Publication Ethics & Malpractice
The ethics statements of the Acta Scientiae et Intellectus (ASI) Intel are based on the Code of Conduct guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at www.publicationethics.org. ASI follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, and Core Practices, and aims to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines. As a strong ASI scientific community (i.e., the publisher, editors, authors, and reviewers) we all are obliged to comply with these ethical practices.
PUBLISHER’S RESPONSIBILITIES
Acta Scientiae et Intellectus (ASI) is an independent, non-profit, and self-publishing academic journal, and the "Acta Scientiae et Intellectus" is defined as a “Publisher” (as hereinafter defined).
Publisher has to prepare policies and design the journal’s website according to COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
The publisher agrees to make all accepted manuscripts open access under the CC BY license by charging a publication fee at the time of submission, processing and/or publication.
Publisher agrees to work with editors, editorial board members, and editors' assistants to determine the journal policies in line with COPE periodically and follows these policies.
Publisher guarantees editorial independence, respect the peer review process and disclaims being involved in editorial decisions.
Publisher guarantees to publish the volume and issues on a timely basis.
Publisher declares to remain neutral concerning jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliation.
Publisher conducts rules and policies for research ethics, consent, including confidentiality, and the legal requirements for human and animal research.
Publisher conducts the relationship rules between publisher, editors and third-parties in any contract, protects intellectual property and copyright, respects privacy and supports editorial independence.
Publisher guarantees not to allow any sponsors to be involved in decisions about the journal's publishing policies even if they support the publisher financially.
Publisher guarantees to comply with the journal's publishing policies, particularly in the context of transparency and integrity (e.g., research funding, conflicts of interest, and reporting standards).
The publisher guarantees to comply with the journal's publishing policies, particularly in the context of appeals and complaints.
The publisher guarantees to maintain the integrity of the scientific work.
The publisher guarantees to assist-third parties (grant funders, institutions, etc.) responsible for the investigation of suspected research and publication misconduct and to facilitate the resolution of these cases whenever possible.
Publisher guarantees to publish clarifications, corrections, and retractions based on editorial board decisions.
EDITORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
ASI editors are independent, decisions about the editorial review process are not determined by any third-party agencies or governments' policies.
ASI editors are responsible for the peer-review process of the manuscripts and make the last decision on which manuscripts will be published based on the reviewers’ and editorial board members’ comments.
ASI editors carry out the editorial review of the submitted manuscript entirely based on its scientific merit regardless of the author's gender, age, sexual orientation, race, citizenship, ethnic background, religion, political view, and institutional affiliation.
ASI editors are responsible for implementing and carrying out the publication policies of the journal.
ASI editors govern the process by forming the committee from the editorial board members in cases such as copyright violation, plagiarism, and libel.
ASI editors, editorial board members, and editors' assistants may not expose any information publicly about the submitted manuscript to anyone except the corresponding author and the publisher.
ASI Head Editor has full authority to publish the journal's content timely regarding accepted manuscripts.
ASI editors are responsible for assigning the manuscripts to reviewers who have expertise in the related research fields.
ASI editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts should undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers whose research is related to the submitted manuscripts. If the decision is inconclusive, ASI editors assign a third reviewer to reach out for a conclusive decision.
ASI editors, editorial board members and editors' assistants cannot use unpublished materials and information in submitted manuscripts for their own research purpose without the authors' written consent.
ASI editors cannot use the privileged information or ideas obtained from handling manuscripts for their personal advantage and are responsible for keeping them confidential.
ASI editors refrain from carrying out the editorial processes of the manuscripts that have conflicts of interest arising from competition, collaboration or other relationships with any of the authors, companies or institutions affiliated with them; instead of this, they have to ask another editorial board member to carry out to the editorial process of the manuscripts.
ASI editors require all contributors of the published manuscripts to disclose related competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other suitable actions will be taken, such as the retraction or declaration of concern.
ASI editors protect the integrity of the published manuscripts by corrections and retractions when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper.
ASI editors are responsible for tracking reviewers' and editorial misconduct. When ethical complaints have been presented concerning the submitted or published manuscripts, ASI editors should take measures in line with the journal's policies.
ASI editors will investigate every reported act of unethical publishing, even if it is exposed years after publishing. If the unethical violation is well-founded, retraction or correction rules will be applied and published in the journal.
ASI editors follow the COPE Flowcharts when dealing with cases of suspected misconduct.
ASI editors, editorial board members, and editors' assistants are welcome to submit their original manuscripts to the ASI, but they have to know that they cannot be involved in the peer-review and editorial decision-making process for their own manuscripts. In this case, the publisher chooses a guest editor for the ASI editors, editorial board members, and editors’ assistants' manuscripts to handle independently the peer-review and editorial decision-making process. The publisher clearly states the case to the readers (e.g., via a footnote, endnote on the article or on the journal website) on how to carry out the ASI staff's manuscripts. When ASI encounters disagreements, ASI follows COPE Guidelines.
REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Peer-review is the process used to evaluate the quality of the manuscripts before they are published. Therefore, independent researchers whose field of research are related to the submitted manuscript must evaluate the manuscripts for validity, originality, and significance to assist editors to conclude whether the manuscript should be published in ASI.
ASI reviewers must acknowledge that all manuscripts are reviewed with impartiality based on the scientific content of the manuscripts regardless of the author's gender, age, sexual orientation, race, citizenship, ethnic background, religion, political view, and institutional affiliation.
ASI reviewers are expected to inform the editor in charge if any conflict of interest arises to decline the request of review for the assigned manuscript.
ASI reviewers must acknowledge being constructive and objective in their reviews, avoiding being unfriendly or inflammatory and making libellous or degrading personal comments.
ASI reviewers must acknowledge reviewing the manuscripts falling within their expertise of research on time.
ASI reviewers cannot use the privileged information or ideas obtained from reviewed manuscripts for their personal advantage/disadvantage or to discredit others.
ASI reviewers must acknowledge that all information concerning the manuscripts is held confidential.
ASI reviewers must confirm that the detailed reviewing report must be shared with the ASI editors confidentially through the journal management system.
ASI reviewers can state the following four decisions for the submitted manuscripts:
- Accept for Publication
- Revisions Required (Accept with minor revisions: Revisions are checked by the editors)
- Resubmit for Review (Major revisions: It will be reviewed for the second round)
- Reject (It is not recommended for publishing)
- Submit Elsewhere (It is not within the scope of the journal: Reject)
Based on the reviewers' decisions third or fourth reviewer can be assigned. In such a case, the same process of review will be performed.
AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
Everyone who meets the ASI criteria for authorship must be listed as an author. ASI expects that all authors will take public responsibility for the content of the manuscripts submitted to the ASI. The contributions of all authors must be described in the "Declarations" section of the manuscript. All authors should be contacted by email during the submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, and its authorship.
Authors should confirm that the submitted manuscripts are not plagiarised, unpublished, original, and not submitted elsewhere at the same time.
Authors must confirm that they take full accountability against issues of plagiarism, copyright infringement or other violations. Therefore, if there are third-party copyright materials, copyrighted tables, illustrations, figures, or quotations published elsewhere or other works in their manuscripts, they must hold permission or acknowledgement and declare it clearly to the editorial board with a cover letter during the submission.
Authors must have obtained consent, and ethical approval and followed ethical legislation if their research includes human and animal subjects and they have to declare how they perform the ethical principles as an endnote or in the method section.
Authors should declare clearly any potential conflict of interest clearly for each author.
Authors should submit their manuscripts which are completed/written honestly, clearly, and without falsification, fabrication, or improper data manipulation. Authors should present their research methods clearly so that researchers can confirm the results and not false or wittingly mistaken statements that create unethical behaviour.
Authors may be demanded to ensure the raw data regarding submission for editorial review, and should, in any event, be ready to keep such data for a reasonable amount of time after publication.
Authors should submit manuscripts only that have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and that comply with the journal's publishing policies and scope.
Authors should acknowledge that resources such as data/support/financial have been used in improving the manuscript. These resources can be defined as Grant Maker, Foundation, or institutions, that provided ideas and expertise that greatly supported the research.
Authors should acknowledge that if they find any mistakes or inaccuracies after publishing manuscripts, they must inform the ASI editors.
Authors should submit their manuscripts only to one journal at a time. Authors should be aware that submitting the same article to more than one journal at the same time creates unethical publishing behaviour and it is unacceptable.
Authors must confirm that the Publisher retains all the copyrights unconditionally and indefinitely to distribute the published manuscripts.
Authorship & Contributorship
All authors’ roles must be described in the "Declarations" section on manuscripts and should be contacted during submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission, its content, and its authorship.
The authors’ order should be based on the contributions of the manuscript. The authorship should not be ordered according to academic position or other indicators of power. All contributing authors should be credited in the order of their contribution to the authoring process.
All those who have contributed to the production of an intellectual output are entitled to be listed as authors. "Ghost" authoring should not be allowed and it is not acceptable to list as authors people who have not directly contributed to the research or its written outputs as authors.
All authors' status and institutional location should be made visible in research and its outputs.
Authors have a fundamental obligation to acknowledge and attribute to all external sources, financial or in-kind, such as organizations or sponsors that contribute directly or indirectly to the research.
Authors should explain the publication history of the articles or books they submit for publication. If an existing article or book is substantially similar in content and format to a previously published article, this should be noted and the place of previous publication indicated.
When ASI encounters disagreements among authors, ASI follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—see here and here.
