Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

WJPS follows the COPE Best Practice guidelines and this statement is based on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

DUTIES OF EDITORS

Decision on the Publication of Articles: The Editor-in-chief (EIC) of the Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science is responsible to make the decision regarding publication of submitted articles. The EIC may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and subjected to such legal requirements. The Editor is authorized to carry out the decision in consultation with reviewers and editorial board members.

Fair play: The manuscripts should be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality: The Editor and editorial staff must not disclose any information about a manuscript that is submitted to the journal to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. The editor must ensure the integrity of double-blind peer-review and should not disclose the identity of the reviewers to the authors of that manuscript, and vice versa.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by editor or reviewer or anyone else who has a view of the manuscript while handling it in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution of Peer Review: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and editorial communications help the author to improve his paper.

Promptness: If a selected reviewer feels unqualified to review an article, he/she should notify the Editor-in-Chief and should not take part in the review process. Reviews will be expected to be professional, honest, courteous, prompt, and constructive; their judgment should be objective.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts assigned to a reviewer must be treated as confidential documents. The manuscript(s) must not be shown to or discussed with, others except as authorized by the Editor in Chief.

Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should mark the uncited work that is published previously. Authors are expected to provide the proper citation for each statement that is quoted from a previously published work. A reviewer should inform the EIC for any substantial similarity between the manuscript assigned him for review and the other previously published paper of which they have personal knowledge or they have found the similarity during the review process.

Confidentiality: Information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Conflict of Interest: Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Reporting standards: Authors of the original research article must present the accurate data of work performed during their research. Authors are also expected to discuss the objective of their work and the significance of their results. An article should contain sufficient information and references to ensure the reproducibility of the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements considered unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention: Authors may be asked to provide the raw/supplementary data for a paper that is under editorial review. The authors should be prepared to provide the public access to these data (if practicable) and to retain such data for a reasonable time after the publication.

Originality and Plagiarism: Authors should ensure the originality of their contents while preparing a manuscript draft. In case the authors have used the work and/or words of others this must be appropriately cited or quoted. All the articles submitted to JAPS shall be screened for plagiarism using iThenticate (online plagiarism detection software). In case, plagiarism is detected during the review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately. If the plagiarism is proven after publication, such manuscript(s) will be retracted from the journal and an appropriate announcement will be placed in this regard.

We can also consider appropriate action against authors depending upon the seriousness of the case which includes;

  1. Debarring the authors from publication in the future.
  2. Such incidents shall be brought to the notice of author's funding agencies, author's institutes (where they work) and to the original authors whose work has been plagiarized.

COPE flow charts will also be considered while dealing with plagiarism complaints.

Redundant or duplicate submission/publication

Duplicate or redundant submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to different journals at the same time. International copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost-effective use of resources require that readers can be assured that what they are reading is original (Read ICMJE recommendations). An author should not publish manuscripts that describe the same concept or present similar data, in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. 

Our handling editors carefully monitor all the related articles to avoid duplicate submission/publication. All such articles will be rejected immediately. In case the editor was not aware of the violation and the article has been published, a notice of the duplicate submission and the ethical violation will be published.

Acknowledgment of Sources: Authors should provide the proper acknowledgment for the work of others. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper and corresponding author: Only the contributors who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study should be titled as the author. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author is the author responsible for communicating with the journal for publication. The corresponding author should ensure that no inappropriate contributors are listed as co-authors in the paper. All the co-authors should check the final draft of the manuscript before submitting it to the journal.

Acknowledgment of Funding Sources: All the funding sources must be properly acknowledged.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All the authors should disclose the possible financial or any other substantive conflict of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.

Fundamental errors in published work: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, he should promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

DUTIES OF THE PUBLISHER

The publisher is supposed to protect the intellectual property and copyright of the contents submitted by the authors. We respect the privacy and personal data, especially for authors and peer reviewers. We work in close co-operation with the editors and peer reviewers to maintain editorial independence and to guarantee transparency and integrity in peer-review process.

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question.

PUBLISHING ETHICS ISSUES

Monitoring: The EIC must ensure to establish the mechanism for monitoring and safeguarding of publishing ethics. All the complaints received from the reviewers or the authors or anybody else should be taken into the proper consideration and appropriate action should be taken promptly for such complaints.

Retraction & Corrections: The published articles will be retracted if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable. The retraction can be a result of scientific misconduct or honest error. To maintain the integrity of the scientific record, the retracted article will not be removed from the journal's website, however, a notice of retraction will be posted and is made freely available to all readers. Retraction can be published by the authors or the editor or the publisher. In rare cases involving legal infringement, the Publisher may remove an article. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the integrity of the scientific record. We follow the COPE guidelines in such a case. Sometimes it may be necessary to publish corrections/erratum in an article published in the Journal to maintain the integrity of the academic record. Appropriate notice regarding the correction will be placed and made freely available to the readers. We are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.

Article withdrawal: Manuscripts can be withdrawn at the initial stage (i.e. 3 days) from the date of submission without any Article Processing Charges (APCs). If the author/s wants to withdraw the manuscript during its processing, an email has to be sent notifying as to their intention for withdrawal following which; the manuscript withdrawal form will be emailed for the signatures of all the respective author/s. If the author/s decide to the withdrawal of manuscript after it has been accepted (but not yet published), Article Processing Charges (APCs) of USD 100 is chargeable upon withdrawal.

Preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards: We believe that the funding agencies and sponsors should not be able to influence the author's findings or decision making. The editor should maintain the integrity of the academic record, preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards, and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.