Publication Ethics and Policies

Publication Ethics and Policies

Overview

Scienceline Publication adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. The Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research published by Scienceline Publication endorse the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), COPE's guidance for Journals’ Best Practices for Ensuring Consent for Publishing Medical Case Reports, the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions, the Council of Science Editors’ White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications, and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Submitting a manuscript to a journal published by Scienceline Publication implies that all contributors listed as authors have read and agreed to the content of the submitted work and that the submission observes the policies of the journal.

All the scholarly journals published by Scienceline Publication including the Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research follow the "Editorial Policies" and the Editors follow "the international standards for editors" recommended by COPE. The publisher, editors, reviewers, and authors of Scienceline journals, have agreed upon the following statement of principle which states a core value of intellectual freedom and independent editorial decisions and standards of expected ethical behavior, informed by the COPE'^s Core Practices, ICMJE, the RELX policy on editorial standards, and Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT).

The Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research ensures some policies for authors about the publication and distribution of an article. The author should be aware of policies before the submission of an article. Read policies about Copyright, Article Sharing, Article Withdrawal, Article Retraction, Article Removal and Article Replacement.

Publishers' Ethical Responsibilities and Duties

(https://publicationethics.org/core-practices)

Scienceline Publication is committed to ensure that the final decision on a manuscript always rests with the Editor-in-Chief.
Scienceline Publication promises to ensure that the decision on manuscript submissions is only made based on professional judgment and will not be affected by any commercial interests.
Scienceline Publication is committed to maintain the integrity of academic and research records.
Scienceline Publication monitors the ethics by Editor-in-Chief, Editor/Co-Editors, Editorial Board Members, Reviewers, Authors, and Readers.
Scienceline Publication always checks the plagiarism and fraudulent data issues involved in the submitted manuscript.
Scienceline Publication is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions involving its publications as and when needed.

Editors' Ethical Responsibilities and Duties

(http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

The Editors of the journal should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
The Editors of the journal should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review or until they are published.
The Editor-in-Chief should make a decision on submitted manuscripts, whether to be published or not with other editors and reviewers
The Editors of the journal should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
The Editors of the journal should disclose and try to avoid any conflicts of interest.
The Editors of the journal should maintain academic integrity and strive to meet the needs of readers and authors.
The Editors of the journal should be willing to investigate plagiarism and fraudulent data issues and to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
The Editors of the journal should limit themselves only to the intellectual content.
The Editors of the journal must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.

What Do Editors/Co-editors Do?

Editors are generally appointed by the publisher or the Science Committee of Journals. Together with the publisher, editors are responsible for everything published in their journals; ensuring the publication of important work in relevant fields with a high enough quality, and those fit with the scope of the journal for peer review. Editors of Scienceline Journals strive to constantly improve the journal, the quality of the content published, meet the needs of readers and authors, champion freedom of expression; maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual standards; always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

Editorial/Advisory Boards

Editorial boards are appointed by the editor per the journal's field. Their role as experts may include reviewing papers, advising on journal aims and scope; attracting new paper submissions; submitting some of their own papers; putting forward special topics. There are also additional duties:

Article Publication Decision: Possible decisions based on the double-blind peer review are: accept as is, minor revision, major revision, or reject.
Honesty and Fair Play: Editors will not give any consideration to authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political context, movement, and rituals.
Confidentiality: They must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and the publisher.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Unpublished materials are not allowed in the submitted manuscript without the express written consent of the author.
Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations

Scienceline Staff

Editors are supported by the following staff

Publishers: The main contact for journal strategy, journal performance indicators, editorial rotations, finances, ethics, and support.

Journal Manager: Manages the production process from acceptance to publication.

Marketing Manager: Responsible for marketing planning, implementation and evaluation.

We are committed to ensuring that commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, Scienceline journals will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. The publisher also has the right to consult with the editor of the journals every year and, if necessary, make changes to improve the publications to the highest possible level. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters, errors and retractions--and are prepared to provide specialized legal review and counsel if necessary. To better understand how publishers and editors work together please visit here (topics are: Selecting a good editor, How publishers and editors work together, Changing editors ...).

