Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Publication Ethics

This Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement establishes the ethical standards for all parties involved in the publication process of the International Journal of Research and Community Empowerment (IJoRCE), including authors, editors, reviewers, editorial staff, the Editorial Board, and the publisher.

The publication ethics of IJoRCE refers to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and internationally recognized principles of scholarly publishing. IJoRCE is committed to maintaining integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, editorial independence, and academic quality in all stages of the publication process.

This policy applies to all content submitted to and published by the journal, including regular articles, special issue articles, invited manuscripts, conference-related manuscripts, corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, removals, replacements, and other editorial notices.

Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal’s publication ethics, author guidelines, submission requirements, required declarations, authorship requirements, or other editorial policies may be rejected before, during, or after peer review.

The journal upholds the following ethical values:

  1. Neutrality, which requires editorial and publication processes to be free from improper conflicts of interest;
  2. Justice, which requires proper recognition of authorship, contribution, academic rights, and fair editorial treatment; and
  3. Honesty, which requires freedom from plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplication, citation manipulation, data manipulation, peer-review manipulation, and other forms of research or publication misconduct.

After reading this Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, authors must download the Statement of Manuscript Authenticity from the Author Pack. The signed statement must be submitted as a supplementary file during the initial submission process. By submitting the manuscript, the authors acknowledge and agree that the signed statement and the manuscript similarity-checking report may be published together with the article as part of the journal’s transparency and publication ethics documentation.

The manuscript similarity-checking report is used as a screening and transparency tool. The interpretation of similarity results remains subject to editorial assessment, including the nature, source, context, and extent of similarity.

Duties of Editors

Publication Decisions

The editor is responsible for deciding which manuscripts submitted to IJoRCE should be published. Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript’s academic merit, originality, relevance to the journal’s scope, methodological soundness, clarity, contribution to the field, reviewer recommendations, and compliance with the journal’s editorial and publication ethics policies.

The editor may be guided by the policies of the Editorial Board and constrained by applicable legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, plagiarism, research misconduct, privacy, confidentiality, and other relevant matters. The editor may consult other editors, reviewers, or members of the Editorial Board when making editorial decisions.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by the author’s nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, political view, citizenship, institutional affiliation, personal relationship, commercial interest, payment status, fee waiver request, or other irrelevant considerations.

The publisher, journal owner, sponsor, institution, or any third party must not interfere with editorial decisions. Decisions to accept, reject, correct, retract, remove, or replace an article must be based on academic quality, ethical considerations, peer-review results, editorial assessment, and the integrity of the scholarly record.

Article processing charges, administrative charges, production charges, proofreading charges, fast-track review fees, waiver requests, withdrawal charges, correction charges, retraction charges, or any other payment-related matters must not influence editorial decisions.

Fair Play

Editors shall evaluate manuscripts based on their intellectual and academic content without discrimination. Manuscripts must be assessed fairly, objectively, and consistently according to the journal’s scope, standards, and policies.

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff must treat all submitted manuscripts and related materials as confidential documents. Information about submitted manuscripts must not be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, members of the Editorial Board, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, data, figures, supplementary materials, and editorial communications must not be disclosed, shared, uploaded, or used outside the authorized editorial and peer-review process.

Use of AI in Editorial Decisions

Editors and editorial staff must not use generative AI tools or AI-assisted technologies to make editorial decisions, determine whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected, evaluate the scholarly merit of a manuscript, assess reviewer recommendations, or generate editorial judgments.

Editorial decisions must be made by human editors based on academic expertise, peer-review results, editorial assessment, ethical considerations, and the journal’s policies.

Editors and editorial staff must not upload submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, data, figures, supplementary materials, or confidential editorial communications to generative AI tools or other external AI-assisted systems, as this may compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, and the integrity of the editorial process.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Editors must not handle manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from personal, academic, financial, institutional, competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, reviewers, institutions, funders, or organizations connected to the manuscript.

If an editor has a conflict of interest, the manuscript must be assigned to another editor who is free from such conflict. If the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, the manuscript must be handled by another appropriate editor or member of the Editorial Board.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by editors or editorial staff for their own research, publication, teaching, personal advantage, or the advantage of others without the author’s explicit written consent.

