Ethics & Policy

Purpose of a Policy on Ethical Principles

The goal of the International Journal for Science, Technology & Academic Research (IJSTAR) is to identify the best scientific papers and manuscripts pertaining to public health practice through peer review. This can only be accomplished via an exhaustive, impartial, and fair peer review and publication process inside the IJSTAR. This procedure entails many ethical choices and standards in every area. The confidence of readers, writers, researchers, reviewers, editors, public health professionals, research participants, funding organizations, and public health policy administrators is what makes IJSTAR reputable. By outlining IJSTAR policies as clearly as possible to guarantee the ethical treatment of all parties in the publication process, this confidence is strengthened.

Study Design and Ethics

Research articles that meet strict criteria for data analysis and quality control are given consideration by the IJSTAR. Records and data must be kept on file and made available for inspection upon request. Scientific misconduct includes the fabrication, falsification, concealment, misleading reporting, and misrepresentation of data.

The IJSTAR supports greater disclosure of research studies’ external validity and takes it into account when evaluating submissions.

Authorship and Acknowledgments

Being an author denotes having made a substantial intellectual contribution to the work, as well as having contributed to its composition and final draft review. The corresponding author, working with co-authors, must include information in all publications regarding the precise contributions that each author has made to the work. A simple copy edit does not require acknowledgment or co-authorship.

All authors must take responsibility in writing for the accuracy of the manuscript, and one author must be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole.

Acknowledgements are acceptable for people who do not qualify as authors but provided support for the study and manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest, also known as competing interests, are facts that an author, reviewer, or editor would feel defensive about if they were later made public and would lead a reasonable reader to believe they had been mislead or fooled. Authors, reviewers, and editors may be influenced by conflicts of interest, which frequently go unnoticed by the reviewer or by others. They could be financial, intellectual, commercial, political, or personal. Financial interests can include consulting fees, employment, stock or share ownership, patents, research money (received or pending), payment for lectures or travel, non-financial assistance, or any kind of fiduciary stake in the business. Without regard to content, conflict arises only when there is a sense of or appearance of a conflict of interest since it undermines mutual confidence between all parties.

Upon submitting the article, authors are required to declare in writing any and all such interests, or lack thereof. Should any be declared, they ought to be released alongside the piece. When a situation’s potential to be a conflict is unclear, it should be declared. If the manuscript is published, the sources of full or partial funding or other forms of support for the research must be acknowledged. If someone other than the authors is engaged in the analysis, interpretation, or control of the data, this information must also be disclosed. The sponsor’s or funding organization’s involvement in the study’s planning and execution, data collecting, analysis, and interpretation, as well as the creation, evaluation, and approval of the manuscript.

Similar to authors and reviewers, editors may also have conflicts of interest. As such, members of the editorial team should be obliged to disclose any such conflicts as soon as they materialize. The nature of these conflicts will vary depending on the degree of involvement of the editorial team, but they should be disclosed for all. Editors who are tasked with reviewing a manuscript in which they might have a conflict of interest ought to resign from their oversight of it and provide it to another editor who is not involved in any conflicts. The procedures governing the handling of such possible conflicts ought to be made available to readers in the print publication or online in order to foster more openness and confidence.

Written works by editors’ team members offer a unique situation of possible conflict of interest. Under the editor-in-chief’s supervision, these manuscripts must always be reviewed. Prior to the decision being finalized, the editor-in-chief will evaluate the assigned decision editor’s decision for objectivity.

Peer Review

The publication process and the dissemination of research, policy, and analytical evaluations depend heavily on peer review. Peer reviewers are specialists selected by editors to offer written evaluations of the merits and demerits of published research, with the goal of enhancing research reporting and determining the best and most relevant content for the journal. The IJSTAR requires peer reviewers to fulfill basic requirements related to their training, publishing history, original research experience, and critical evaluation of prior publications. Peer reviewers should be chosen for their objectivity and general knowledge, and they should be specialists in the scientific inquiry, policy, or analytical topic covered in the publications they review.

Reviews are expected to be professional, honest, courteous, prompt, and constructive. The desired major elements of a high-quality review should be as follows:

• The reviewer ought to have noted and discussed the study’s design and methodology’s main advantages and disadvantages.
• Regarding the quality of the author’s interpretation of the data, the reviewer ought to provide accurate and helpful feedback, taking into account the limits of the data.
• The reviewer’s comments should focus on the manuscript’s primary strengths and flaws as a written communication, without regard to the study’s design, methodology, findings, or interpretation.
• The reviewer ought to address any ethical issues brought up by the study or any proof that the rules of scientific conduct were not upheld.
• The reviewer ought to offer the author helpful recommendations on how to make the manuscript better.
• Reviewers should assess submissions based on their scientific, policy, or analytical merits as well as the validity of their conclusions, without regard to their own opinions.
• The review should provide the editor the proper context and perspective to make a decision on acceptance (and/or revision) of the manuscript.

A manuscript that has been submitted is a privileged communication, and reviewers are required to keep it private. It must not be saved or duplicated. Additionally, reviewers are not permitted to distribute the manuscript to any other peers without the editor’s express consent. Reviewers and editors are prohibited from using the data, arguments, or interpretations for any professional or personal purpose before publication (apart from those directly involved in peer review), unless they are writing an editorial or commentary to go along with the article or have the express permission of the authors.

