Duties of Authors

1. Reporting Standards: 
   Authors of reports of original research 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.
2. Data Access and Retention: 
   Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
3. Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
4. Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: 
   An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
5. Acknowledgement of Sources: 
   Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
6. Authorship of the Paper: 
   Authorship 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 or listed as contributors. 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.
7. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: 
   All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or another substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
8. Fundamental errors in published works: 
   When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
9. Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: 
   If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Duties of Editors

1. Fair Play: 
   An editor at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
2. Confidentiality: 
   The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
3. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: 
   Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
4. Publication Decisions: 
   The editor board journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
5. Review of Manuscripts: 
   The editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. The editor should organise and use peer review fairly and wisely. Editors should explain their peer review processes in the information for authors and also indicate which parts of the journal are peer reviewed. The editor should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.

Duties of Reviewers

1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions:
   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.
2. Promptness: 
   Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process
3. Standards of Objectivity: 
   Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
4. Confidentiality: 
   Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor.
5. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: 
   Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
6. Acknowledgement of Sources: 
   Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behaviour

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.

Section A: Publication and authorship 

1. All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper.
2. Review process are blind peer review.
3. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language.
4. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
5. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
6. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
7. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
8. No research can be included in more than one publication. 

Section B: Authors’ responsibilities

1. Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
3. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. 
4. Authors must participate in the peer review process. 
5. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
6. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
7. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
8. Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
9. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
10. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors. 

Section C: Reviewers’ responsibilities

1. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information. 
2. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments
4. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
5. Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
6. Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. 

Section D: Editors’ responsibilities

1. Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
2. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
4. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
5. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
6. Editors should have a clear picture of a research’s funding sources.
7. Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers’ importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication’s scope.
8. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason. 
9. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers. 
10. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
11. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
12. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
13. Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.

Sources:

• ELSEVIER: Elsevier publishing ethics resource kit
• COPE: Responsible research publication: international standards for authors
• COPE: Cope’s new code of conduct
• COPE: Responsible research publication: International standards for editors
• COPE: Cope short guide to ethical editing for new editors
• COPE: Cope ethical guidelines for peer reviewers
• COPE: The editorial board follows the guidelines for retracting articles issued by COPE
• COPE: Code of conduct for journal publishers
• COPE: Cope retraction guidelines