Complaints and Appeals

IJoRCE provides a procedure for handling complaints and appeals related to the journal, editorial process, editorial staff, Editorial Board, reviewers, or publisher. Complaints and appeals may include concerns about editorial procedures, reviewer conduct, editor conduct, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, conflict of interest, publication ethics, research integrity, or other matters directly related to the journal’s publication process.

Complaints and appeals must be submitted in writing to the editorial office. They must include a clear explanation of the issue, relevant manuscript information, supporting evidence, and the identity and contact information of the complainant.

The journal may decline to process complaints that are anonymous, abusive, unsupported by evidence, repetitive, malicious, defamatory, threatening, or unrelated to the journal’s editorial and publication process.

Complaints and appeals will be reviewed by the editor, Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, or other appropriate parties, depending on the nature of the case. If the complaint concerns a specific editor or reviewer, that person must not be involved in deciding the complaint. The journal may request clarification, additional documents, or responses from relevant parties before reaching a decision.

Appeals against editorial decisions will only be considered when the author provides clear evidence of procedural error, factual error, conflict of interest, or misunderstanding that may have affected the editorial decision. Disagreement with reviewer comments or editorial judgment alone does not constitute sufficient grounds for appeal.

Abusive, threatening, coercive, defamatory, harassing, or intimidating communication toward editors, reviewers, editorial staff, the Editorial Board, or the publisher will not influence editorial decisions. The journal may suspend communication, suspend manuscript processing, or take other appropriate editorial actions when communication from authors or other parties becomes abusive, threatening, coercive, repetitive, or unrelated to the journal’s publication process.

The journal will process complaints and appeals in accordance with COPE guidelines and the journal’s publication ethics policies. The decision of the editor or Editorial Board after the appeal process is considered final.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and may also help authors improve the quality of their manuscripts. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive, objective, timely, respectful, and evidence-based comments.

Promptness

Any invited reviewer who feels unqualified to review the manuscript or knows that a timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the editor and decline the review invitation.

Confidentiality

Any manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document. It must not be shown to, shared with, uploaded to, or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Reviewers must not use unpublished materials, ideas, data, arguments, findings, or other information obtained through peer review for their own research, publication, teaching, personal advantage, or the advantage of others.

Use of AI in Peer Review

Reviewers must not use generative AI tools or AI-assisted technologies to review, evaluate, summarize, interpret, analyze, criticize, or write peer-review reports for manuscripts submitted to IJoRCE.

Peer-review assessment must be conducted by the invited reviewer personally, based on the reviewer’s own expertise, academic judgment, and ethical responsibility.

Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, data, figures, tables, supplementary files, review invitations, review forms, author responses, or any confidential peer-review materials to generative AI tools or other external AI-assisted systems, as this may compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, and the integrity of the peer-review process.

Reviewer Identity and Delegation

Reviewers must not delegate their review assignment to another person without prior permission from the editor. If a reviewer wishes to involve a colleague, student, assistant, or any other person in the review process, the reviewer must obtain approval from the editor before doing so.

Any person who contributes to the review must comply with the journal’s confidentiality, conflict of interest, and publication ethics policies. The invited reviewer remains responsible for the integrity and content of the submitted review report.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and focus on the academic quality, originality, validity, clarity, methodology, interpretation, and contribution of the manuscript.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, argument, or finding has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

Reviewers should also inform the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published or submitted work of which they have personal and relevant knowledge.

Reviewers must not suggest citations for the purpose of increasing citations to their own work, the work of colleagues, the journal, or any other publication when such citations are not academically necessary. Citation suggestions must be based on scholarly relevance and must not constitute coercive citation or citation manipulation.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from personal, academic, financial, institutional, competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, institutions, funders, companies, or organizations connected to the manuscript.

If reviewers become aware of a potential conflict of interest after accepting a review invitation, they must immediately inform the editor.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards

Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. The underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail, references, and explanation to allow others to understand, evaluate, and, where appropriate, replicate the work.

