Publication Ethics

Rasayely 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 acts of potential misconduct cases.

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.

Plagiarism

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 the 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 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. Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to cite their work to increase their number of citations.

Permissions

Permissions must be obtained before submission when the authors used any kind of copyrighted materials.

Conflicts of interest

Conflict of interest (COI) is a situation when 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. Conflict of interest can be financial ties, personal relations, religious beliefs, political issues, and more. Rasayely 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 if these funds have influenced the objectivity of their study.

  • Reviewers and Editors should not accept to participate in a review process when there is any potential conflict of interest.
  • Rasayely 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 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 of the published article.

Data Fabrication/ Falsification

Data fabrication is the situation when a researcher just makes up some data and did not actually do the study. Data falsification is the situation when 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 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 when 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 in 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 is wasting 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 be conducting studies on animals or humans without certain regulations. Studies involving humans 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.

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 journals do not allow publishing an article sharing any personal data of a participant without written informed consent.

Handling Errors

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, delete the scientific record, as we are dedicated to the guidelines of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) that 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 more parties may be involved if required. Then, we will publish an erratum, corrigendum, or retraction as per the guidelines below by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE):

Corrections (Errata/Corrigenda)

We will consider publishing a correction (Erratum/Corrigendum) when there is a typo, missing information, 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 conducted during the review or publication process.

The retraction notice is linked to the article of record that it retracts; the article of record will be digitally watermarked 'RETRACTED'

How do we Handle Misconduct Cases?

Ethical concerns are investigated by our Research Integrity team in collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and we may seek advice from more editors and reviewers who participated in the review process. If the concern is found valid, we make sure to implement the following sanctions, but not limited to:

  • The manuscript, that is still under consideration, will be immediately rejected
  • If other manuscripts by the authors are still under consideration, will be rejected
  • If published, we will consider publishing an erratum/corrigendum, or a retraction based on the severity of the concern.
  • Previously published articles by the authors in any of our journals will be investigated
  • We will have a record of such malpractice, and will not allow the authors to submit their future work to any of our journals.
  • Prohibiting any of the authors to join our journals as editors, guest editors, or reviewers.

To report any potential misconduct concern, email us at publication.ethics@rasayely-journals.com.