Author
- Should give an accurate and objective interpretation of the study conducted and the data obtained. The paper should also provide enough information to enable the others to reproduce the study. Review papers must be factual, objective, and thorough. False or wilfully incorrect remarks are unethical and must be avoided at all costs.
- Must ensure that the contents of submitted manuscript are entirely original works and has not been published elsewhere. References must be cited whenever data, works, words, and/or contents from other literatures are used.
- Must ensure that contents of submitted manuscript sound scientific and relevant to professional audience, consistent with scopes and high academic quality, tables and figures are clear, language and grammar of articles are good, and the abstracts are clear, easily readable.
- Must not submit manuscript describing essentially the same research elsewhere for consideration.
- Must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is unethical and inappropriate publishing behaviour.
- Must avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism can take many forms, ranging from direct copying, to paraphrasing contents of another’s paper, to claiming outcomes from other people's research. Plagiarism, in any form, is unethical publication behaviour and must be avoided.
- Must ensure all co-authors (i) have made significant contribution to the contents of submitted manuscript, (ii) wrote or critically reviewed the manuscript for essential intellectual content, (iii) have agreed with the contents of the submitted manuscript.
- Must not add or remove any co-author(s) after the successful submission of original manuscript.
- May switch corresponding authorship to any other co-author listed in the original manuscript.
- Must ensure any funding that contributed to the publication has been acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section.
- Must disclose declare any potential conflicts of interest that might affect the interpretation of the data or findings in the publication. Generally, this is performed by putting a statement before “Acknowledgement” in the paper.
- Must explicitly identify any substances, processes, or equipment that have any special dangers inherent in their usage in the text. If human or animals are involved in the experiments, the authors must ensure that all procedures were carried out in accordance with applicable laws, and that they were authorised by the governing bodies. A remark to this must be included in the paper, stating that permission was acquired for human experiments.
- Authors must cooperate completely with editors in the peer review process by providing raw data, clarifications, and verification of ethical approval, consents, and permissions to used copyright materials as soon as possible. When a first judgement of "revisions needed" is made, authors should reply to the reviewers' remarks in a methodical, and timely way, amending and resubmitting their article to the journal within the provided date.
- It is the authors' responsibility to contact the editors as soon as they uncover substantial mistakes in their own published work, and to work with them to either rectify the manuscript in the form of an erratum or withdraw the publication. If a third party informs the editors or publisher that a published article contains a serious error or mistake, the authors must quickly fix or withdraw the publication, or give evidence to the editors that the publication is correct.
Editors / Editorial Board Members
- Assess submitted manuscripts exclusively based on their novelty, academic contributions, validity, and relevance to the journal's scope, without consider to the authors' race, gender, ethnics, citizenship, beliefs, or institutional affiliation.
- Must not disclose any contents of the submitted manuscripts to those do not involve in reviewing or editorial tasks.
- Must not use unpublished contents reported in a submitted manuscripts for personal research with no clear written authorisation from the author. Editors / Editorial Board Members will keep any ideas they gain as a result of handling the manuscript strictly confidential and will not exploit them for personal interest.
- Shall refrain from examining manuscripts in which they have conflict of interests with authors / institutions / funding bodies associated with the articles; as an alternative, they will delegate the article to another member of the editorial board.
- Ensure that all manuscripts under consideration must go through peer-review process and endorsed by at least two experts in the subject for publication.
- Determine which of the submitted manuscripts will be published, based upon academic values, validity of the work, reviewers' comments, plagiarism, copyright violation, and laws violation. Editors may consult the Editorial Board Members or reviewers in the making decision.
- When ethical issues about a submitted manuscript or published article are highlighted, editors will take appropriate action. Even if it is found years after publication, every unethical publishing action will be investigated. If the ethical issue is confirmed to be valid after investigation, the journal will publish a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other applicable remark.
Reviewer
- Provide thorough evaluation about the manuscript, support editors in making judgments, and aid authors in enhancing their submissions through editorial contacts with them.
- Inform editors and refuse the invitation to review as soon as possible if he/she deems unqualified to examine the manuscript provided or unable to provide timely evaluation.
- Must treat manuscripts received for review as classified documents. They must now disclose or discuss with anyone else except with the permission of editors. This also applies to reviewers who have declined to review.
- Evaluation must be performed objectively, and with supporting reasons clearly stated so that writers may utilise them to improve their article. It is unacceptable to make personal criticisms about the writers.
- Report to editors any considerable resemblance between the manuscript under review and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) which the reviewer has personal information.
- Must not use unpublished contents reported in a submitted manuscripts for personal research. Reviewer will keep any ideas they gain as a result of reviewing the manuscript strictly confidential and will not exploit them for personal interest.
- Shall refrain from examining manuscripts in which they have conflict of interests with authors / institutions / funding bodies associated with the articles.