Fraudulent, knowingly inaccurate, or misleading statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works. If the authors have used the work, words, data, ideas, figures, tables, instruments, or other materials of others, these must be appropriately cited, quoted, acknowledged, or permitted where necessary.

Plagiarism in all forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

The manuscript similarity-checking report is used by the journal as one of the tools for screening potential similarity, overlap, and plagiarism. Similarity percentage alone does not automatically determine whether a manuscript is acceptable or unacceptable. The final interpretation of similarity results remains subject to editorial assessment, including the nature, source, context, and extent of the similarity.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

Authors should not submit or publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature, context, and development of the reported work.

Authors must not manipulate citations, include irrelevant citations, omit relevant sources intentionally, or add citations solely to increase citation counts for themselves, colleagues, the journal, or any other publication.

Use of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies by authors is governed by the journal’s separate Generative Artificial Intelligences Utilization Policy. Authors must comply with that policy.

Generative AI tools and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because authorship requires human responsibility, accountability, and the ability to take responsibility for the integrity of the work.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors.

Those who have contributed to certain substantive aspects of the research project but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Authors must include an author contribution statement in the manuscript describing each author’s contribution to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, writing, revision, or final approval of the work. This statement may be used by the journal to assess authorship eligibility and to address authorship-related concerns.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the manuscript. The corresponding author must also ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.

The corresponding author is also responsible for ensuring that the author contribution statement is accurate, agreed upon by all authors, and consistent with the actual contribution of each author.

The journal does not adjudicate authorship disputes among authors, including disputes concerning author inclusion, exclusion, order, contribution, correspondence, affiliation, or internal agreements among collaborators. Such disputes are the responsibility of the authors and must be resolved by the authors and/or their respective institutions.

When an unresolved authorship dispute is brought to the journal, the editorial process, acceptance, or publication of the manuscript may be suspended until the dispute is formally resolved. The journal may request written agreement from all authors and/or an official statement from the relevant institution before continuing the editorial or publication process.

Any request to add, remove, rearrange, or change the role of authors after submission must be submitted in writing, include a clear reason, and be approved by all authors concerned, including any author being added, removed, or rearranged. The journal will not process authorship changes based on unilateral requests.

If the dispute involves allegations of research misconduct or serious breaches of publication ethics, the journal will handle the case in accordance with COPE guidelines and the journal’s policies on research misconduct, corrections, and retractions.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial, personal, institutional, academic, political, commercial, or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results, interpretation, review, or publication of their manuscript.

All sources of financial support, sponsorship, grants, institutional support, or other funding related to the project must be disclosed.

Data Availability and Reproducibility

Authors are responsible for maintaining accurate records of the data, materials, instruments, procedures, and analysis underlying their manuscript. Where appropriate and ethically permissible, authors may be requested to provide raw data, supporting materials, or additional documentation for editorial review, verification, correction, or investigation of suspected misconduct.

Authors should make data available when required by the journal, funder, institution, or applicable regulations, unless there are ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, or security reasons that prevent data sharing. When data cannot be shared publicly, authors should provide a clear explanation in the manuscript or to the editorial office.

For research involving human participants, students, teachers, schools, communities, confidential institutional information, or sensitive data, authors must ensure that data collection, storage, analysis, reporting, and sharing comply with applicable ethical and legal requirements.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

When authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, they are obliged to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to correct, clarify, retract, or otherwise address the issue.

Ethical Oversight

If the research involves human participants, animals, hazardous materials, chemicals, procedures, equipment, confidential data, institutional data, community data, educational settings, schools, students, teachers, vulnerable groups, or other matters requiring ethical consideration, authors must clearly identify these issues in the manuscript and comply with applicable ethical standards.

If required, authors must provide ethical clearance, institutional permission, informed consent, research permits, or other legal and ethical documentation.

Authors must ensure that participants’ privacy, confidentiality, personal data, images, identities, and rights are protected. For research involving photographs, videos, identifiable personal information, or community documentation, authors must ensure that appropriate consent has been obtained for publication.

 

Allegations of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, data manipulation, image manipulation, unethical authorship practices, undisclosed conflicts of interest, redundant publication, duplicate submission, and other serious irregularities in producing, performing, reviewing, writing, or reporting research.

