Publishing Ethic and Other policy

This page describes Apex Journal’s position on the major ethical principles of academic publishing and other publishing policy. We are devoted to promoting the best ethical publication practices across all its journals.

Openess

Source of funding

i. The source of funding for a research project or the publication of an article should always be clear.
ii. The source of the research funds should be listed on all research papers. Authors should acknowledge all significant funders of the research pertaining to their article and list all relevant competing interests.
iii. Funding for any type of publication, from whatever source, private, government or commercial, should be stated within the publication. This applies to all types of papers (including, for example, research papers, review papers, letters, editorials, commentaries).
iv. Other sources of support for publications should be clearly identified in the manuscript, usually in an acknowledgement. For example, these might include funding the article processing charge for an open access article, or funding for writing, language editing or editorial assistance.

Authorship

i. The list of Authors should accurately reflect who carried out the research and who wrote the article.
ii. The list of Authors should correspond to the following criteria; 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet all three of these conditions.
iii. All Authors must meet these criteria for authorship and conversely, no-one should be omitted from the list if he/she meets these criteria.
iv. We will try to resolve any disagreement of authorship arising after publication if asked to do so. We may consider publishing a correction should this be deemed appropriate.

Dual Publication

i. Apex Journals only consider article submissions which have not been published previously. It is important to ensure that research work is only published once. If it is published more than once, the scientific literature can be unjustifiably weighted by the appearance that one study has been replicated. It might also mean that the study is inadvertently entered twice into a meta-analysis, for example, or cause problems in systems which use the number of publications to assess an individual’s or an institute’s research output.
ii. There may be situations (e.g. review articles) where previously published work can be included in summary form, but it must be made clear to the Editor on submission that this is the case. Publication of an abstract at a meeting does not preclude later submission of the full article to a Apex Journal. Submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification can also be considered.
iii. The submitted work and its essential substance may not previously have been published and may not be under consideration for publication elsewhere..
iv. If a primary research report is published and later found to be a duplicate (i.e. has been published before), we will contact the Authors and consider publishing a notice of redundant publication.

Conflicts of interest

i. All Authors and Referees must declare any conflicts of interest relating to a given article.
iiConflicts of interest are defined as those that, through their potential influence on behaviour or content or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of publication.
ii.i We require the corresponding author to provide the declaration of any conflicts of interest on behalf of all the authors. All relevant conflicts of interest must be included in the article.

They may include:

a. Employment – recent, current and anticipated by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication
b. Sources of funding – research support by any organisation that may gain or lose financially through publication
c. Personal financial interests – stocks and shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organisations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication
d. Membership of relevant organisations.

iv. Referees are asked to declare their conflicts of interest when returning their report on a paper.
If a member of the editorial team feels a conflict of interest in making a decision on a paper, he/she should return the paper to the office and request that it is transferred to an alternative Editor.

Misconduct

Research misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.

a) Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them
b) Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record
c) Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit
d) Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion

If misconduct is suspected journal Editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines
In cases of suspected misconduct, we will proceed as follows:

i. Referees will be asked to comment on any evidence of scientific misconduct in papers they review.
ii. If we encounter an accusation of plagiarism or dual publication, a full investigation will be undertaken.
iii. Should a full investigation verify misconduct a response will be sought from the Authors. If this is satisfactory and a mistake or misunderstanding has taken place, the matter can be resolved. If not, the following steps will be taken;

i) The Editors of all the journals concerned will act together and impose a ban on that individual's publication in their journals for a period, say three years.
ii) The Editors will also contact the Author's head of department/employer and can choose to contact the Author's funding body and inform them of the misconduct revealed.
iii) In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made in both journals explaining the situation, including 'retractions' if work is proven to be fraudulent.

Editorial standards and processes

Peer-review systems

We do all we can to ensure the peer-review process is fair and we aim to minimize bias.
i. All papers submitted to Apex Journal International are peer-reviewed in a single-blind fashion (Author names are not concealed, but Referee names are).
ii. For submissions to the International Research of Medical, the guest Editor of the issue manages the review process and is encouraged to seek at least two Referees for each paper. Guest Editors produce a report on the review process that each paper has undergone.
iii. If discussions between an Author, Editor, and Referee have taken place in confidence they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all parties or there are exceptional circumstances.
iv. Editors or board members are never involved in editorial decisions about their own work and in these cases papers may be referred to other Editors or the Editor-in-chief.

