using whatever rating scale the editor deems best.
- Reviewers should provide advices to editor, but the final decision on an article is made by the editor.
- Reviewers should provide detailed, constructive, and unbiased evaluation, in a timely manner, on the scientific content of the manuscript.
- Reviewers should point out relevant published work which seems necessary to improve the quality of publication and is not yet cited in the manuscripts.
- Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the complete review process.
- Reviewers should avoid personal comments or criticism, or inflammatory or offensive language.
- Reviewers should notify the journal editor about any financial or personal conflict of interest.
- Reviewers should notify the editors of the journal of any ethical concerns in their evaluation of submitted manuscripts; such as any violation of ethical treatment of animal or human subjects or any considerable similarity between a previously published article and any reviewed manuscript.
- Editor of a journal has complete responsibility and authority to make editorial decisions on all manuscripts submitted for peer-review and publication.
- Editor should treat all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, and honesty. All manuscripts are to be assessed objectively based on their academic merit and free of all commercial or self-interests.
- Editor should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.
- When errors are found in a manuscript, the editor should promote publication of corrections or retractions.
- Editor shall ensure that the peer-review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.
- Editor shall ensure to preserve the reviewers’ anonymity.
- Editor shall not disclose any information concerning submitted manuscripts before publication of the manuscript.
- Editor shall cooperate with the publisher to describe, implement, and regularly review policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone else involved in the peer-review process.
- Editor shall be vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or reviewers delaying a manuscript for suspicious or unusual reasons.
- Editor is responsible for developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts.
- Editor is responsible for assigning manuscripts to each reviewer following consideration of the reviewer’s area of expertise and interest.
Responsible research publication: international standards for editors
Code of conduct and best practice guidelines for journal editors
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly
Updated on 10 May 2021