Ethics and Malpractices
For Authors
1) All the instruction provided in the “Guidelines to Authors” are read and followed carefully.
2) The manuscript is original research and all authors have contributed to the research.
3) All authors have seen the final manuscript and agreed on sending it to be considered for publication to the IUGNS journal.
4) The manuscript has not been published and is not being submitted or considered for publication elsewhere.
5) The text, Figures, and any other materials included in the manuscript do not violate any existing copyright or other rights of anyone.
6) The Author transfers all financial rights, especially processing, reproduction, representation, printing, distribution, and online transmittal, to the IUG with no limitation whatsoever.
7) However, reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material contained therein, a citation to IUGNS should be done.
8) The authors retains the right of any patent related to the published material. He can reproduce part of the manuscript in future books, lecture notes, etc.
9) References should be cited in the main text. The full references should be given in the style given in the template.
10) Similarity index (Turnitin result) should be lower than the permitted threshold (25%). Submissions exceeding 25% score are generally returned to authors. Similarity reports with more than 50% scores, even in a single submission, may cause a ban from the journal and the authors’ future submissions may not be considered for publication.
11) All authors participated in the work in a substantive way and are prepared to take public responsibility for the work.
12) All authors of the manuscript are responsible for its content; they must have agreed to its publication and have given the corresponding author the authority to act on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication.
13) The corresponding author is responsible for informing the co-authors of the manuscript status throughout the submission, review, and production process.
14) All authors are held responsible over the authenticity and corrections of the results provided in the paper.
15) All persons contributing to the paper but not meeting authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. All financial and material support for the research and the work should be clearly and completely identified in the Acknowledgment.
16) All authors must reveal any current or previous relationships held by the author with any organization or entity having a direct financial or personal interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript.
17) Any claim of misconduct should be dealt seriously from all authors and the corresponding author on their behalf should respond within one week to any allegation either in the review process or after the final publication.
18) In case of fabrication of data, falsification of data, plagiarism and/or redundancy of publication are proven, all authors can be banned from contributing in any future issue in the journal. The Editor have the right to report this misconduct to affiliated author organizations.
19) If the manuscript with proven misconduct is under review, it will be rejected. If it has been published, the manuscript will be retracted.
For reviewers
1) All papers submitted to the IUG Journal of Natural Studies (IUGNS) will go through peer review prior to acceptance for publication. The main aim of the review process is to guarantee papers are original, with significant contribution, and well presented. We appreciate the work of our reviewers and recognize that you are very busy and dedicated people.
2) Your review should be objective; please do not make comments that considered as offensive about the paper or the authors.
3) All reviews are double-blind. If you choose to attach a document to the review form please make sure that any reference to your name is removed.
4) Please do not disseminate the research or findings of the papers you review in any way as paper should be treated as confidential.
5) Please report any conflict of interests if any. Please contact us immediately if you are in direct competition with the authors or you have been or are currently a co-worker or collaborator with any of the authors
6) Papers submitted to the IUGNS Journals be an original work and not previously published or under consideration by another journal. Please inform the editorial office if you believe there is a violation to this rule.
7) The editors are particularly thankful when reviewers raise the attention to papers in which proper reference has not been made to papers that are closely related.
8) Reviewers should judge if the reference list is comprehensive. Any suggestions to add new papers should be justified properly. Forcing the author to add the reviewer paper as references is not preferred. Self-promoting of reviewer papers without a proper justification is not tolerated by the Editorial office.
9) Plagiarism, and copy right violation should be reported to the Editor if they are found by the reviewer.
10) Reviewers are asked to consider whether the author presents the material logically, in clear and direct English, and in as concise a manner as possible. Figures should be labelled and referred to in the paper text.
11) In order to keep the review process timely, please decline the review if you don’t have the time to finish it during two weeks. If you accept to review, please try to finish the review before the deadline.
12) If there is sufficient agreement between the reviewers, the editor will make one of the following decisions:
- The paper is accepted as it is.
- The paper is accepted subject to minor revisions being made.
- The paper is accepted subject to major revisions being made
- The authors are invited to make a significant rewriting of the paper and resubmit it as a new submission.
- The paper is rejected outright.
13) 13. If the authors are asked to improve or modify their paper, the editor may return the paper to the original reviewers.
Editorial Board ethics and practices
- The Editor should give an initial screening to the paper quality and whether the author presents the material logically, in clear and direct English, and in as concise a manner as possible.
- The paper will be checked for similarity using Turnitin software. Any paper with 25% or higher similarity will be returned directly to the Author (s).
- If part of the paper is published in a conference. The Author(s) should have the conference paper as a reference and state clearly what is the new contribution.
- Paper from student thesis can be accepted in two conditions: (i) The thesis and/or the paper is not published as peer-reviewed book/manuscript, and (ii) the thesis is cited in the paper.
- All reviews are double-blind. Any indications of the author names should be removed before the paper is sent for review.
- Please do not disseminate the research or findings of the papers you handle in any way as paper should be treated as confidential.
- Please report any conflict of interests if any. Please report to the Editor in Chief (EIC) immediately if you are in direct competition with the authors or you have been or are currently a co-worker or collaborator with any of the authors.
- Papers submitted to the IUGNS Journals should be an original work and not previously published or under consideration by another journal. The Editor should withdraw any paper that violates this role.
- Any reviewer who violates the guidelines provided in the “guidelines of reviewers” should be given a proper warning. If the violation is repeated, the reviewer should be barred forever.
10. Any claim of authors’ misconduct reported by any reviewer should be treated seriously. A full investigation should be done. If a grief misconduct is reported the paper may be withdrawn and the author should be warned or banned from publishing in the journal.
11. If a claim of misconduct is raised for an already published paper, the Editor should investigate the claim seriously. He may contact the author(s) if needed. If a grief misconduct is reported the paper may be withdrawn and the author should be warned or banned from publishing in the journal.
12. If the author(s) violate(s) the guideline provided in the “Guidelines to Authors”. The Editor can either warn or ban the authors from publishing in any future issue of the IUGNS Journals.
- The Editor should keep the revision process follow a strict time-line. A reminder should be sent for the reviewer after two weeks of receiving the paper. If the three weeks periods is over before the reviewer send his review, he/she should be replaced.
- If there is sufficient agreement between the reviewers, the editor will make one of the following decisions:
- The paper is accepted as it is.
- The paper is accepted subject to minor revisions being made
- The paper is accepted subject to major revisions being made
- The authors are invited to make a significant rewriting of the paper and resubmit it as a new submission
- The paper is rejected outright