IJCMSR follows guidelines published by Committee on Publication Ethics. All articles submitted to IJCMSR are scrutinised for plagiarism using 2 plagiarism checking softwares (iThenticate and Grammarly) which check for similarity to protect the reputation of our Journal as well as the reputation of genuine authors who transgress without fraudulent intent. Articles which are found to be plagiarised, are rejected, and appropraite action are taken.
However, authors should take the following steps to prevent any charges of ethical misconduct- Make sure that the article is not submitted to multiple journals. Make sure that the submitted article is original. Make sure that the data submitted is authentic. Make sure that images and tables submitted are original and not sourced from the internet. Similarity check software usually cannot check images. So, it becomes more important for the author to take additional steps regarding this issue. Provide citations wherever necessary without fail. Add names of all authors who have contributed significantly to the research. Provide acknowledgment to all others who have assisted in the research but who do not fall under the category of contributing authors. Disclose all sources of funding if relevant. Provide accurate contact details of corresponding author. Openly disclose any conflict of interest by promptly filling and submitting ICMJE Conflict of Interest form along with the article. Fully cooperate with subsequent investigations if any. Action taken if ethical misconduct is found post publication- Investigation is started promptly. A statement of retraction may be issued after following the due process as per COPE guidelines. Institution may be contacted regarding the same. Temporary or permanent ban on author/s depending on the case in question.
Our ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
Duties of Editors
Publication decisions The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Fair play Selected manuscripts are evaluated by editors exclusively on the basis of their merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance and importance to the journal’s scope, without keeping in mind the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation.
Confidentiality No information about submitted will be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial advisers other editors, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest No information present in the unpublished manuscript or disclosed in a submitted manuscript will be used by Editors and editorial board members for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions Peer review helps the editors of the journals in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving and uplifting the standards of their manuscripts.
Promptness Any invited reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research for any reason should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted as soon as possible.
Confidentiality Any manuscripts received for review should be given the importance of utmost confidential documents and must be treated as such. The information contained in them cannot be discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.
Standards of objectivity Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations should be supported with arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. There should not be personal criticism of the authors.
Acknowledgement of sources Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest Any reviewer who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest.
Duties of Authors
Reporting standards Authors reporting original research should present an accurate account of the work performed. All underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Sufficient detail and references should be there to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data access and retention Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper they have submitted for review review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, whenever required. They should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and Plagiarism The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication Articles describing the same results in research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and unacceptable. The publication of some kinds of articles (such as clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.
Authorship criteria All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. The name and order of the authors cannot be changed once the article is provisionally accepted.
Authorship credit should be based only on Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and Final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Authors should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the authors. For a study carried out in a single institute, the number of authors should not exceed six. For a case-report and for a review article, the number of authors should not exceed four. For short communication, the number of authors should not be more than three. A justification should be included, if the number of authors exceeds these limits. Only those who have done substantial work in a particular field can write a review article. A short summary of the work done by the authors (s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript. The journal expects the authors to give post-publication updates on the subject of review. The update should be brief, covering the advances in the field after the publication of article and should be sent as letter to editor, as and when major development occur in the field.
Acknowledgement of sources Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Hazards and human or animal subjects If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If animals or human participants are used in the research, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest Any financial or other substantive conflict of interest must be disclosed in their manuscript that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works It is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper, when authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.
Duties of the Publisher
Handling of unethical publishing behaviour 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. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.
Access to journal content The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.
