Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

 

Journal of Biological Studies has dedicated to follow the ethical standards as determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as well as International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Author(s) must obedient and pay attention to the authorship, plagiarism, duplicate (redundant) publication, fabrication of data, manipulation of citation, as well as ethical approval and Intelectual Property Rights.

Authorship

Author is a person who participated in the research and sufficient for taking public responsibility for all portions of the content. When authorship is attributed to a group, all authors should have made substantial contributions to the following: (i) conception and design of the research, acquisition of the data, analysis and interpretation of the data; (ii) drafting of the manuscript and its revision; and (iii) final approval of the version to be submitted. Manuscript submission implies that all authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript, and agree to the manuscript submission to this journal. All authors must be responsible for the quality, accuracy, and ethics of the research. 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a critical issue around the world in the arena of manuscript writing. It is the act of taking another person's work, data or ideas intentionally or unintentionally and passing it off as your own. Additionally, It includes using others ideas and words without specifically acknowledging the source of that information. We expect that the manuscripts submitted to JBS should adhere to the ethical standards, and they should not overlap with other articles published or articles in the press. Manuscripts containing plagiarism seriously affect our goal of achieving high standards of quality, uniqueness and innovation. We really do respect others’ work and expect the same from our authors. We are utilising the latest software to detect plagiarism. If potential plagiarism is detected, we will take serious actions against those articles containing plagiarism that may include removing those papers completely from JBS website and from the other websites of the databases which JBS is listed and indexed in. Furthermore, the editors will contact the authors for explanation for this action, and their institutions might be reached. Hence JBS will not be responsible for further action on plagiarism issue. The author will be solely responsible for the plagiarism issue.  

Duplicate (redundant) publication

Duplicate publication is publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published, without clear, visible reference to the previous publication. Manuscript submissions will be considered for publication only if they are submitted solely to this journal and do not overlap substantially with a published article. Any manuscript that has (near) similar hypothesis, sample characteristics, methodology, results, and conclusions to a published article is a duplicate article and is prohibited, even if it is published in different languages. The slicing of data from a "single research" to make some individuals manuscript without substantial differences should be avoided.

Fabrication of data

Fabrication, manipulation or falsification of data is an ethical violation and is prohibited.

Citations manipulation

The only relevant citations are used in the manuscripts.  Irrelevant (self) citation to increase author(s)'s citation (h-index) or unnecessary citation to improve the references are not allowed.

 

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Journal of Biological Studies reviewers perform work for the journal on a volunteer basis. Given that most of these individuals are in full-time employment, their reviewing activities for JBS must, by necessity, not be their top priority. Reviewers are free to decline invitations to review particular manuscripts at their discretion, for example, if their current employment workload and/or other commitments make it prohibitive for them to complete a review in a timely fashion and to do justice to the task in the available time frame. They should also not accept manuscript review assignments for which they feel unqualified.

Reviewers who have accepted manuscript assignments are normally expected to submit their reviews within three to four weeks. They should recuse themselves from the assignment if it becomes apparent to them at any stage that they do not possess the required expertise to perform the review, or that they may have a potential conflict of interest in performing the review (e.g., one resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, institutions, or companies associated with the manuscript).

Privileged information or ideas obtained by reviewers through the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents, and must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Journal of Biological Studies Editor.

When conducting their reviews, reviewers are asked to do so as objectively as possible, refraining from engaging in personal criticism of the author(s). They are encouraged to express their views clearly, explaining and justifying all recommendations made. They should always attempt to provide detailed and constructive feedback to assist the author(s) in improving their work, even if the manuscript is, in their opinion, not publishable.

Reviewers should identify in their reviews relevant published work that has not been cited by the author(s), together with any instances in which proper attribution of sources has not been provided. They should call to the responsible editor’s attention any major resemblances between a manuscript under consideration and other published articles or papers of which they are aware, as well as any concerns they might have in relation to the ethical acceptability of the research reported in the manuscript.

Ethic approval

Experiments held on human and animals must obtain permission from the official agencies and does not violate the law. Human or animal related experiments should be published in "Materials and Methods", then examined and got approved by professionals from the side of moral aspect. Researches on human beings must comply with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and its recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Human details may be included only if they are essential for scientific purposes and the author(s) obtain written permission from the individual, parent or guardian.

Intellectual Property Right

Author(s) must obedient to the law and/or ethics in treating the object of research and pay attention to the legality of material sources and intellectual property rights.

Conflict of interest and source of funding

Author(s) requires to acknowledge all sources of institutional, private and corporate financial support for the research within the manuscript, and notes any potential conflicts of interest.

REVIEW PROCESS

For the acceptance of a manuscript, it should be reviewed by at least two reviewers. Authors will generally be notified by email the acceptance, rejection status within at least four weeks of the submission. The manuscript might be rejected, if the content is not in line with the JBS'sjournal scope, does not meet the ethical standards (i.e. plagiarism, duplicate publication, false authorship, fabrication of data and citation manipulation), does not meet the required quality, has incorrect grammar. Manuscripts can also be rejected if there are two reviewers who gave negative decisions. The primary criteria for publication in JBS are scientific quality. The accepted papers will be published in chronological order.

The review process JBS offers a double-blind peer review option, Neither the peer reviewers nor the authors are revealed to each other. Reviewers should have the Scopus-ID or Researcher-ID (Thomson Reuters). Reviewers may also be invited from journals published by major publishers such as Elsevier or Springer. They must come from different institutions with authors; preferably originating from three different countries. 

Uncorrected proofs will be sent to the corresponding author by email as Pdf files for checking and correcting typographical errors. To avoid delay in publication, corrected proofs should be returned within 7 days. The accepted papers will be published online in chronological order at any time, but printed in March, June, September, and December.

 

DISCLAIMER

No responsibility is assumed by publisher and co-publishers, nor by the editors for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a result of any actual or alleged libelous statements, infringement of intellectual property or privacy rights, or products liability, whether resulting from negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any ideas, instructions, procedures, products or methods contained in the material therein.