Finding reviewers

Finding new reviewers is always a challenge for each journal editor. Scienceline has here some tools and tips to help:

Tools

In order to save authors' time, Scienceline offers a facile open-access submission form including a field for suggesting unbiased expert reviewers. All the expert reviewers suggested by the authors are saved in the system for future needs to identify reviewers. Editors may also determine the suitability of a reviewer using their publication and citation record, as well as details of co-authors.

Co-Editors prepare a digitally signed reviewer certificate for each reviewer after a peer-review process is successfully completed.

Tips

Select reviewers conducting research in a similar area; they will be best placed to spot any shortcomings of the paper. Their interest in the topic may also mean they review the paper quicker.

Ask editorial board members to review, if there was no suitable expert reviewer.

Ask recently published authors, young researchers, postdoctorates or professors; they may be more likely to review. As much as possible, no reviewers have not published in the last five years.

Those who have not published in the journal, may not review but could refer papers to another reviewer.

Only invite as many reviewers as each editor require.

Actively contributing reviewers of Scienceline Journals are granted the right to publish one article, free of fees, during the calendar year they serve on the board. This offer expires at the end of the year and cannot be accumulated or transferred to another person.

Online submission system

The majority of Scienceline journals use facile open-access submission forms (Scienceline submission form or Journal submission form) to free up more of a researcher's time and allow authors to submit their manuscripts in any format and comply with the style required by the target journal. This system can also reduce processing and publishing costs for the authors.

Benefits for Editors

Automatic manuscript submission ensures accuracy in communication and acknowledgement and also saves time.

A manuscript submission overview contains the corresponding author's name and affiliation, the article title and abstract, the filled and signed declaration, cover letter, and a suggested list of reviewers.

New submissions can be easily checked for plagiarism by iThenticate, PlagScan and Docol©c.

The adjustable communication templates save time while allowing for personal messages.

Editorial and Peer Review Processes generally follow these steps:

We follow and request from authors, reviewers, and editors the "ICJME Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals".

When an article is submitted to Scienceline journals, Editor makes the first check of submitted articles (structure, plagiarism, and scientific quality).

Articles may be rejected, sent back for structural revision, or sent to at least two reviewers for peer review.

After the peer review process, articles may be rejected, sent back for revision requested by reviewers, or accepted for publication.

Revised articles by authors may be accepted, resent to reviewers, resent to authors for additional corrections/revision, or rejected.

Authors could not see reviewers’ information. Editors may make authors’ information available to reviewers or not.

Accepted articles are forwarded to the publishing process.

Editor(s) may require additional materials or changes from authors during copy editing, composing, grammatical editing, and/or proof reading steps.

Reviewers' Ethical Responsibilities and Duties

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer review guidelines.pdf)

Reviewers contribute to editorial decisions by validating a newly submitted author’s research to confirm its suitability for publication
Reviewers should generally treat authors and their work as they would like to be treated themselves and observe good reviewing etiquette.
Reviewers should provide comments in time that will help editors to make a decision on whether the submitted manuscript is to be published or not.
Reviewers comments on each submitted manuscript should be technical, professional, and objective. They should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Reviewers who feel unqualified to review the submitted manuscript or they are unable to a prompt review should notify the editor.
Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, which they are invited to review. They must not share the review or any information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor.
If there was a need to discuss with colleagues or co-reviewing exercises, the reviewer should first notify the editor in order to ensure that confidentiality is observed or it is allowed.
Reviewer is not allowed to use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript unless written consent is obtained from the author.
Reviewer must keep ideas and novel information obtained through peer review confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Reviewer should notify the editor by the relevant comments, if there were any ethical issues in the paper, including any substantial overlap with other published papers.
Reviewers should be unbiased experts and do not criticize the author personally that is inappropriate.
Reviewers should not review the manuscripts in which they have found conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions.
In case of potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers, reviewers should consult the editor.
Any suggestion by a reviewer in the manuscript to cite his/her published work is allowed only per genuine scientific reasons and not to increase the reviewer’s citation index.
Check that there is no conflict of interest in referee duties. In case of discrepancy, it will be acted according to the COPE guidelines.
When the request for review is sent to the reviewer, the reviewer must act according to the description of the COPE guidelines.
When the journal editors suspect FABRICATED DATA, the publication acts according to the description of COPE guidelines.
If the journal editors suspects a referee during the reviewing process, it will act according to COPE guidelines.
If the journal editors recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process, the journal or publisher will act according to COPE guidelines.

