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Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. HexaTimes complies with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and abides by its Code of Conduct and aims to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.

Research integrity

Misconduct

Research misconduct is defined in the US Federal Policy on Research Misconduct: “Research misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.” Members of journal publishing teams have an important role to play in addressing potential cases of data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, unethical research, biased reporting, authorship abuse, redundant or duplicate publication, and undeclared conflicts of interest.

Whistle blowing

Allegations of suspected misconduct that have specific, detailed evidence to support the claim should be investigated appropriately, whether they are raised anonymously or by named “whistle-blowers.”

Fabrication, falsification, and image manipulation

Changes to images can create misleading results when research data are collected as images. Thus inappropriate image manipulation is one form of fabrication or falsification that journals can identify. It may, however, be legitimate and even necessary to edit images. For example, the selective enlargement of part of an artwork may be needed to reveal features that would not otherwise be visible, and editing of video data may be needed to protect the privacy of participants. Journal help educate about image manipulation and, where appropriate, might check images. The journals ask authors to declare where manipulations have been made.

Plagiarism

US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) “considers plagiarism to include both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes”. Editors help educate about and prevent plagiarism (as well as redundant or duplicate publication) by screening submitted manuscripts. Journal explains in its instructions to authors how submitted manuscripts are screened for duplicated text and possible plagiarism. CrossCheck is one of the screening services available for this purpose.

Duplicate and redundant publication

Authors must avoid duplicate publication, which is reproducing verbatim content from their other publications. Journal establishes processes to help them avoid duplicate and redundant publication. The Copyright Transfer Agreement, Exclusive License Agreement or the Open Access Agreement, one of which must be submitted before publication in any HexaTimes journals, requires signature from the corresponding author to warrant that the article is an original work, has not been published before, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form.

Text recycling

Journals established a policy about how much, if any, and under what circumstances they consider it acceptable to recycle text and results between articles.

Duplicate submission

Journal is considering how they might detect concurrent or multiple submissions. If concurrent or multiple submissions are detected, the editor should work with their publisher and refer to the COPE flowchart on redundant publication in a submitted manuscript.

Duplicate information published in translations

If the journal translates and publishes material that has been published elsewhere should ensure that it have appropriate permission. It should indicate clearly that the material has been translated and republished, and should identify the original source of the material.

Sanctions

If the journal publishes a retraction, may inform the author’s institution, and may refuse for a time to consider future work from the authors. Before considering sanctions editors must consult with their publisher, particularly for legal advice, and also with the journal owner. Sanctions should be applied consistently and only after careful consideration. Before imposing sanctions, journal should formally define the conditions in which they will apply (and remove) sanctions, and the processes they will use to do this.

Research ethics in journal articles

Human rights, privacy, and confidentiality

For manuscripts reporting medical studies involving human participants, the journal requires authors to provide a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study, and that the study conforms to recognized standards.

Cultures and heritage

Editors should consider any sensitivities when publishing images of objects that might have cultural significance or cause offense (for example, religious texts or historical events).

Registering clinical trials

If the journal publishes clinical trials should make prospective registration a requirement for publication of such trials. Clinical trial registration numbers should be included in all papers that report their results. A suitable statement about this in journal instructions for authors might read: “We require that clinical trials are prospectively registered in a publicly accessible database. Please include the name of the trial register and your clinical trial registration number at the end of your abstract. If your trial is not registered, or was registered retrospectively, please explain the reasons for this.

Animals in research

Journal encourages authors to adhere to animal research reporting standards. If animals are used in the research, journal asks authors to confirm that ethical and legal approval was obtained prior to the start of the study, and state the name of the body giving the approval. Authors should also state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations.

Biosecurity

Journal asks authors to inform it at the time of manuscript submission if their study has potential for both benevolent and malevolent application. This is often referred to as “dual use research.”

Reporting guidelines

Editors encourage authors to follow their discipline’s guidelines for accurate and complete reporting of research. Editors, working with peer reviewers, ensure that authors provide the information readers need to evaluate the methods and results, so that readers can reach their own conclusions.