When suspected misconduct or serious irregularities are identified in a submitted or published manuscript, the editors and Editorial Board have a responsibility to protect the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

IJoRCE provides a Comments and Criticism section as a forum for expressing different viewpoints, comments, clarification, correction of misunderstanding, and reporting research misconduct related to published papers. Readers are invited to contribute their ideas and concerns through this forum or through the appropriate editorial communication channel.

In cases of suspected misconduct, the editors and Editorial Board will follow COPE guidelines and the journal’s policies to resolve the complaint and address the misconduct fairly. This may include initial assessment, request for clarification, communication with authors, consultation with reviewers or editorial board members, examination of evidence, communication with institutions where appropriate, and editorial action based on the findings.

When necessary, the journal may contact the authors’ institution, research ethics committee, funder, or other relevant authority to request clarification, documentation, or investigation regarding suspected misconduct, authorship disputes, ethical concerns, data issues, or other serious publication ethics matters.

The journal may suspend the editorial process, publication process, correction process, or other related editorial action until the required clarification, documentation, or investigation is completed.

A submitted manuscript that is found to contain misconduct may be rejected. If a published article is found to contain misconduct or serious errors affecting the integrity of the scholarly record, the journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, retraction, removal, replacement, or other appropriate editorial notice.

Corrections, Errata, Corrigenda, and Expressions of Concern

The journal is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. When errors are identified in a published article, the journal will determine the appropriate editorial action based on the nature, severity, and impact of the error.

For the purpose of this policy, an article is considered published once it has been made available on the journal website, assigned to an issue, assigned a DOI, or otherwise released as the official version of record. Any author-requested changes after this stage will be treated as post-publication changes.

A correction, erratum, or corrigendum may be issued when a published article contains an error that does not invalidate the main findings or conclusions but requires clarification or correction for the accuracy of the scholarly record.

An expression of concern may be issued when the journal has reasonable concerns about the integrity, reliability, or ethical status of a published article, but the investigation is not yet complete or the evidence is inconclusive.

Requests for post-publication changes that affect authorship, affiliation, metadata, acknowledgements, funding information, conflicts of interest, author contribution statements, or the scholarly content of the article must be approved by all authors. The journal may request written confirmation from all authors before processing such requests.

Post-publication changes requested by the author(s), including corrections, corrigenda, metadata changes, author information changes, affiliation changes, file replacement, layout revision, or other amendments after publication, may be subject to administrative or production charges as stated in the journal’s Publication Fees Policy.

Such charges are intended to cover administrative, editorial, technical, production, and review-related work required to process the requested post-publication changes. These charges do not influence the journal’s editorial decision and do not apply to corrections required due to errors made by the journal or publisher.

The journal may decline post-publication change requests that are unsupported by evidence, ethically inappropriate, inconsistent with the scholarly record, or likely to mislead readers.

All corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, removals, or replacements will be linked to the original article whenever possible. Editorial notices should clearly identify the article concerned, describe the nature of the correction or action, and state the reason for the notice to ensure transparency and accountability.

Withdrawal of Manuscripts

General Policy of Article Withdrawal

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by the policies of the Editorial Board and constrained by applicable legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, plagiarism, research misconduct, privacy, confidentiality, and other relevant matters.

The scholarly archive should remain a permanent and reliable record of scholarly communication. Articles that have been published should remain available, accurate, and unaltered as far as possible. However, in exceptional circumstances, editorial action such as correction, retraction, removal, or replacement may be necessary.

This policy is designed to address such concerns and to take into account current best practices in scholarly publishing. As standards evolve, IJoRCE will review and update this policy in line with relevant recommendations and publication ethics guidelines.

Article Withdrawal by Author(s)

Authors are strongly discouraged from withdrawing a manuscript after submission without valid and clearly stated reasons, because the editorial and peer-review process requires time, effort, and resources from editors and reviewers.

Any request for withdrawal must be submitted in writing by the corresponding author to the editorial office and must include a clear reason for the withdrawal. The journal may request written confirmation from all authors before processing the withdrawal request.