Appeals

Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions.

i. The author should submit the grounds for their appeal to the Editorial Office, addressed to the Editor. AUTHORS ARE DISCOURAGED FROM DIRECTLY CONTACTING EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS AND EDITORS WITH APPEALS.
ii. Following an appeal, all editorial decisions are final.
iii. Editors will mediate all exchanges between Authors and Referees during the peer-review process (i.e. prior to publication). If agreement cannot be reached, Editors may consider inviting comments from additional Referee(s) if appropriate.

Editorial independence

Editorial independence is respected. The content of Apex Journal is entirely independent of the organization’s views on any scientific or policy issues. The Editor’s decision is final and will not be influenced or compromised in any way.

Standards of Accuracy

We have a duty to publish corrections when errors could affect the interpretation of data or information. Correction is normally used when a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading.

Journals will also publish ‘retractions‘ (notification of invalid results) if work is proven to be fraudulent or as a result of a significant but honest error, 'expressions of concern' (notification where the validity of the results are in doubt), ‘notices of redundant publication‘ and addenda

A correction is created including its own unique identification details

i. the original article's full citation details (i.e. authors, title, journal, volume, issue, and article identifier )
ii. the date of the issue that the article was published in
iii. the correction details (including any necessary figures and tables)

Retractions

Retractions will be published as a ‘notice of retraction‘ and will reference the now retracted article. The retraction will be published at the bottom of the next available issue

The retraction will be published in a prominent section of the journal.
i. The retraction will be listed in the contents page, and include in its heading the title of the article.
ii. The retraction must be signed by one of the following: the author, the author's legal counsel, the author's sponsoring institution, or the editor of the journal.
iii. The text of the retraction will explain why the article is being retracted.

Notices of redundant publication

Notices of redundant publication will be published online and reference the duplicate article. In addition, the notice will be published at the end of the printed volume.
i. They will enable the reader to identify and understand the correction in context with the errors made, or should explain why the article is being retracted, or should explain the Editor's concerns about the contents of the article.
ii. They will be linked electronically with the original electronic publication, wherever possible.
iii. They will be in a form that enables indexing and abstracting services to identify and link corrections and retractions.
 

Addenda

These are published works that provide additional information or clarification to another work. These should be peer reviewed.

Open criticism and debate

We encourage academic debate and constructive criticism of the research published in our journals.
We invite Authors to respond to any editorial correspondence before publication. However, Authors do not have a right to veto unfavorable comments about their work and they may choose not to respond to criticisms. Any appeals must be dealt with accordingly
No referee comment or published correspondence may contain a personal attack on any of the Authors. Criticism of the work (not the researcher) is encouraged and Editors should edit (or reject) personal or offensive statements.

Research ethics and animal treatment

i. Articles will be accepted only if they are considered ethically sound in the judgement of the Editor.

Intellectual Property

Plagiarism, copyright and intellectual property

Plagiarism is the process of copying another person's idea or written work and claiming it as original. It includes both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes.
The theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged communication, such as a grant or manuscript review.

All Authors are required to grant us an exclusive publishing license before their work can be published by send a short letter of permit.

Referee conduct and intellectual property

i. Authors are entitled to expect that Referees or other individuals privy to the work an Author submits to a journal will not steal their research ideas or plagiarize their work.
ii. We require all Referees to treat submitted material in confidence until it has been published.
iii. Any allegations of theft or plagiarism must be substantiated and will be treated seriously.
iv. We strive to protect Referees from Authors and, even if Referee identities are revealed, will discourage Authors from contacting Referees directly, especially if misconduct is suspected.


Content availability and open access

Apex Journal International is committed to the widest possible dissemination of research outputs. Consequently, our own publishing operation is one of the most open access of all science publishers. We offer the following types of open and free access to our journal articles;

Through our open access option or authors may have their article made freely available to all, immediately upon publication, by payment of an article processing charge. Such articles are covered by a Creative Commons license allowing redistribution and re-use.

Media embargo

The main findings of articles should not have been reported in the mass media. Like many journals, we employ a strict embargo policy where the reporting of a scientific article by the media is embargoed until a specific time. The Editor has final authority in all matters relating to publication.

Copyright

Apex Journal allows authors to retain copyright. Instead, authors need to provide us with a licence to publish. Open access articles are published under a creative commons licence (CC-BY).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/