Ethics for Journal

ETHICAL GUIDELINES BY HEC

“These guidelines are retrieved from Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan manual for “Ethical Guidelines for Journals”, which has been prepared by University of the Punjab, Lahore”

For Authors

The following ethical guidelines are obligatory for all author(s) violations that may result in the application of penalties by the editor, including but not limited to the suspension or revocation of publishing privileges.

Reporting Standards

• Will ensure that the research report and data contain adequate detail and references.
  • Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are unethical and unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

• Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is not acceptable.
  • Material quoted verbatim must be placed in quotation marks.
  • If more than a 15% similarity index has been found, As per HEC’s policy it will either be rejected or left at the discretion of the Editorial Board for a conditional acceptance.

Declaration

• A declaration is required that the manuscript contains solely the author’s original work that is not under consideration for publishing in any other journal in any form.
  • A co-authored paper must be accompanied by an undertaking to claim the right to authorship and to ensure that all have agreed to the order of authorship.

Acknowledgment of Sources

• A paper must always contain a proper acknowledgment of the work of others.
  • The author(s) must also acknowledge the contributions of people, organizations, and institutes who assisted the process of research or financial funding (in the acknowledgment).
  • It is the duty of the author(s) to conduct a literature review and cite the original publications.

Authorship Credit

• Authorship of the work may only be credited to those who have made a noteworthy contribution to conceptualization, conducting, data analysis, and writing up of the manuscript.
  • 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.

Privacy of Participants

• Authors must respect the privacy of the participant(s) of the research.
  • Authors must ensure that in instances where the identity of the participant needs to be revealed in the study, explicit and informed consent of the concerned party is obtained.

Data Access and Retention

• The author(s) should provide raw data to the Editor if any question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review process.
  • The author(s) must provide an accurate description of how the images were generated and produced and will ensure they are free of manipulation.

Manuscript Acceptance and Rejection

• During the review period the author can contact the Editor to ask about its status.
  • In case of revisions, the author(s) must provide an exposition of all corrections made in the manuscript and the revised manuscript should, then, go through the process of affirmation of revisions and be accepted or rejected accordingly.
  • In case of dissatisfaction over the decision of rejection, the author can appeal the decision by contacting the Editor.

For Reviewers

The Reviewers should:

• Inform the Editor, if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review and s/he should inform the Editor immediately after receiving a request.
  • Be responsible to act promptly and submit the review report on time.

Standards of Objectivity

• The reviews should be objectively carried out with a consideration of high academic, scholarly, and scientific standards.
  • All judgments should be meticulously established and maintained.
  • The decision should purely be based on the quality of the research paper and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations.
  • A reviewer should not use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript, without the approval of the Editor.
  • A reviewer must declare any potentially conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious).
  • A reviewer should be honest enough to declare conflicts of interest, if, the research paper under review is the same as to his/her presently conducted study.
  • If the reviewer feels unqualified to separate his/her bias, s/he should immediately return the manuscript to the Editor without review, and justify to him/her the situation.

Confidentiality

• Reviewers should consider the research paper as a confidential document and must not discuss its content on any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the Editor.

Ethical Considerations

• If the reviewer suspects that the research paper is almost the same as someone else's work, s/he will ethically inform the Editor and provide its citation as a reference.
  • If the reviewer suspects that the results in the research paper to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, s/he will share it with the Editor.
  • If there has been an indication of violating ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, females, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc), then this should be identified to the Editor.
  • If the research paper is based on any previous research study or is a replica of an earlier work, or the work is plagiarized e.g. the author has not acknowledged/referenced others' work appropriately, then this should be brought into the Editor's knowledge.

Originality

For evaluating originality, the reviewers should consider the following elements:
• Does the research paper add to existing knowledge?
• Are the research questions and/or hypotheses in line with the objective of the research work?

For Editors

The Editor’s Responsibilities

• Establishing and maintaining the quality of the journal by publishing quality papers.
  • Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework

Good practices

• Encouraging new ideas and suggestions for improving the quality of JIRS.
  • Appling the process of blind peer review in its true letter and spirit,
  • Promoting & implementing anti-plagiarism & journal policy without institutional pressure.

Fair play and Impartiality

• Will ensure impartial evaluation of the content of research papers,
  • Disregard all discriminating factors during the selection of articles, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, etc. of the author(s)

Confidentiality

• Confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the peer review process will be ensured
  • Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured.
  • Before publication, the content of the manuscript would be kept confidential

Editing and Formatting Guidelines

• Clear guidelines about preparing and formatting a paper are available on the JIRS webpage.

The Review Process

• Articles are initially scrutinized and then go through the double-blind peer review process.
  • Sufficient guidelines along with a Reviewer’s Proforma are provided to reviewers (see: Reviewer’s Proforma download section)
  • Sharing the reviewer’s comments with the author and incorporating suggested corrections.
  • Referring troublesome cases to Advisory Committee.

 Dealing with Misconduct

• Will encourage reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible misconduct.
  • Confirmation of plagiarism through Turnitin and/or searching for similar titles etc.
  • Will publish a corrigendum and remove and retract a plagiarized article.

 Transparency

• Only one paper as a PI (Principle Investigator) should be published in the same issue.
  • Editorial Board Members will only be limited to ONE paper per issue.
  • Authorship & co-authorship policy will be strictly adopted.

 Conflict of Interest

• The editors and reviewers will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest.

 Disclosure

• will not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s)

Publication Decisions

• Only shortlisted research papers relevant to the scope of the journal will be published after completion of the review process
  • Acceptation or rejection of a paper will be based on academic standards.
  • The Editor will justify the reason (s) for rejecting a research paper and will timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s)

 Procedure for Appeal

The Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
• The rejection of a research paper.
• Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
• Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner.