Publication Ethics | Diyala Agricultural Sciences Journal

Diyala Agricultural Sciences Journal (DASJ) aims to achieve the highest standards in Publication Ethics. Therefore, it is pertinent to remind all members of the publication process, including Authors, Reviewers and Editors of their responsibility to abide by all the principles of publication ethics, and to illustrate some important points below. The ethical policy of DASJ is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and complies with the DASJ Editorial Board codes of conduct. Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors should follow these ethical policies once working with DASJ. In addition, the ethical policy of DASJ is liable to determine which of the typical research papers or articles submitted to the journal should be published in the concerned issue. For information on this publishing and ethical guidelines, please visit http://publicationethics.org

Allegations of Misconduct

DASJ is very sensitive to research misconduct and uses all means available to prevent publishing miscounted research. Though there is no standard definition of research misconduct, the Council of Editors defines research misconduct broadly in three categories of action and conducts. DASJ uses this definition of the misconduct in its dealing with the issue and follows strictly the COPE follow chart in dealing with research misconduct. In addition, for each component of the research misconduct, DASJ has many assurance policies as follows - Mistreatment of research subjects - Falsification and Fabrication of data - Piracy and Plagiarism.

Falsification and Fabrication of data Fabrication is defined as making up of data without actually collecting or synthesizing scientific data. Falsification is defined as the manipulation of research material in order to reach a favorable result. Fabrication and falsification could happen at any stage of research (in the field) up to the publication of a manuscript where misuse of citation can happen (referencing a citation when the citation does not support the argument). DASJ tries to identify any kind of fabrication or falsification in all levels of manuscript processing, from initial screening to comprehensive evaluation of a revised manuscript and even after a manuscript has been published. Report of any fabrication and falsification is an ethical duty of our authors, co-authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. In any event of falsification or fabrication, DASJ keeps its right to retract or withdraw the fabricated or falsified article. DASJ strictly follows the COPE follow the chart in dealing with fabrication and falsification.
Plagiarism is defined as the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. Another category of plagiarism is self-plagiarism when the author published his own idea, data, and text in different journals when no need for such duplication exists. DASJ uses all means to detect plagiarism. As a matter of quality assurance, a similarity of more than 20% in the text of a manuscript will be returned to the author to remove the similarities and reduce the chance of plagiarism. DASJ strictly follows the COPE follow the chart in dealing with plagiarized articles.
Protection of Animal rights, DASJ does not publish manuscripts that do not declare a statement about the protection of animal rights. Normally, the journal requires that a statement is declared that research has been reviewed by an institutional review board either in the material and methods section of the manuscript or in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript. DASJ encourages authors to report the registry number of the council certification.

Authorship Policy

The following criteria should be considered by authors to be qualified for authorship of a manuscript:

1. Participating significantly to the design of the research work, the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of manuscript data.

2. Drafting or revising the manuscript critically for intellectual content.

3. Approving the final manuscript version for publishing.

4. Agreeing to be responsible for addressing any aspect of the research work.

Anyone who has participated in the research work but does not qualify as an author should be listed in the acknowledgments with his/her approval. Before submitting the manuscript, the list and order of authors should be considered carefully by all authors. One author should be designated by all authors as a corresponding author who will be responsible for all communications between the editor and the other authors. If there is any change such as adding, removing, or rearrangement to the authorship list, it should be requested before acceptance and approved by the Editor-in-Chief. If editors or one of the editorial members are authors or have contributed to a manuscript submitted to the journal, they will be excluded from the publication decisions. Editors of the journal will follow flowcharts from COPE and “How to spot authorship problems” if there is an authorship problem.