Editorial standards and processes

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All published work should be attributed to one or more authors. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship by standards that are appropriate for the scholarly community that the journal serves. The journal adopts clear authorship criteria, and explains these criteria in their instructions to authors. The journal requires authors to confirm that they and their co-authors all meet the journal’s criteria for authorship, and that nobody who meets these criteria has been omitted from the list. The journal should consider requesting that authors provide a short description of each author’s contribution in an Acknowledgment.

Authorship disputes

To manage authorship disputes, editors refer to the flowcharts from COPE and “Advice on how to spot authorship problems”.

Funding

Journal requests that authors list all funding sources in an Acknowledgments section. If there is no specific funding this should be stated. The role of the research funder beyond providing funding itself should also be described. It is important to disclose, for example, if a commercial organization funded the study, designed the study, and also recruited the investigators.

Peer review

Journal has clearly defined and communicated policies on the type of peer review used, for example, single-blinded, double-blinded, “open,” or post publication. Editors ask peer reviewers to disclose any conflicts of interest when they respond to an invitation to review and also when they submit their review. Editors ensure confidential handling of manuscripts, with no details being disclosed to anyone except the peer reviewers without the permission of the author. Editors request that invited peer reviewers inform them if they delegate peer review.

Timing of publication

Editors ensure timely peer review and publication and avoid unnecessary delays. Editors consider how best to share information with authors about any delays that occur. Online publication can provide the fastest route to publication and, therefore, to placing peer reviewed research (and other) information in the public domain.

Editors and journal staff as authors

Editors or board members are not involved in editorial decisions about their own scholarly work. Journal established and publish mechanisms and clearly defined policies for handling submissions from editors. Editors and editorial team members are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. These might include relevant financial interests (for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees), or personal, political, or religious interests. Journal editors, board members, and staff who are involved with decisions about publication declare their interests. Journal considers publishing these on their website and updating them as required, as well as disclosing how conflicts of interest were managed for specific papers.

Libel and defamation

Editors are aware to language in both submitted manuscripts and also in peer review reports or correspondence which could give rise to legal action for defamation or negligent misstatement. Such language, which can be directed at corporate entities and associations as well as individuals, are not appear within published articles and must be removed from any peer review report or correspondence that is passed on to the author.

Editorial independence and commercial issues

The relationship between the editor and the journal owner and publisher is set out to be in a formal contract. The journal establishes a mechanism to resolve disputes before one is needed in order to help resolve any disagreements speedily. Journal establishes policies so that editorial decisions cannot be influenced by payment of an open-access-article publication charge or other type of payment made by authors.

Academic debate

Journal encourages correspondence and constructive criticism of the work they publish. If an item of correspondence discusses a specific article, the journal invites the authors of the work to respond before the correspondence is published.

Appeals

Journal established and published a mechanism for authors to appeal editorial decisions, to facilitate genuine appeals, and to discourage repeated or unfounded appeals.

Corrections

Journals should encourage readers and authors to notify them if they find errors, especially errors that could affect the interpretation of data or information presented in an article. When an error is identified, Journal works with authors and their publisher to correct important published errors.

Retractions and expressions of Concern

Retractions is published when errors could affect the interpretation of data or information, or if work is proven to be fraudulent, or in other cases of serious ethical misconduct (for example, duplicate or redundant publication, failure of all authors to agree to publication, or plagiarism). expressions of concern may be published if editors have well-founded concerns or suspicions and feel that readers should be made aware of potentially misleading information.

Withdrawal of articles

The practice of removal, deletion, or obscuring of an article or part of an article is limited to circumstances such as legal infringements, defamation, or other legal limitations; false or inaccurate data, especially those that if acted upon could pose a serious health risk.

Data protection legislation

Journal complies with data protection legislation. Editors who work with HexaTimes journals that have any concerns about data protection should seek advice from HexaTimes.

Copyright and intellectual property

Author is required to sign a copyright agreement of some kind before publication. Some journals ask authors to transfer their copyright to the journal. Others accept an Exclusive License from authors. HexaTimes authors wishing to make their article open access must sign an Open Access Agreement.