Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Every journal published by CIBTech ensures that all parties involved in the act of publishing agree upon the standards of expected ethical behaviour. Therefore these parties: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher should go through such ethics during and after the publication process. It is compulsory for them to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. The ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Ethical guidelines for Editors, Reviewers and Authors

The editor of the peer-reviewed Journal should judge the manuscripts on the basis of their academic merit. The editor should go through the policies of the Journal’s editorial board. The editor should evaluate manuscripts without looking at the ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, of the authors.

Editor should not use the unpublished work submitted for publication, for personal work and benefits without the written consent of the author. Board members/reviewers or members of Journals/CIBTech must preserve the confidentiality of the unpublished works. The editor must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after the publication of any article. If required, other appropriate action should be taken, like the publication of a retraction or expression of concern. It must be ensured that the peer-review process for sponsored supplements is the same as that used for the main journal. Items in sponsored supplements should be accepted on the basis of academic merit and not on the basis of commercial benefits.

The editor should make the enquiry whenever any ethical complaint is made regarding the submitted or published paper. The editor should contact the authors or relevant institution. If the complaint is found genuine then the paper can be asked for correction, or even the published paper can be cancelled no matter how late the complaint is raised.

Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript. Original ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviews should be conducted impartially, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the paper.

Any referee whose academic/research work is not related to the article submitted or cannot spare time for quick review, must notify the same to the EIC. Reviewers should not consider any articles in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.

A reviewer should also bring to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the article under consideration and any other published article of which they have personal knowledge.

The authors should take the responsibility that the work carried out, under the submitted manuscript for the Journal, is the original piece of research work, performed as per the appropriate prevailing professional standards of the scientific community. Same standard and ethics are applicable for other kind of articles. Authors should present an objective discussion of the significance of submitted work as well as sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the experiments. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Authorship must 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. People, who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Authors should ensure that they have not infringed any copyright or violated any other right of any third parties in the manuscript. Authors must ensure that the images such as diagrams, photographs, figures, graphs submitted in the manuscript have been originally drawn by them. Authors should take necessary permissions/acknowledge the source/cite the reference, if they have taken the images, text or part of any data from some other sources. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source.

Author should not submit the work to other publisher for publication. Similarly no part of the work should be published elsewhere too.

Authors must assure that all the ethical norms have been considered while performing the research. In case of animal research authors must ensure that they have taken necessary approval from the concerned ethical committees such as CPCSEA for animal research in India, (if/wherever applicable). Authors must also ensure that similar written permissions were taken from the institute(s)/people (used as experimental subjects) involved in the research work. Author should take the responsibilities if any controversies arise out of the work being submitted for publication.

Though the editorial and reviewing staff closely check the article yet if any mistakes remain in the text thus submitted then author should be responsible for the error. Therefore author must submit the article carefully checking its typographic mistakes. If the authors discover any significant error or inaccuracy in the submitted/published work, it is the authors’ obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to respectively retract/ correct the paper.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Authors should disclose the potential conflicts of interest which include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, grants or other funding and patent applications /registrations.