Publication Ethics

Publication ethics 

Authorship 

Every author listed on a journal article should have made a significant contribution to the work reported. This could be in terms of research conception or design, or acquisition of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data. As an author or co-author, you share responsibility and accountability for the content of your article.

What to avoid

  • Gift (guest) authorship: where someone is added to the list of authors who has not been involved in writing the paper.
  • Ghost authorship: where someone has been involved in writing the paper but is not included in the list of authors.

 Changes to authorship

  • List and order of authors should be considered carefully before submission.
  • The definitive list should be provided at the time of the original submission.

Plagiarism

All manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism before review by ITHENTICATE with a permissible percentage less than 15% for the whole manuscript. 

  • It is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as one's own original work.  
  • Self plagiarism (recycling fraud) is the re-use of significant, identical or near-identical parts of one's own work without citing the original work.
  • The worst form is to steal the whole article from some journal and publish it under one's own name in another journal.
  • The editorial committee of EJFSAT will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism and the name of the author(s) will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals 

Data fabrication / falsification 

  • It is essential that all data is accurate, and representative of your research. Data sharing is more and more prevalent, increasing the transparency of raw data.
  • Cases of data fabrication/falsification will be evaluated by the editor of the journal. We may then ask authors to provide supporting raw data where required. We may also ask Journal Editorial Board members to assist in further evaluation of the paper and allegations. If the explanation is not satisfactory we will reject the submission. We may also choose not accept future submissions 

Conflicts of interest and funding 

  • Authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.


 Additional information 

  • Multiple submissions are not accepted, and such papers, together with future submissions from the authors, will be rejected directly.
  • Submission also implies that all authors have approved the paper for release and are in agreement with its content.

Article withdrawal policy

  • Submission of an article implies that the work has NOT been published or submitted elsewhere. 
  • Once submitted, the editorial board is granted full publishing rights and has the absolute right to decide on article withdrawals.
  • For genuine withdrawal, the corresponding author should submit a request which must be signed by all co-authors explaining the reason of withdrawing the manuscript. It will then be processed by the editorial board and only serious genuine reasons will be considered possible.
  • Decision of the editorial board will be final and not negotiable.
  • The journal is strongly against unethical withdrawal of an article from the publication process after submission. Unethical withdrawal or no response from authors to editorial board communication will be subjected to sanction a ban of 4 years to all authors and their institute will be notified

Privacy statement 

  • Names and email addresses entered in the journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose and will not be shared to any other party. 

Open access

  • Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the public 

Regulation for Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement 

Section A: Publication and authorship 

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

   Section B: Authors' responsibilities 

  1. Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
  2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or even submitted and been in reviewed in another journal.
  3. Authors must participate in the peer review process and follow the comments.
  4. Authors have to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
  5. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. Level of their contribution also must be defined in the “Authors’ Contributions” section of the article.
  6. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
  7. Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
  8. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
  9. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
  10. Authors must state that informed consent was obtained from all human adult participants and from the parents or legal guardians of minors and cognitively impaired. Include the name of the appropriate institutional review board (IRB) that approved the project.
  11. Authors are recommended to conform to the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines for reporting animal studies, just in case.

   Section C: Peer review/responsibility for the reviewers 

  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. No self-knowledge of the author(s) must affect their comments and decision.
  3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in 500 to 1000 words.
  4. Reviewers may 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 companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

    Section D: Editorial responsibilities  

  1. Editors (Managing Editors or Editor-in-Chief) 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 international 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.
  15. Editors must not change their decision after submitting a decision (especially after reject or accept) unless they have a serious reason.  

 Section E: Publishing Ethics Issues

  1. All editorial members, reviewers and authors must confirm and obey rules defined by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE.)

  2. Corresponding author is the main owner of the article so she/he can withdraw the article when it is incomplete (before entering the review process or when a revision is asked for).

  3. Authors cannot make major changes in the article after acceptance without a serious reason.

  4. All editorial members and authors must will to publish any kind of corrections honestly and completely