Manuscripts submitted to publications must not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration and must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere. Authors whose articles are found to have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere may incur blacklisted for a period of at least two years.
COPE's guidelines for Duplicate submission
COPE's guidelines - Whose responsibility is duplicate submission?
Citation manipulation :
Author(s) whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations only for the purpose to increase the number of citations of a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions. Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.
- In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to author’s own work.
COPE's guidelines - Citation manipulation
Conflicts of interest :
A conflict of interest exists when judgement regarding the research is influenced by factors such as financial gain or personal relationships. All authors are required to disclose financial, affiliations, property ideology, academic, personal or other such associations that may influence or be perceived to influence their work. If conflicts of interest are found after publication, this may be embarrassing for the authors, the Editors and the journal and it ay warrant publication of a corrigendum.
- Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of Interest’, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the Editor and reviewers and may be included in the article.
COPE's guidelines - Undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript
Corrections in an article :
Errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum and errors by the publisher by an erratum. All authors will be asked to agree to the content of the notice.
Withdrawal of an article :
A submitted article may be withdrawn following the deep assessment and analysis of the situations, on a case by case basis. The withdrawal will solely depend on the Editor’s discretion. The decision of the Editor regarding the withdrawal of a paper will be final.
Retraction of an article :
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, same claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and similar claims will lead to the retraction of an article.
COPE's Retraction guidelines
Appeal :
Authors may appeal if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a major misunderstanding over a technical aspect of the manuscript, or a failure in understanding the scientific advancement shown in the manuscript. Appeal requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be entertained. To lodge an appeal, the journal’s administration may be contacted by email, quoting manuscript’s reference number. Appeal can only be made by the submitting author.