Statement on Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice
The following statement spells out ethical behaviour of all parties involved in the act of publishing articles for Arctoa journal, including the Chief Editor, the Editorial Board, the Authors, the Reviewers, and the Publisher, following the guidelines available at www.publicationethics.org, elaborated by the Elsevier Publishing House in accordance with international ethical rules of scientific publications.
1. Introduction
1.1. The publication in a peer reviewed learned journal serves many purposes outside of simple communication. It is a building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. For all these reasons and more it is important to lay down standards of expected ethical behaviour by all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, and the publisher of the journal Arctoa.
1.2. The publication of a manuscript proceeds regardless to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
2. Duties for Chief Editors and members of Editorial Board
2.1. The Chief Editor must take care of the initial evaluation of a submission for general agreement with the subject of the journal and importance to researchers and readers, and general agreement with the Author Guidelines. After passing this test, manuscript is then forwarded to two reviewers for blind peer-review. The selection of reviewers and obtaining reviews in due time is a duty of the Chief Editor, with the help of members of the Editorial Border.
2.2. Based on the Reviewer evaluations and advices from the members of Editorial Board, the Chief Editor has the right to accept or reject the manuscript, or ask Authors to modify it according to suggestion of Reviewers, members of the Editorial Border, and his own comments and recommendations.
2.3. Final decision of the manuscript acceptance is made upon receipt of the revised manuscript and responses to reviewers. The unsatisfactory response to a reviewer may require another round of revision. The serious disagreements between author(s) and reviewer(s) may cause inviting additional reviewer, if the Chief Editor and members of the Editorial Board consider this necessary.
2.4. The Chief Editor and any members of the Editorial Board of the journal Arctoa must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
2.5. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in research of Chief Editor and members of the Editorial Board 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.
2.6. Chief Editor and members of the Editorial Board should recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors or institutions connected to the papers.
2.7. Involvement and cooperation in investigations may be considered if the Chief Editor and members of the Editorial Board consider to find reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript, and may include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant researchers.
3. Duties for Reviewers
3.1. 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, and lies at the heart of the scientific method. Publisher shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.
3.2. Reviewer agreement to evaluate a paper must imply obligation to provide qualified expertise of the essential intellectual content of the manuscript, to return the review promptly (usually within four weeks, unless extension is allowed by relevant reasons), to guarantee lack of any conflicts of interest with authors and their institutions pertaining the manuscript publication, and to keep confidential all information regarding to reviewed manuscript.
3.3. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’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.
3.4. Reviewer must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of date used in the research. Any kind of similarity between the manuscript and other published papers, plagiarisms of all kind and shape must be immediately brought in to notice to the Chief Editor.
3.5. Reviewer should express their views clearly with the supporting arguments, avoiding personal criticism of the author(s).
3.6. Reviewer has to choose if the review will be blind or include the name of reviewer. As default, the authors will receive blind review.
4. Duties for Authors
4.1. Authors must state in cover letter to editor that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Submitting the manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
4.2. Authors must guarantee that the manuscript has been submitted with the knowledge of Institution given as the affiliation of the authors.
4.3. Authors should disclosure any Conflicts of Interest in a cover letter to editor.
4.4. Authors of original research articles should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
4.5. Authors have to be ready to provide the raw data on request of reviewer, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
4.6. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. 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 attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. An obviously non-occasional plagiarism will result in the submission rejection and author(s) blacklisting.
4.7. Authorship of the Paper should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
4.8. Important errors in publications may and should be corrected. It is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the editor of Arctoa if significant error or inaccuracy in a published work were discovered. If the authors learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or submit corrections for publication in Arctoa unless it is already done elsewhere.
5. Duties of the Publisher
5.1. Publisher should adopt policies and procedures that support editors, reviewers and authors of the journal Arctoa in performing their ethical duties under these ethics guidelines.
The section is prepared according to the files (http://health.elsevier.ru/attachments/editor/file/ethical_code_final.pdf) of Elsevier Publisher (https://www.elsevier.com/) and files (http://publicationethics.org/resources) from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - http://publicationethics.org/).