Authors' Ethical Responsibilities and Duties

(http://publicationethics.org/files/International standards_authors_for website_11_Nov_2011.pdf)

Manuscripts must be submitted with the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal or any other publisher.
Manuscripts must be submitted only in English and should be written according to sound grammar and proper terminology.
The submitting corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript article's publication has been approved by all the other coauthors.
In order to sustain the peer review system, authors have an obligation to participate in peer-review process to evaluate manuscripts from others.
It is also the authors' responsibility to ensure that the manuscripts emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the necessary approval of the institution.
It is a condition for submission of a manuscript that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability.
Authors are requested to clearly identify who provided financial support for the conduct of research and/or preparation of the manuscript and briefly describe the role of the founder/ sponsor in any part of the work.
A copy right release form must be signed by the corresponding author in case of multiple authorship, prior to the acceptance of the manuscript, by all authors, for publication to be legally responsible for the Journal ethics and privacy policy.
Under open access license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited properly.
All authors have agreed to allow the corresponding author to serve as the correspondent with the editorial office, to review the edited manuscript and proof.
When an author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, authors should promptly notify the journal editor or publisher to retract or correct the manuscript. All authors must know that that the submitted manuscripts under review or published with Scienceline journals are subject to screening using Plagiarism Prevention Software. Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics.
All authors must know that the submitted manuscripts under review or published in Scienceline journals are subjected to screening using Plagiarism Prevention Software. Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics.
All authors must ensure that they have read the submission final checklist before being submitted. For more details kindly see the instructions for authors of each journal available here.
For more information about Authors' Ethical Responsibilities please visit Authorship and Authors' Responsibilities.

Principles of Transparency

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishing.pdf)

Peer review process: Scienceline journals are double-blind peer-reviewed electronic publications concerned with the fields of life and natural sciences, animal sciences, engineering, art, linguistics, management, social and economic sciences. The submission, review, editing, and publication process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on journal’s website.
Governing Body: Scienceline journals have a very strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors are provided on the journal’s website
Contact information: Each journal provides the contact information for its editorial office.
Author fees / Access: The journals database are fully open access and full texts of published articles are available for everyone who can get access to the journal website free of charge. Besides, article processing (tracking, editing, formatting, DOI, plagiarism checker tool, page design, online publication, hosting, etc.) has a considerable cost for each journal's team. Since Scienceline Journals do not charge for access, we rely on other means of funding publication. Hence, with attention to scientific, non-commercial, and free access aspects of journals, paying article processing and publication charge is required to cover the formatting and online hosting costs of each accepted article.
Copyright: Journals made clear the type of copyright under which authors work will be published. Upon acceptance of the manuscript, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement '.
Identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.
Website: A journal’s website contains that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.
Name of journal: The Scienceline journals' names are unique and can not be easily confused with other journals.
Conflicts of interest: Authors are requested to evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist while submitting their articles to the Scienceline Journals through the Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form (the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form).
Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which a journal publishes is clearly indicated (see Aims and Scope).
Archiving: All the published articles are also uploaded to Scienceline Publication Repository (eprints) for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content.