Authors duties

The Author(s) should be in compliance with the standards of research ethics and comply with the best practices in publication ethics, especially with regard to plagiarism, authorship, contributorship, competing interests.
The Author(s) should certify that the article is written by the stated Author(s).
The Author(s) should certify that the submitted manuscripts fall within the journal’s scope and is/are prepared according to the standards specified in the Instruction for Authors.
The Author(s) should certify that submitted manuscripts describe the originality of his/their research work. The Authors are responsible for the accuracy and precision of the content.
The Corresponding Author is responsible for providing all necessary information for all Authors of the manuscript. The Corresponding Author should ensure that all Authors agree on its submission and accept the order of their names as Authors.
The Authors should declare that the submitted manuscript is original and has not been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full).
The Authors should attest that any use of other studies is properly documented and referenced. To reproduce pictures and tables from other works, explicit written permission from the author of the original study is necessary.
The Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, the Authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer. Please note that the journal is not obliged to use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.
The Authors are required to accurately acknowledge the funding sources related to the submitted manuscript (written after the Acknowledgments section in the manuscript).
All Authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests during the submission of the article.
If any errors are found in a paper, the Authors should attempt to make necessary corrections and immediately inform the journal.
If Research and Publication Misconduct is detected at any stage of the publication process, the journal has the right to take legal action against violating Authors.

Author identification

Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an manuscript for consideration. ORCID IDs provide a unique and persistent identifier for researchers, ensuring accurate and unambiguous attribution of scholarly works. This helps distinguish authors with similar names and reduces the chances of misidentification.

Institutional Affiliation

Authors typically list their institutional affiliations, such as universities, research institutions, or companies. This information helps readers understand the context of the study. The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where most of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after the publication of the article.

Role of the Corresponding Author

One author is assigned, as the corresponding author acts on behalf of all co-authors. The corresponding author plays a crucial role in the publication process of the academic journal article. This individual serves as the primary contact point between the authorship team and the editorial staff of the journal. Here are the key roles and responsibilities of the corresponding author:

1. Ensuring Author Approval: The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission. This includes obtaining agreement on the content, and order of authorship.

2. Managing Communication: The corresponding author ensures ethical compliance, including obtaining necessary approvals for human or animal studies. Upholding ethical standards is critical, and this condition emphasises the corresponding author's role in obtaining the required approvals and ensuring the research meets ethical guidelines.

Authorship contribution statement

Author contributions refer to the specific roles and responsibilities that each author has played in the research, writing, and preparation of a scholarly manuscript. Documenting author contributions is essential for transparency, accountability, and ensuring that each individual is appropriately credited for their work. Authorship contributions are often outlined in the manuscript itself or in a separate Author Contributions section. Here are some common categories of author contributions:

1. Conceptualization: The development of the initial idea, research question, or hypothesis.

2. Methodology: Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Statistical Analysis.

3. Writing: Draft Preparation, Writing, Review and Editing, Supervision, Funding Acquisition, Project Administration, Visualisation, Resources, and Data Curation

4. Review and Approval: Final review and approval of the manuscript before submission. It is crucial for research teams to collaboratively and transparently define each author's contributions at the beginning of the work. This helps prevent authorship disputes and ensures that each contributor is appropriately acknowledged. This information is typically included in the Author Contributions section after the Acknowledgments section in the manuscript.

Authorship Changes

Authorship changes in a manuscript after the initial submission can be a sensitive matter, and DASJ has specific policies and procedures to address such changes. Here are some common considerations regarding authorship changes:

1. Request for Changes: Any proposed changes to the list of authors, order of authors, or contributions should be communicated to the journal editor of DASJ. This request may come from the corresponding author or other co-authors.

2. Consent of All Authors: DASJ requires the consent of all authors for any proposed changes in authorship. This includes additions, removals, or alterations in the order of authors.

3. Justification: Authors requesting changes are often required to provide a clear and justified explanation for the proposed alterations. This may include detailing the contributions of each author and the reasons for the changes.

Policy for handling post-publication amendments

DASJ is committed to upholding the integrity and accuracy of the publication record. Through Case Resolution team from the DASJ editorial staff work to investigate and resolve research integrity concerns in accordance with Best Practice Guidelines for Research Integrity and Publication Ethics, author guidelines for the DASJ, and the guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We publish a range of post-publication amendments, for different circumstances, as outlined below. These amendments are permanent, accessible and indexable, adhering to the practices and guidance described by COPE recommended practice for the Communication of Retractions, Removals and Expressions of Concern.