Reviewed papers usually receive careful scrutiny by 2 reviewers and additional assessment by the responsible editors. Initial screening results in rejection of the majority of manuscripts within 2 weeks of submission. For those papers that are selected for review, the time to first decision is about 3 months. Overall time from submission to acceptance, which includes revisions by the authors, is about 6 months.

Editorial Decisions

A manuscript’s value, methodological rigor, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s goal should be the sole factors taken into consideration when making decisions regarding it. Research yielding unfavorable outcomes or contradicting established theories or body of knowledge have to be given equal weight.

The objectivity of the IJSTAR may be compromised by statements made by writers that are slanderous or otherwise unreasonable critical of individuals or organizations. This could lead to requests for the manuscript to be rejected or amended.

Originality, Prior Publication, and Media Relations

Except for work provided as an abstract or in a scientific meeting report, or reprints of seminal works with historical significance, the IJSTAR does not publish work that has been published elsewhere.

Plagiarism

Scientific misconduct, or plagiarism, is the use of someone else’s words or ideas (or other intellectual property) without giving them credit or permission and passing them off as unique and original when in fact they were taken from an already published work. Plagiarism has the purpose of deceiving the reader about the author’s contributions. This holds true regardless of where the concepts or language originate from: abstracts; research funding applications; institutional review board applications; or publications that have been published or remain unpublished in any media (print, PDF, or other).

The act of an author repurposing parts of their prior works on the same subject in a different work without giving due credit is known as self-plagiarism. If the author(s) has(have) already published any work, it must be appropriately cited in submitted manuscripts.

Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct

Definitions of Misconduct

Deception can be intentional, the result of careless disregard for potential repercussions, or ignorance. The journal’s initial inquiry into possible misconduct must consider both the specific act or omission and the apparent intention (as best as can be ascertained) of the person involved, since the fundamental purpose of misconduct is to knowingly mislead others about the truth. Inadvertent mistakes are not included in misconduct.

• Data falsification can take many different forms, such as deliberate suppression and/or manipulation of data, deceptive selective reporting of conclusions and deletion of contradicting evidence, or fabrication.
• Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words, ideas, or thoughts without giving due credit to the original author and passing it off as one’s own.
• Authorship errors include: incorrect attribution of credit, which includes leaving out people, misrepresenting the same content as unique in multiple publications, listing people as authors when they haven’t contributed to the published work, and submitting multi-author publications without the approval of all authors.
• The theft of another person’s ideas: collaborating with peers on ideas is a crucial part of academic work. While reading through grant applications and articles, academics can pick up new concepts from other scholars. Fraud, however, may result from the inappropriate use of such data. Misconduct occurs when such material is taken in bulk.
• Generally recognized research practices are broken when there is a significant departure from standard practices in the design or execution of the study, when experiments are improperly conducted to produce biased results, when statistical or analytical manipulations are deceptive, or when results are reported improperly.
• Serious or substantial, persistent, willful violations of applicable local regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials are examples of material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research.
• Unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct, failing to report known or suspected misconduct, withholding or destroying information relevant to a claim of misconduct, and retaliation against those involved in the allegation or investigation are examples of inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct.
• This comprises credentials, experience, or research achievements to further the program, secure outside financing, or pursue other career opportunities.

Responses to Possible Misconduct

A committee led by the editor-in-chief and the chair of the editorial board will look into allegations of misconduct. The committee may also include additional editors and members of the editorial board, as chosen by the chair and editor-in-chief, who have particular knowledge of the subject matter under investigation.

Even if the writers decide not to publish their work, the investigation will still be finished and the comments below will still be taken into account. If reviewers or editors are accused of wrongdoing, they will be replaced during the review process while the situation is looked into. Those who are the target of these accusations will have the chance to refute the accusations and present evidence to back up their claims.

The confidentiality of all such allegations should be maintained, and the number of inquiries and individuals engaged should be limited to what is necessary to accomplish this goal. Any written references to the case should, if at all possible, remain anonymous.

Editors of journals owe it to the public and readers alike to make sure that the research they publish is truthful and upholds the highest ethical standards. Thus, responses should be chosen based on the apparent seriousness of the wrongdoing if an investigation finds a credible likelihood of misconduct. replies can be used singly or in combination, and how they are implemented should be determined by the facts of the situation as well as the institutions’ and parties’ replies. The options below are listed in rough order.

• If there appears to be a sincere and innocent misunderstanding of the rules or procedure, a letter of explanation (and education) should only be written to the individual against whom the complaint is lodged
• A reprimand letter to the same party, if it seems that there was some miscommunication and warning of the potential implications in the future.
• A formal letter including all the analysis and supporting documentation gathered by the journal, forwarding the concerns to the appropriate head of the educational institution and/or financing organization. The purpose of this is to submit the case for official review and judgment by institutions more appropriate than a peer-reviewed journal, in cases when it is thought that genuine misconduct is likely to have happened.
• The same official letter as before, along with a written request to the supervising institution to conduct an investigation and submit a written report of the investigation’s results to the journal.
• Publishing, if applicable (and clearly documented), a notification of redundant or duplicate publication or plagiarism. The authors’ consent will not be needed for such a publishing, and their institution should be informed.
• If an institution is found to have committed misconduct, the publication will be formally withdrew or retracted from the scientific literature, published in the journal and notifying readers and indexing authorities.

If it is discovered that an editor or reviewer has committed scientific misconduct, they should no longer be associated with the journal and their institution should be informed of this.