Violation of Publication Ethics

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Full set of flowcharts.pdf)

Plagiarism: is a serious violation of publication ethics. It is using someone else’s work, other original material, ideas, and even sentences without citing the original author. All manuscripts submitted or under review with Scienceline journals are subject to screening using plagiarism detection software or CrossCheck. CrossCheck, a service that helps editors to verify the originality of papers, is powered by the iThenticate software from iParadigms (www.ithenticate.com/search), known in the academic community as providers of Turnitin.
Data Fabrication and Falsification: means the researcher did not really carry out the study, but manipulated, omitted, and made up data by reporting the fabricated information from the research findings.
Simultaneous Submission: occurs when a manuscript or its substantial sections submitted to a journal is already under consideration by another journal.
Duplicate Publication: occurs when two or more papers, without full cross-referencing, share essentially the same ideas, material, data, discussion, and conclusions.
Redundant Publications: involve the inappropriate division of research results into several articles, in order to plump academic vitae.
Improper Author Contribution or Attribution: All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution including students and laboratory technicians to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. For more details kindly see Authorship and Authors' Responsibilities.
Citation Manipulation Misconduct : including excessive citations in the submitted manuscript, is a kind of manipulation that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and the aim of this scientific misconduct is to increase citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal which leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears.
If the reader of the article notices IMAGE MANIPULATION, the journal will act according to the description of COPE guidelines.

Handling Cases of Misconduct

(http://publicationethics.org/files/Sharing%20_of_Information_Among_EiCs_guidelines_web_version.pdf)

Once editors/co-editors confirm a violation against Scienceline publication ethics, they address ethical concerns following an issue-specific standard practice as summarized below.

Editor firstly informs the Editorial Office by supplying copies of the relevant material and a draft letter to the corresponding author asking for an explanation in a nonjudgmental manner.
In the case of an unacceptable explanation provided by the author and apparent misconduct, the matter is referred to the Publication Committee via Editorial Office for deliberation to decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions.
If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand per publication policies; if the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology to the journal to correct the record.
Notification will be sent to the corresponding author and any under review work in which involved authors coauthored will be rejected immediately by Scienceline journals.The authors are prohibited from serving on journal editorial board. Editors reserves the right to take more actions, in this regards.
The authors are prohibited from being a member of the journal editorial board. Editors reserve the right to take more action in this regard.
In extreme cases, notifications will be sent to the affiliations of the authors and the authors are prohibited from submitting their work to Scienceline journals for 5 years.
In serious cases of fraud that result in the retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and will be linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked “retracted” with the retraction date. For more details kindly see Policies.

Online Publishing ethics

The publishing ethics is an online resource to support journal editors in handling publishing ethics allegations. As an accepted general principle of scholarly communication, the editor of a journal is solely and independently responsible for all the published resources. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. This policy has been designed to address these concerns according to international standards and best practices that the publishing and information industries can adopt. See also the National Library of Medicine's policy on retractions and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) concerning corrections and retractions

Article withdrawal: Articles in Press (those that have been accepted for publication but have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) may be “Withdrawn” from our database, in case of multiple submissions, duplication, errors, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like that are determined to violate Scienceline journal publishing ethics guideline. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML, XML, and PDF) is removed and replaced with a statement simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Scienceline Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.

Article retraction: Articles will be retracted in case of multiple submissions, duplication, errors, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like that are determined to violate Scienceline journal publishing ethics guideline. A best practice is adopted for article retraction based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors:

A retraction note plus the mentioned titled signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
A link is made to the original article.
A screen containing the retraction note is opened in a parent window before loading the online article. The reader can close frame and proceed to the article itself..
An unchanged version of the original article (.pdf) contain a watermark of “RETRACTED.” on each page, is retained online.
The retracted article's HTML version is removed, if any.

Article removal (because of legal limitations): If the article is clearly defamatory, infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or the editor/publisher has good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article replacement: In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to replace a corrected version. In case of the authors agreement, a retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.

(Revised on 6 June 2024)

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Related links

Peer review Process

Appeals and Complaints

Policies

Open Access

Authorship and Authors' Responsibilities

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