Publishing ethics
The Science Publishing House (TSPH) upholds a stringent ethical standard in the publication of scientific work. This policy, which is implemented across all our journals, is firmly rooted in the guidelines of the COPE Core Practices. This not only ensures the high quality of our findings but also instills trust in the public, a trust that we, as the staff of TSPH, are responsible for maintaining by assuring the credibility of our published work.
At TSPH, each staff member plays a crucial role in upholding our stringent ethical standards. Through a rigorous process, we meticulously check our manuscripts, ensuring they are free from any potential ethical violations. This commitment to thoroughness results in the production of reliable, accurate, and high-quality documents. TSPH also maintains a strict stance on handling violations of these professional guidelines, emphasizing the importance of each staff member’s contribution.
Editors’ Responsibilities
To act in a balanced, objective and fair way while carrying out their expected duties, without discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
To handle submissions for sponsored supplements or special issues the same way as other submissions so that articles are considered and accepted solely on their academic merit and without commercial influence.
At TSPH, we are committed to supporting our staff in handling complaints of an ethical or conflicting nature.
We adopt and follow reasonable procedures in such events, per the policies and procedures of the Society where appropriate. We ensure that authors are given a reasonable opportunity to respond to any complaints.
No matter when the original publication was approved, all complaints are thoroughly investigated.
Documentation associated with any such complaints is retained, providing a secure and supportive environment for our staff.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities
• To contribute to the decision-making process and improve the published paper’s quality by reviewing the manuscript objectively and promptly.
• To maintain the confidentiality of any information supplied by the editor or author. To not retain or copy the manuscript.
• To alert the editor to any published or submitted content substantially similar to that under review.
• Be aware of any potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative, or other relationships between the reviewer and author) and alert the editor to these, if necessary, withdrawing their services for that manuscript.
Authors’ Responsibilities
• To maintain accurate records of data associated with their submitted manuscript and to supply or provide access to these data on reasonable request. Where appropriate and allowed by employer, funding body, and others who might have an interest, to deposit data in a suitable repository or storage location for sharing and further use by others.
To confirm/assert that the manuscript as submitted is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Where portions of the content overlap with published or submitted content, acknowledge and cite those sources. Additionally, to provide the editor with a copy of any submitted manuscript that might contain overlapping or closely related content.
• Confirm that all the work in the submitted manuscript is original and acknowledge and cite content reproduced from other sources. To obtain permission to reproduce any content from other sources.
• Authors should ensure that any studies involving human or animal subjects conform to national, local, and institutional laws and requirements
• To declare any potential conflicts of interest (e.g., where the author has a competing interest (real or apparent) that could be considered or viewed as exerting an undue influence on his or her duties at any stage during the publication process).
• To notify promptly the journal editor or publisher if a significant error in their publication is identified.
•Cooperate with the editor and publisher to publish an erratum, addendum, or corrigendum notice or retract the paper where necessary.
• All authors are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere nor is under review elsewhere. Manuscripts found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.
• All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using specialized software, iThenticate, and PlagiarismX plagiarism scanner.
• Manuscripts found to have been published elsewhere or under review elsewhere will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. Suppose authors have used their own previously published work or work currently under review as the basis for a submitted manuscript. In that case, they must cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the earlier work.
• Submitted manuscripts that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work or to articles published in a particular journal will incur citation manipulation sanctions.
• Submitted manuscripts found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including manipulating images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.
• All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims.
• Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.
• If there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies, the following sanctions will be applied: rejection of the infringing manuscript, rejection of every other manuscript submitted, and Prohibition against all authors for any new submissions.
• If the article has been accepted for publication, each author must sign a copyright agreement form and send the signed form, in electronic format, to the Editor, together with the final version of the article. This enables us (The Journal) to have the rights to the paper to ensure copyright protection against infringement and to disseminate your article and our journal as widely as possible.
Publishers Responsibilities
• We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint, or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, we will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions, and we are prepared to provide specialized legal review and counsel if necessary.
• To archive digital copies of the journal volumes in the National Library of Congress.
Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior
Identification of unethical behavior:
- Misconduct and unethical behavior may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time by anyone.
- Misconduct and unethical behavior may include, but need not be limited to, examples as outlined above.
- Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence for an investigation to be initiated. All allegations should be taken seriously and treated similarly until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.
Investigation:
- The editor should decide who to consult with or seek advice from the publisher if appropriate.
- Evidence should be gathered while avoiding spreading allegations beyond those who need to know.
Minor breaches:
- Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be allowed to respond to any allegations.
Serious breaches:
- Serious misconduct might require that the employers of the accused be notified. In consultation with the publisher or Society as appropriate, the editor should decide whether to involve the employers by examining the available evidence themselves or by further consultation with a limited number of experts. Outcomes (in increasing order of severity; may be applied separately or in conjunction)
- We inform or educate the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
- A more strongly worded letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behavior.
- publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
- Publication of an editorial 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, Abstracting & Indexing services, and the readership of the publication
- Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period.
- We report the case and outcome to a professional organization or higher authority for further investigation and action.
| Copyright and Access Copyright and Licensing Information: Copyright and licensing are clearly described on the TSPH journal’s website (in the guidelines for authors). By submitting a manuscript for publication to the journal, the authors acknowledge that the work is original and is not being submitted to another journal. The manuscript submission implies that the authors automatically agree to assign exclusive copyright to TSPH if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. Archiving: TSPH is a member of CrossRef, which allows TSPH journals to create and deposit digital object identifiers (DOIs) for the content we produce. We allocate DOIs to our publications by depositing bibliographic metadata for each article with CrossRef while citing metadata that includes the current location of the journal on the website. Author Self-Archiving Policy: Authors may upload their accepted manuscript PDF to institutional and/or centrally organized repositories but must stipulate that public availability be delayed until six months after the first online publication in the journal has elapsed. Ownership and management: TSPH provides information about the ownership and/or management of all its journals on the journal’s website. The website: TSPH journals’ websites have been created and maintained to ensure high ethical and professional standards are applied. Publishing schedule: TSPH indicates the publication frequency on the first page of each journal’s website, i.e., the periodicity at which the journal’s issues are published. Name of the journal: TSPH carefully selects each journal’s name, which must be unique and reflective of the journal’s broad scope. A given journal’s name is chosen to avoid confusion with another journal (s) while not misleading potential authors and readers about the journal’s origin or organization with other journals. |