Retractions

DASJ publishes retractions in cases where it has been determined that the findings reported in a published research manuscript cannot be relied upon, in accordance with COPE’s Retraction guidelines. https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines

Manuscripts may be retracted in accordance with DASJ policies and COPE’s Retraction guidelines, if:

1. There is major error which would invalidate the conclusions of the manuscript, for example, where there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. misinterpretation, miscalculation or experimental error) or a major conflict of interest which could have affected the interpretation of the manuscript.

2. Where the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication).

3. Where there are ethical issues such as plagiarism (appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit including those obtained through confidential review of others' manuscripts) or manipulation of authorship which could undermine the integrity of the manuscript (COPE discussion document on Authorship).

4. Where unethical research has been reported.

5. Where an investigation uncovers evidence of systematic manipulation of the publishing process.

Withdrawals

Circumstances under which a manuscript may be withdrawn (deleted)

Accepted manuscripts

An Accepted manuscript is the unedited version of a manuscript un published on the Journal's website. It does not constitute the Version of Record as it is not edited and does not yet carry complete bibliographic information. Therefore, when an Accepted manuscript is to be retracted because, for example, it contains errors, has been accidentally submitted twice or any other guideline for retraction, it may be deleted and replaced with a withdrawal notice. Even in the above circumstances, bibliographic information about the deleted manuscript should be retained for the publication record, and an explanation given of the reasons for its removal.

Version of Record

It is DASJ policy to discourage withdrawal (removal) of the Version of Record (a manuscript published). Therefore, withdrawal of the Version of Record is rare, and DASJ will only consider it in exceptional circumstances, such as, but not limited to, the following:

1. Where withdrawal is necessary to preserve the privacy of a research subject.

2. Where there are errors to which a member of the general public might be exposed and if followed or adopted, would pose a significant risk to health.

3. Where a clearly defamatory comment has been made about others in the relevant field or about their work.

4. Where violations of copyright, intellectual property rights, or violation of confidentiality have been identified.

Expressions of Concern

Journal editor/publisher may consider issuing an Expression of Concern if they have serious concerns about a published manuscript and feel that readers should be made aware of them, but do not have sufficient evidence that the manuscript should be retracted. Therefore, Expressions of Concern should only be issued if an investigation into the concerns relating to the manuscript proves conclusive, and if there remain strong indicators that the concerns are valid. On some occasions, an Expression of Concern may be issued where serious concerns have been raised and an investigation is underway, but a final decision may not be available for a considerable time.

Corrections

Articles may be corrected, for instance, if:

1. Important content is incorrect or presented in such a way that the intent of the relevant section of the article is unclear.

2. An error affects the interpretation of data or information presented in the article, but is not significant enough to impact the conclusions.

3. Acknowledgements of funder support or non-author contributors have not been included or declarations related to ethics approval or conflicts of interest need to be added.

4. The manuscript metadata (author list, title, etc.) is wrong, thereby affecting its discoverability on third-party abstracting and indexing sites.

5. Minor copyediting or typesetting errors that do not affect the meaning or interpretation of a manuscript are generally not corrected after publication, nor is content added to an manuscript that is beyond its original scope, such as additional references or updates to the text based on information not available at the manuscript time of publication. The journal’s editor and publisher will determine whether an error is significant enough to merit correction.

6. The format the correction will take will depend on the manuscript stage of publication. For example, for those manuscripts that has been published in Early View-which is the Version of Record before inclusion in issue-corrections may be made directly to the manuscript online.

7. For those manuscripts which have been published in an issue, a corresponding correction statement will be published separately and linked to the original manuscript. In these cases, the changes are usually not made directly to the online manuscript. We encourage authors to use this Correction Template when drafting a corrections statement for an article published in an issue.

Peer Review Policy

1. The DASJ uses a rigorous double-blind peer review process to verify the quality and integrity of the articles it publishes. Upon submission, the editorial team performs an initial assessment of each manuscript to assess its suitability for the journal and adherence to the submission requirements.

