Ethical Guidelines for Editor/Editorial Office

The Editor of a research journal should be responsible for:

  • Establishing and maintaining quality of the journal by publishing quality papers in his/her journal.
  • Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework.
  • Providing integrity and credibility of the research contributions.
  • Maintaining ethical standards of their journal.
  • Providing corrigendum for any correction, clarification and apologies where required.
  • Encourage new ideas and suggestions of authors, peer reviewers, members of editorial board and readers for improving quality of his/her journal.
  • The Editor should only shortlist research papers which have relevance to the scope of the journal clearly stated in the Journal, using his /her judgment, but without any personal bias.
  • Apply the process of blind peer review in true letter and spirit.
  • Promote innovative findings in respective field and publishing them on priority.
  • Promote anti plagiarism policy.
  • Educate contributors (authors) about ethical practices in research, and implement the journal’s policy without institutional pressure and revise the policy from time to time.
  • The Editor must ensure that the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal comprises prominent scholars of the field who can adequately promote the journal and may appoint members for a prescribed duration and add or revise constitution of the Board if required.
  • The Editor should inform new board members about ethical guidelines and their expected role and update the Editorial Board members about development, challenges and any changes made in the journal policy.
  • The criteria for the selection of research papers must be impartial and the Editor should select academically and scientifically sound articles.
  • The Editor should disregard the discriminating factors, e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication.
  • The Editor must ensure confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the process of double-blind peer review,
  • Information pertaining to a research paper should not be disclosed by the Editor to anyone except the author(s) and reviewer(s).
  • The Editor should prepare clear guidelines about preparing and formatting of a paper and print these guidelines in each issue of the journal.
  • The Editor should encourage reviewers to comment on the validity of submitted research paper and identify ‘subtle (simply copy-paste)’ and/or ‘blatant (paraphrasing)’ type of plagiarism, if, practiced by the author(s).
  • The Editor should confirm plagiarism (carry out objective check through Turnitin) and/or searching for similar titles to the submitted research paper, and
  • The Editor should be prepared to publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article if it comes to his/her knowledge subsequent to its publication.
  • The Editor must not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s).
  • Any information received after the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gains.