Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Rasayely International Journals are committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity within all the processes and workflows to guarantee publications of premium quality.

Our journals follow the core practices and guidelines of the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the review process, publication policies, author guidelines, handling errors, and dealing with cases of potential misconduct.

Authorship

We follow ICMJE authorship guidelines illustrated below:

Who Is an Author?

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.

Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

To maintain the integrity and transparency of the scientific record, we adhere to the following ethical requirements regarding Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (e.g., LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini):

AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined by ICMJE. They cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.
Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of their work. This includes ensuring that any content produced or edited by AI is free from plagiarism, technical errors, and fake citations.
Authors must transparently disclose the use of AI in the writing or preparation process.
- Authors must state the name of the tool, the version, the manufacturer, and the specific reason for use (e.g., improving readability or translating text).
- Authors must confirm that they have reviewed and edited the AI-generated content and take full responsibility for the final version.
If no AI tools were used, authors must explicitly state that the entire content was authored solely by the individuals listed.

Plagiarism

As Rasayely is a Crossref member, we depend on the plagiarism-detection software (iThenticate) to screen submitted manuscripts. This is to ensure that there is no text overlapping or plagiarism in the submitted manuscripts. If plagiarism is detected, the submission is immediately rejected, and COPE guidelines regarding plagiarism and text recycling will be followed.

Referencing and Citations

Authors should properly give credit and acknowledge others’ publications that have influenced and contributed to their study, as getting an idea from a publication or copying a sentence without proper credit is unfair use and against publication ethics. All submitted manuscripts to Rasayely International Journals must include the authors’ ideas, materials, figures, and proper citation to the sources- even if the authors have summarized, paraphrased, or used quotes of these sources. Other than this, this will be considered plagiarism.

At the same time, authors must not include citations that aim to increase the citations of other authors’ work or other journal publications. Authors should ensure that the references are recent, easy to find, and related to their study.

The journal strictly prohibits citation manipulation. Editors and reviewers must not request authors to include citations to their own work or to the journal solely to increase citation counts.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reuse any material that has been previously published or is owned by a third party. This includes, but is not limited to:

Figures, tables, and illustrations.
Maps, photographs, or proprietary diagrams.
Excerpts of text that exceed "Fair Use" or "Fair Dealing" limits.
Data sets or software code with restrictive licenses.

Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which an external factor influences the objectivity of the study or its review process. This can occur at any stage of the process and with any of the involved parties: authors, editors, and reviewers. Conflicts of interest can be financial ties, personal relations, religious beliefs, political issues, and more. Rasayely International Journals abide by the COI best practices recommended by COPE, WAME, and IJMCE:

The corresponding author is responsible for including a COI statement in the manuscript disclosing any potential conflict of interest. Besides, a statement clarifying the funding sources and whether these funds have influenced the objectivity of the study.

Reviewers and Editors should not accept participation in a review process when there is any potential conflict of interest.
Rasayely International Journals do not consider/accept a review report or an editorial decision if the reviewer or the Editor shares the same affiliation with any of the authors.
Rasayely International Journals do not consider/accept a review report or an editorial decision if the reviewer or the Editor has a recent publication in collaboration with the manuscript authors.
If an article has been published and the COI is discovered later, the journal has the right to investigate this COI, and this may lead to re-evaluating the paper, which may consequently lead to publishing a correction or retracting the published article.

Data Sharing and Reproducibility

Rasayely International Journals support the transparency and reproducibility of scientific research. We encourage authors to make the raw data, software code, and other research materials supporting their publications available to the scientific community.

Data Availability Statement: All submitted manuscripts must include a "Data Availability Statement" before the Reference list. This statement should clarify whether the data is available in a public repository, available upon reasonable request from the authors, or if data sharing is restricted due to ethical or legal reasons (e.g., participant privacy).
Public Repositories: We strongly recommend depositing data in recognized, discipline-specific, or generalist repositories (such as Figshare, Dryad, or Zenodo) to ensure long-term preservation and assign a DOI to the dataset.
Verification: In cases where research integrity concerns are raised, the journal reserves the right to request the raw data from the authors for confidential review by the Editorial Board. Failure to provide data without a valid justification may lead to the rejection of the manuscript or the retraction of a published article.

Data Fabrication/ Falsification

Data fabrication is the situation when a researcher just makes up some data and does not actually do the study. Data falsification is the situation in which the researcher alters the research data to reach a certain conclusion. Both are dishonest behaviors and are considered a stigma in the researchers’ careers. Scientists should be honest, objective, and unbiased. They must be aware that the main goal is not publishing a paper or proving that their claims are correct. Rasayely International Journals take strict actions regarding these behaviors. If a fabrication/falsification case is found out during the review process, the paper is immediately rejected, and if this is discovered after publication, the paper will be retracted. In both cases, sanctions will be applied, and further investigations will be managed by our research integrity team.

Duplicate Publication

A situation where the authors try to publish the same content in several publications. All submitted manuscripts must be novel, original, and not published in any other journals. It is unacceptable to:

split a single study into several publications (salami slicing),
translate a study into a different language and publish it as a new one,
or submit a paper that has been previously published in a conference without new materials and extensions.

Multiple/Duplicate Submissions

Authors must not submit a manuscript to a journal if it is currently under consideration elsewhere. It is against publication ethics as it wastes the time of the involved parties in the review process. The corresponding author is committed to ensuring that the paper is not being considered in another journal prior to submitting it to any of our journals.

Humans and Animal Subjects

Researchers must not conduct studies on animals or humans without certain regulations. Studies involving human or animal subjects must be conducted in compliance with the ethical committee of the author’s institution and following the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, with a section in the manuscript to confirm that all the experiments followed these guidelines.

Authors must provide the name of the ethical approval committee and the relevant permit/approval number in the manuscript.

