On this page: Guidelines for Editors, Reviewers, Authors, Publishing ethics issues, Misconduct and sanctions, Complaints and appeals
Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science (JAPS) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) [membership number: JM16054]. The journal adheres to the COPE Code of Conduct and the Best Practice Guidelines. This statement should be read in conjunction with the Journal Policies.
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE ACADEMIC EDITORS
The editors of the Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science are responsible to make the editorial decision on the submitted articles. The journal relies on the integrity and honesty of the editors to select high-quality manuscripts that conform to ethical standards and meets all the requirements. The editors of this journal must follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) “Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”.
The editorial decisions must be made only on intellectual merit without any prejudice or bias. The editors must maintain the confidentiality of the submitted manuscripts and ensure the integrity of double-blind peer-review. The editors are required to read the journal’s conflict of interest policies carefully and ensure compliance with the same.
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE REVIEWERS
The volunteer contribution of peer-reviewers is paramount to maintaining the scientific integrity and selection of high-quality articles. The peer-reviewers of the journal are required to follow the COPE guidelines to the peer-reviewers and peer-review guidelines of this journal.
The reviewers are also requested to read the journal’s conflict of interest policies carefully and ensure compliance with the same.
The reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality and objectivity of the double-blind peer review.
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE AUTHORS
Authors are required to fulfill the ICMJE’s definition of the authors and contributors [Link]. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
The authors should read and ensure compliance with the journal’s policies such as;
Authors of the original research article must present accurate data and provide sufficient information and references to ensure the reproducibility of the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are considered unethical behavior and unacceptable. Authors may be asked to provide the raw/supplementary data for a paper that is under editorial review. The authors should be prepared to provide the public access to these data (if practicable) and to retain such data for a reasonable time after the publication.
Redundant or duplicate submission/publication
Duplicate or redundant submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to different journals at the same time. International copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost-effective use of resources require that readers can be assured that what they are reading is original (Read ICMJE recommendations). An author should not publish manuscripts that describe the same concept or present similar data, in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Our online editorial system (ejmanager) provides an option to search the article title and keywords and provide all the related publications. Our handling editors carefully monitor all the related articles to avoid duplicate submission/publication. All such articles will be rejected immediately.
In case the editor was not aware of the violation and the article has been published, a notice of the duplicate submission and the ethical violation will be published.
Acknowledgment and funding sources
Authors should provide the proper acknowledgment for the work of others. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
The authors must declare all sources of funding received for the research submitted to the journal. Authors should give the name of granting agencies and grant numbers, along with a short description of each funder’s role. Only the funding related to the submitted work should be mentioned and authors are NOT required to provide the complete list of every single grant that supports them.
ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE PUBLISHER
The publisher is supposed to protect the intellectual property and copyright of the contents submitted by the authors. We respect privacy and personal data, especially for authors and peer reviewers. We work in close cooperation with the editors and peer reviewers to maintain editorial independence and to guarantee transparency and integrity in the peer-review process. This journal follows the ICMJE guidelines for journal owners and editorial freedom.
Monitoring: The EIC must ensure to establish the mechanism for monitoring and safeguarding publishing ethics. All the complaints received from the reviewers or the authors or anybody else should be taken into proper consideration and appropriate action should be taken promptly for such complaints.
Retraction & Corrections: The published articles will be retracted if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable. The retraction can be a result of scientific misconduct or honest error. To maintain the integrity of the scientific record, the retracted article will not be removed from the journal's website, however, a notice of retraction will be posted and is made freely available to all readers. Retraction can be published by the authors or the editor or the publisher. In rare cases involving legal infringement, the Publisher may remove an article. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the integrity of the scientific record. We follow the COPE guidelines in such a case. Sometimes it may be necessary to publish corrections/erratum in an article published in the Journal to maintain the integrity of the academic record. Appropriate notice regarding the correction will be placed and made freely available to the readers. We are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
Article withdrawal: We expect our authors to comply with best practices in publication ethics as well as in the quality of their articles. To avoid withdrawal of articles we sincerely request the corresponding author to undertake the issues related to authorship, publication ethics, and the accurateness of data and results at the time of submission of the manuscript.
The authors can withdraw their article(s) at any stage of the peer-review and publication process (before the publication of the article that will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) by login into their author homepage and selecting the ‘withdraw article’ option. The authors should be aware that the withdrawal action takes the manuscript out of the peer review & publication process and places it back into the author's dashboard, in the withdrawn Manuscripts list. The manuscript number of withdrawn articles cannot be used by the system and cannot be resubmitted. In case authors withdraw their articles after acceptance, the article processing charges, if paid, will not be refunded.
Submissions from editors, employees, or members of the editorial board
All the submissions received from editors, reviewers, or members of the editorial board can be identified by our online manuscript handling system ejmanager, this system highlights the authors who are in editorial or in the reviewer panel. All such authors will be identified and not be included in the manuscript handling process at any step from submission to the publication of the article.
Furthermore, all the reviewers and handling editors are required to disclose the conflict of interest for the articles they are handling/reviewing before they submit their feedback/comments to the electronic manuscript handling system.
Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards: We believe that the funding agencies and sponsors should not be able to influence the author's findings or decision-making. The editor should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
Suspected breaches of our publication ethics policies, either before or after publication, as well as concerns about research ethics, should be reported to the journal. Claimants will be kept anonymous if requested.
As soon as we get information about the misconduct, our editors will start a thorough investigation. The authors may be asked to provide the underlying data, images, and other supplementary materials. The journal will consult editors, and contact institutions or employers to ask for an investigation.
If an article is found to violate the ethical publishing guidelines of the journal such as duplicate submission, fraudulent data, plagiarism, citation manipulation, false claim of authorship, etc. the article will be rejected by the journal. In case the article is accepted and under the ‘Online first’ stage the journal will remove the article from the website and an appropriate note for article withdrawal will be posted. No response from the authors to journal communication after review and provisional acceptance is also considered as withdrawal of the article. If it is a published article the same will be retracted immediately following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
The journal follows COPE flow charts (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts) for handling the misconduct.
In addition to that we may take the following actions based on the severity of misconduct;
However, the minor or unintentional errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum and errors by the publisher by an erratum.
Authors & readers can submit their complaints/appeals to the editor or the publisher of the journal through email info@japsonline.com or through the complaint form provided on the contact us page [Link]. All the complaints will assign a unique complaint number by the publisher. Authors/readers can use complaint numbers for further follow-up.
If you do not receive a response to your complaint within 48 hrs or if you are not satisfied with the response please write to associate editor paraszee05@gmail.com or chief editor editor@japsonline.com. Please mention your unique complaint number in follow-up emails.
Page updated on 18-03-2022.