Withdrawal after the manuscript has entered peer review, revision, acceptance, copyediting, layout editing, proofreading, production, or publication preparation will be considered carefully by the editor. Withdrawal after peer review, acceptance, or production is only permitted in exceptional circumstances, such as verified ethical concerns, serious errors, authorship disputes that cannot be resolved, legal issues, or other valid reasons accepted by the editor.

Author-initiated withdrawal requests may be subject to administrative or review-related charges as stated in the journal’s Publication Fees Policy, particularly when the request is made after the peer-review process has begun, after peer review has been completed, after acceptance, during production, or for non-scientific and non-ethical reasons.

Such charges are intended to cover administrative, editorial, review-related, and production work already performed by the journal. The imposition of such charges does not influence editorial decisions and does not limit the journal’s responsibility to address ethical, legal, or scholarly integrity concerns.

Withdrawing a manuscript because it has been submitted to or accepted by another journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior. Failure to respond to editorial requests, failure to submit required revisions within the specified time without notification, or abandonment of the manuscript may be treated as withdrawal or may result in rejection, according to the editor’s decision.

Article Retraction

Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, or other serious breaches of publication ethics, are prohibited in IJoRCE.

Retraction may be used to correct the scholarly record when a published article is found to contain serious errors, unreliable findings, unethical research, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fraudulent data, or other issues that invalidate the integrity or reliability of the work.

The editor will investigate alleged infringements of publication ethics. The IJoRCE Editorial Board may notify the author(s) about the alleged violation and provide relevant evidence or request clarification. If the editor is unable to contact the author(s) within the prescribed period, the editor may discuss the case with the Editorial Board and take appropriate editorial action.

Author-initiated retraction requests may be subject to administrative or production charges as stated in the journal’s Publication Fees Policy, particularly when the request is made for non-scientific or non-ethical reasons. However, the imposition of such charges does not affect the journal’s responsibility to correct the scholarly record.

Retractions, expressions of concern, removals, replacements, or other editorial actions required for ethical, legal, or scholarly integrity reasons will be handled in accordance with the journal’s publication ethics policies and applicable COPE guidelines.

A retraction notice will be published and linked to the original article whenever possible. The original article may remain accessible with a clear indication that it has been retracted, unless legal, privacy, confidentiality, safety, or other serious reasons require otherwise.

Article Removal: Legal Limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur when the article is clearly defamatory, infringes others’ legal rights, is subject to a court order, is expected to become subject to a court order, violates privacy or confidentiality in a serious way, or poses a serious health, safety, or legal risk if acted upon.

In such circumstances, while the metadata such as title and authors may be retained, the article text may be replaced with a notice indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article Replacement

In cases where an article, if acted upon, might pose a serious risk, or where a corrected version is necessary to protect the accuracy of the scholarly record, the authors may be required or permitted to retract the flawed original article and replace it with a corrected version.

Article replacement requested by the author(s) after publication may be subject to administrative or production charges as stated in the journal’s Publication Fees Policy, unless the replacement is required due to errors made by the journal or publisher, or is necessary to address ethical, legal, or scholarly integrity concerns.

The replacement will be carried out through an appropriate editorial notice. The notice will explain the reason for replacement and will be linked to the original article and the corrected version whenever possible.

Administrative Charges Related to Publication Ethics

Any charges related to withdrawal, post-publication changes, corrections requested by authors, article replacement requested by authors, or author-initiated retraction requests are governed by the journal’s Publication Fees Policy.

Such charges are administrative, editorial, review-related, or production-related charges. They do not influence editorial decisions, peer-review outcomes, correction decisions, retraction decisions, or the journal’s responsibility to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

Requests related to correcting the scholarly record for ethical, legal, or scholarly integrity reasons may be processed without charge, according to the editor’s assessment and the journal’s Publication Fees Policy.

Policy Review

IJoRCE regularly reviews and updates this policy in line with COPE recommendations, relevant publication ethics standards, and best practices in scholarly publishing to uphold the highest standards of integrity, transparency, accountability, editorial independence, and academic quality.

References