2. Submissions that meet the journal's criteria are then sent out for peer review by experts in the field. Reviewers are selected for their expertise and independence, and they provide valuable feedback to the authors to enhance the quality and clarity of their manuscripts.

3. After receiving comments from reviewers, the editorial staff decides whether to revise of the manuscript and accept, or reject it. Authors are given the option to respond to reviewers' suggestions and modify their manuscripts accordingly.

4. DASJ is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity and transparency in its peer review process, assuring the reliability and credibility of the manuscripts it publishes.

Reviewer duties

Reviewer should not review a manuscript with which he/she has principal disagreement that may affect the fairness of his/her decision. A Reviewer should not accept reviewing manuscript(s) whenever there is a conflict of interests between the Reviewer and Author or institutions they represent or have personal relations. A Reviewer should not accept reviewing manuscript(s) to which he/she contributed either in writing, giving ideas, acquiring experimental evidence, analysis etc.
Reviews of the manuscript should be based on scientific argumentation, free from emotions and personal, racial, religious or other preferences. Reviewer is to point out strong and weak point(s) of the manuscript and suggest solutions for revision of the manuscript.
A Reviewer should keep all the information in the manuscript confidential and must not disclose its content to others. Before publication of the manuscript, the reviewer must not use its ideas for or against his own or other studies, or to criticize the author. After publication, the reviewer must not reveal his/her dispute with the author beyond what is presented in the journal.
Any case of Research and Publication Misconduct detected by a Reviewer should be immediately reported to the Editor-in-Chief and supported by sending the related documents.
A Reviewer is not allowed to commission his/her task to anyone such as his/her assistant or graduate student without written permission from the Editor-in-Chief. Anyone assisting in reviewing the article should be mentioned in the review report and the journal documents.
A Reviewer is not permitted to contact the author(s) of the reviewed paper unless it is made through the Editorial Office.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Peer reviewers and editors should not use generative AI to create their assessments, due to risks such as breaches of confidentiality, superficial and non-specific feedback, bias, hidden prompts, and false information such as fake references; editing and rewriting may be acceptable if disclosed.
Use of automated tools should be overseen by humans (human in the loop).

Editor-in-Chief and Editors’ duties

The Editor-in-Chief has the responsibility and authority to approve or reject the submitted manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief may delegate this responsibility to the Associate Editor.
The Editor-in-Chief and Editors are required to check all submitted manuscripts.
The Editor-in-Chief and Editors appoint reviewers based on their competence, scientific and professional experience, as well as ethical commitment.
The Editor-in-Chief and Editors should take care to avoid any conflict of interests in the reviewing process to exclude any personal, business, academic and financial relations which may bias the decision about the publication of the submitted manuscript.
The Editor-in-Chief accepts or rejects a manuscript after evaluating the revised manuscript based on reviewers' reports and decisions.
The Editor-in-Chief uses his/her judgment as to whether to accept or reject a manuscript with the Editorial Board members or Editors.
The Editor-in-Chief and Editors should keep all the information in the manuscript confidential and are not allowed to disclose its content to others. Before publication of the manuscript, the Editor-in-Chief and Editors are not allowed to use their own ideas for or against his own or other studies, or to criticize the author.
The Editor-in-Chief should seriously treat any allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct concerning a manuscript submitted to the journal at any stage of the review process or one that has already been published in the journal. The allegations should be initially assessed and the accused authors should be provided a chance to respond.
If Research and Publication Misconduct is found to be well documented the Editor-in-Chief should act to immediately stop the publication process or if the manuscript has already been published to remove it from open space, inform the readers and the data bases where the paper is indexed. The Editor-in-Chief is expected to start the legal procedure against author(s) who perpetrated the misconduct.
The Editors are responsible for checking if a submitted manuscript is prepared according to the Instructions for Authors.
The Editors are required to make sound editorial decisions within a reasonable period of time and communicate them in a clear and constructive manner.