Ethics

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement:
The journal of IJSC is always devoting itself to publishing original contributions in its field to propagate knowledge amongst its readers and to be a reference, of which, the articles submitted to this journal take a vital part in the spread of knowledge.
It is therefore essential to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher, and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

The ethical policy of IJSC is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with the International Committee of IJSC Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with IJSC. The ethical policy of IJSC is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this matter in publishing and ethical guidelines please visit http://publicationethics.org

Principles of Transparency and Publication Ethics

(https://publicationethics.org/files/Principles_of_Transparency_and_Best_Practice_in_Scholarly_Publishingv3_0.pdf

Peer review process: IJSC is a double-blind peer-reviewed electronic Semiannually publication. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on the journal’s Web site (https://scholarsjournal.net/index.php).

Governing Body: IJSC has 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 Web sites.

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 (https://scholarsjournal.net/index.php) contains that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.

Contact information: Journal provided the contact information for the editorial office of IJSC.

Conflicts of interest: Authors are requested to be evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist while submitting their articles to IJSC through Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure (https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests).

Declaration of Competing Interests: The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers that she/he has written him/herself or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Further, any such submission must be subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, peer review must be handled independently of the relevant author/editor and their research groups, and there must be a clear statement to this effect on any such paper that is published (https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests).

Acknowledgments: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance or a department chair who provided only general support.

Disclosure of Funding Sources:  IJSC authors must declare what support they received to carry out their research. Declaring funding sources acknowledges funders’ contributions, fulfills funding requirements, and promotes greater transparency in the research process.

* Note: IJSC will not consider for publication manuscripts in which any research costs or authors' salaries have been funded, in whole or in part, by a tobacco company.

Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

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

• The journal editors should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
• The journal editors should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review or until they are published.
• The Editor-in-Chief should decide 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 conflict of interest.
• Journal editors 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 ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.
• The Editors of the journal should limit themselves only to the intellectual content.
• The journal editors must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the editorial board members for their research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
• Guest editors play a vital role in acquiring content and leading the review process for special issue publications.
• Associate editors play a key role in peer-reviewed publishing, supporting the journal editor as subject experts on various topics. Associate editors oversee assigned manuscripts, moving these papers through review and revision. AEs are responsible for assessing manuscript quality, obtaining peer reviews, requesting revisions where appropriate, and making recommendations to the journal editor about the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript.

Duties and Responsibilities of Reviewers

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

• The Reviewers of the journal should assist the Editors in deciding to publish the submitted manuscripts.
• The Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts they are invited to review.
• The Reviewers should provide comments in time that will help editors to decide on whether the submitted manuscript is to be published or not.
• The Reviewers are bound to treat the manuscript received for peer reviewing as confidential and must not use the information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.
• The Reviewer's comments against each invited manuscript should be technical, professional, and objective.
• The Reviewers should not review the manuscripts in which they have found conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions.
• The Reviewers should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interest.

Authors of IJSC must confirm the following:

• Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s),
• The submitting corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all the other coauthors have approved the manuscript article's publication.
• Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted,
• 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,
• Acknowledge the sources of data used in the development of the manuscript,
• All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims,
• All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be swiftly communicated to the editor,
• All authors must know that the submitted manuscripts under review or published in IJSC are subject to screening using Plagiarism Prevention Software. Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics.

Ethical Guidelines

Ethical Oversight

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ethical oversight should include but is not limited to policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices. IJSC is committed to considering appeals concerning our authors' non-observance of ethical principles.

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed by the ethical standards as laid down in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013, and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Suppose doubt exists whether the research was conducted by the 1975 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards. In that case, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Ethical Approval’ of the article.

An example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before participating in the study. The study was conducted by the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

Use of Animals in Research

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed and that a research ethics committee has approved the studies at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

IJSC endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at: https://arriveguidelines.org/resources/author-checklists.

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be noted, and references must also be given to a published paper or a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Example of an ethical statement: "The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXX."

Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (cultivated or wild), including plant material collection, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the CBD (https://www.cbd.int/convention/) and the CITES (https://cites.org/eng).

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza Sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), collection date, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. This can be waived for rare, threatened, or endangered species, but the author must describe this in the cover letter.

Example of an ethical statement: "Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country)."

Clinical Trials Registration (with a particular emphasis on submissions to the Medical Technologies scope)

Registration: IJSC follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which require and recommend registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.

Purely observational studies do not require registration. A clinical trial not only refers to studies that take place in a hospital or involve pharmaceuticals but also to all studies involving participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment.

Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trial register and cite a reference to the registration in the abstract and Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register, and those listed by the World Health Organisation International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration. IJSC reserves the right to decline any paper without trial registration for further peer review. However, if the study protocol has been published before the enrolment, the registration can be waived with the correct citation of the published protocol.

CONSORT Statement: IJSC requires a completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomized trial. Templates for these can be found here or on the CONSORT website (http://www.consort-statement.org), which also describes several CONSORT checklist extensions for different designs and data types beyond two parallel group trials. At a minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist.

• Authors are expected to comply with standard reporting guidelines for study designs. Check the EQUATOR Network for reporting instructions and supporting documentation. Documentation for specific studies should be uploaded as supporting information during manuscript submission. Read the Author's Guidelines.

Errata and Corrigenda

Changes/additions to accepted articles

All content of published articles is subject to the editorial review process, organized by and under the auspices of the editor. Should the authors wish to add to their article after acceptance, they must submit a request to the editor, and the new content will be reviewed.

• If the new material is added to the accepted article, it must be submitted for peer review as a new manuscript, referring back to the original;
• If the new material should replace the original content of the accepted article, the editor may consider the publication of an erratum or a corrigendum.

Erratum

An erratum refers to a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher.

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage, and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication.

Corrigendum

A corrigendum refers to a change to the article that the author wishes to publish at any time after acceptance. Authors should contact the journal editor, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action.

Allegations of Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• Directly copying text from other sources without attribution
• Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources without attribution
• Reusing text from your previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor
• Exception: Reusing text from the Methods section in the author’s previous publications, with attribution to the source, is acceptable.
• Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language without attribution.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retract the paper, as appropriate.

All manuscripts under review or published in the IJSC are subject to screening using "Turnitin" software.

Data fabrication 

This concerns the making up of research findings

• Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript: (https://publicationethics.org/files/Fabricated%20data%20A.pdf)

• Suspected fabricated data in a published manuscript: (https://publicationethics.org/files/Fabricated%20data%20B.pdf).

Data falsification 

Manipulating research data to give a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding, or omitting data points, etc.

Duplicate submissions

Duplicate submission is a situation whereby an author submits the same or similar manuscripts to two different journals at the same time either within Academic Journals or any other publisher. This includes the submission of manuscripts derived from the same data in such a manner that there are no substantial differences in the manuscripts. Duplicate submission also includes the submission of the same/similar manuscript in different languages to different journals.

Authorship Issues

Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for managing potential disputes.

Here is some advice from COPE on how to spot potential authorship problems. IJSC strives to follow these guidelines.

Citation Manipulation

Citation Manipulation is including excessive citations, in the submitted manuscript, that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely to increase citations to a given author’s work, or articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.

Suspected Manipulation of Peer Review/Bias of Peer Reviews

IJSC selects the reviewers on any manuscript with due care to avoid any conflict of interest between the reviewers and the authors. IJSC peer review policy is adequately explained here. Our policy is compliant with COPE Guidelines on peer review.