Studies on human subjects require informed consent when any personal data will be shared. The consent must be obtained from all participants before submitting the manuscript. Rasayely International Journals do not allow publishing an article sharing any personal data of a participant without written informed consent.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Rasayely International Journals are committed to protecting intellectual property and promoting open-access research.

Copyright Ownership: Authors retain the full copyright of their work published in our journals without asking authors to transfer their copyright to the publisher.
Licensing: All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0). This license allows any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, and to crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, including commercial use, provided the original author is properly credited.
Self-Archiving and Repository Policy: We encourage authors to share their research widely. Authors are permitted to deposit all versions of their paper (Submitted version, Accepted version, and Published version) in institutional or other repositories of their choice without any embargo period, provided that the publication is properly cited.
Integrity of the Record: While authors retain copyright, the journal is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. Any reuse of the published work must appropriately acknowledge the respective journal as the original place of publication.

Handling Errors and Amendments

Errors occur from time to time, and amending these errors is a commitment to maintaining the correctness of the scientific record. We do not alter, modify, or delete the scientific record. The published articles should remain unchanged. When an error is found, it will be investigated by our Research Integrity team in collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief, the Editor who handled the review process, and other parties may be involved if required. Then, we will publish an erratum, corrigendum, or retraction:

Corrections (Errata/Corrigenda)

We will consider publishing a correction (Erratum/Corrigendum) when there is a typo, missing information, a missing reference, etc. The Erratum/Corrigendum is linked to the article of record that it corrects.

Retraction

We will consider retracting a publication when there is clear evidence that:

The findings are incorrect.
The findings have previously been published elsewhere.
The manuscript contains plagiarism.
Unethical behavior is conducted during the review or publication process.
The research was conducted without appropriate ethical approval (IRB/Ethics Committee) or violated the rights of human/animal subjects
There is evidence that the peer-review process was manipulated or compromised (e.g., "fake" reviewers or undisclosed conflicts of interest).
The article contains material that infringes on the intellectual property rights of others or poses a legal threat.

The retraction notice is linked to the article of record that it retracts; the article of record will be digitally watermarked 'RETRACTED.' The notice will state the reason for the retraction and identify who is retracting the article (the authors, the editor, or the publisher).

Expressions of Concern

In rare cases where an investigation into potential misconduct is ongoing but inconclusive, the Editor-in-Chief may issue an "Expression of Concern" to alert readers.

Post-Publication Discussions

We encourage intellectual debate and discussion regarding published articles. Readers who wish to challenge or comment on a published study may submit a "Letter to the Editor" through our submission system.

These submissions will be peer-reviewed for scientific merit and relevance.
If a Letter to the Editor is accepted for publication, the original authors of the study will be invited to provide a formal "Response" to be published alongside it.
All discussions must be evidence-based, professional, and free from personal attacks.

Complaints and Appeals Process

Rasayely International Journals is committed to a fair and transparent editorial process. We recognize that authors may occasionally wish to challenge an editorial decision or report a concern regarding the journal’s operations.

Appealing an Editorial Decision

Authors have the right to appeal a rejection if they believe the decision was based on a significant misunderstanding of the manuscript’s scientific content or a demonstrable bias in the peer-review process.

Submission of Appeal: Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Editorial Office (or the Editor-in-Chief) within 30 days of the decision. The appeal must provide a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal addressing the reviewers' and/or editors' comments.
Evaluation Process: The Editor-in-Chief (or an assigned independent editor who was not involved in the initial decision) will review the appeal. They may seek additional advice from the Editorial Board or request a new independent peer review.
Final Decision: Appeals are considered once. The resulting decision (to uphold the rejection, invite a revision, or proceed with publication) is final.

Complaints Against the Journal or Staff

Complaints regarding the journal's processes (e.g., long delays, staff conduct, or breach of confidentiality) should be directed to our Research Integrity Team at publication.ethics@rasayely-journals.com.

Handling Procedure: All complaints will be acknowledged within 5 working days.
Investigation: The Research Integrity Team will investigate the matter objectively, following COPE guidelines. If the complaint involves a member of the editorial leadership, they will be recused from the investigation to ensure impartiality.
Resolution: We aim to resolve all complaints within 4–6 weeks, providing a clear explanation of the outcome and any remedial actions taken.

Misconduct and Sanctions Policy

Rasayely International Journals take all allegations of research misconduct seriously. Our Research Integrity team, in collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief, investigates concerns following COPE guidelines. We ensure a fair process by allowing the accused parties an opportunity to respond to the allegations before a final decision is reached.

Investigative Procedure

Upon receiving a report of potential misconduct, the Research Integrity team will:

Initiate a preliminary assessment of the evidence.
Contact the corresponding author to request a formal explanation.
If necessary, escalate the investigation to the authors' home institutions or funding bodies.

Applied Sanctions

If a breach of publication ethics is confirmed, the journal will implement sanctions proportional to the severity of the misconduct. These include, but are not limited to:

Immediate rejection of the manuscript under consideration.
Rejection of all other manuscripts currently under consideration from the same author(s).
For published articles, the issuance of a formal Erratum/Corrigendum, an Expression of Concern, or a Retraction, depending on the extent to which the findings are undermined.
Prohibiting the author(s) from submitting new work to any Rasayely International Journals for a specified period (typically 1–5 years) or, in egregious cases, a permanent ban.
Prohibiting the author(s) from serving as an editor, guest editor, or peer reviewer for our journals.
A formal report of the findings may be sent to the authors’ institutional ethics committee, employer, or funding agency.
The journal reserves the right to publish a formal notice of misconduct detailing the ethical violation.

To report any potential misconduct concern, send an email to our Research Integrity Team at publication.ethics@rasayely-journals.com.