Publication Ethics

CODE OF ETHICS

University of Thi-Qar Journal

University of Thi-Qar

 

UTJ’s Code of Ethics

University of Thi-Qar Journal (UTJ) accentuates on the quality of the published manuscripts to be adhered to specific ethical standards in terms to ensure the scientific and editorial integrity.

It is important that all parties notably authors, peer reviewers, journal editors and journal associate editors, supports and respects fully on the standards of expected ethical behaviour involved in the publishing. This code of ethics will be the set of guidelines that is expected to be adhered by all parties.

  1. AUTHORS
    • ORIGINALITY

When an author submits a manuscript to UTJ, the manuscript must be an original work. If the authors have used the work/and or words of others, it must be appropriately cited or quoted If the manuscript contains materials that overlap with work that previously published, that is in press, or that is under consideration for publication elsewhere, the Author must cite this work in the manuscript. The author must also inform UTJ’s Editorial Office, addressing it to the Editor-In-Chief, of the related work, and if requested, send the manuscript to the Editorial Office.

Authors must withdraw papers that are under review by any other journal, if the paper is submitted to UTJ subsequently.

Authors must explicitly cite their own earlier work and ideas, even when the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased in the manuscript. If exact sentences or paragraphs that appear in another work by the Author are included in the manuscript, the material should be put in quotation marks and appropriately cited in a way that does not compromise the reviewing process.

Authors should avoid excessively citing their earlier works in order to inflate their citation count. Authors should also avoid self-citation that might violate the reviewing process. If self-identifying information is unavoidable, the Author should include the information in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements and inform the Editor-In-Chief If the Author wishes to submit a revised version of the rejected manuscript of an earlier version, the author must obtain consent first from the Editor-In-Chief before submission. 

It is strongly suggested that authors wishing to submit manuscripts for intending publication in UTJ should check their manuscripts for possible plagiarisms using any application program such as TurnItIn before submitting through the UTJ’s online manuscript submission system. 

  • PLAGIARISM AND SELF-PLAGIARISM

 

All work in the manuscript should be free of any plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material.

 

Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without credit), to claiming results from research conducted by others.

Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic)

 

Authors are expected to explicitly cite others’ work and ideas, even if the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. This standard applies whether the previous work is published, unpublished, or electronically available. 

 

Self-plagiarism (or “redundancy”) can occur in at least two ways:

  1. Authors recycle portions of their previous writings by using identical or nearly identical sentences or paragraphs from earlier writings in subsequent research papers, without quotation or acknowledgement; or
  2. Authors create multiple papers that are slight variations of each other, which are submitted for publication in different journals but without acknowledgement of the other papers.

Self-plagiarism is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been usually assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one’s own words one can use before it is truly “plagiarism”. Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not generally regarded in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals. Moreover, since publication decisions are influenced by the novelty and innovativeness of manuscripts, such deception is inappropriate and unethical. In actual fact, this can minimize or avoided by citing one’s previous publications wherever necessary. 

Authors should therefore minimize recycling of previous writings. If recycling is unavoidable, the author should inform the Editor-In-Chief at the time of submission and reference the previous writings in the manuscript. Such self-referencing should be worded carefully so as to avoid compromising reviewing process. 

If exact sentences or paragraphs that appear in another work by the author are included in the manuscript, the material must be put in quotation marks and appropriately cited. 

Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior which is unacceptable. 

  • MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: An author should not in general 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 behaviours and is unacceptable. 

Authors must not submit to UTJ the same work, in whole or in part, to two places of publication at the same time, or at any time while the manuscript is under review, or has been previously published. It is also improper for an Author to submit a manuscript describing essentially the same research to more than one place of publication, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected for, or withdrawn from publication. Thus, an author may neither submit to UTJ, a work that is in whole or in part under review elsewhere, nor submit to another publication outlet a work that is in whole or in part under review at UTJ

 

The manuscript must not have been previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere, either in whole (including book chapters) or in part (including paragraphs of text or exhibits), whether in English or another language.

  • POLICY ON CONFERENCE PROCEEDING PAPERS

UTJ does not accept any submission of papers that have been published in full in a conference proceeding as novelty is an important criterion in the selection of papers. However, to encourage interdisciplinary contributions, UTJ may consider unpublished work that has been submitted or presented in part in a forum, particularly if it is unlikely to have been seen by more than a few members of a conference or where the circulation of the proceeding is limited. The author, however, must specify the dual submission and certifies that the journal submission contains significant materials that is not included in the proceeding submission.

  • CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Authors should avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest throughout the research process. A conflict of interest is some fact known to a participant in the publication process that if revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived (or an Author, Reviewer, or Editor feel defensive). Conflicts of interest may influence the judgment of Authors, Reviewers, and Editors. Possible conflicts often are not immediately apparent to others. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. Financial interests may include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock of share ownership, patents, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, non-financial support, or any fiduciary interest in the company. The perception of a conflict of interest is nearly as important as an actual conflict, since both erode trust. Any queries about possible conflicts of interest should be addressed to the Editor-In-Chief.

When submitting a manuscript to UTJ, the Corresponding Author has the opportunity to recommend at least four possible potential Reviewers for the manuscript. The suggested reviewers must not be the Co-Authors listed in this manuscript and have not seen the manuscript before. The editors and associate editors are not, however, bound by these suggestions. 

Authors should avoid any possible conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest, in selecting Reviewers. Such conflicts of interest apply not only to the Corresponding Author but to any Co-Authors on the manuscript. 

Examples of possible conflicts of interest include:

  • One of the Authors is at the same institution as the nominated Editor or Reviewer;
  • One of the Authors was a member of the Journal’s Editorial Board; or
  • One of the Authors, and the Editor or Reviewer, is currently Co-Authors on another manuscript.

      Authors should not nominate individuals whom they know have already read and provided comments on the manuscript or a previous version of the manuscript since such knowledge would automatically violate the reviewing process. 

  • CO-AUTHORSHIP

All Co-Authors of the papers should have made significant contributions to the work and share accountability for the results. Authorship and credit should be shared in proportion to the various parties’ contributions. Authors should take responsibility and credit, including authorship credit, only for work they have actually performed or to which they have contributed. Other contributions should be cited in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements or an Endnote. Authors should normally list a student as the principal Co-Author on multiple-authored publications that substantially derive from the student’s dissertation or thesis. 

Authors who analyze data from others should explicitly acknowledge the contribution of the initial researchers. 

The Corresponding Author who submits a manuscript to UTJ should have sent all living Co-Authors a draft and obtained their assent to submission and publication. 

  • TIMELINESS

Authors should be prompt with their manuscript revisions. If an Author cannot meet the deadline given, the Author should contact the Editorial Office to request for an extension. If there is no request, UTJ will withdraw the manuscript from the review process. 

  • MANUSCRIPT WITHDRAWAL

Authors may write to the Editorial Office requesting for a withdrawal of a manuscript that has been previously submitted for intended publication in UTJ. If the author withdraws his/her manuscript after the peer-review process has begun, UTJ has the right to reject the paper without taking into account the status of the referee’s evaluation.