Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Publication Ethics: Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences (JEBAS)  strives to follow the Principles and guidelines of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as recommended by COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION ETHICS (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) and other relevant international bodies/agencies such as ELSEVIER Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) (Content Policy and Selection Guide).

Any allegations of violation to these guidelines are thoroughly investigated by a team of executive board of JEBAS with a logical conclusion. The journal has a policy of publishing such cases under ANNOUNCEMENT section for the benefit of international researchers/readers.

Publication Ethics for Authors

Authorship Criteria Authorship credit should be based on the substantial contribution in conducting the study. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor to the study and preparation of the manuscript. Once the manuscript submitted, the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors.

COPE Recommendation for Changes in authorship issues

• Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication
• Corresponding author requests removal of author before publication
• Request for addition of extra author after publication
• Request for removal of author after publication
• Recommendation against suspect ghost, guest or gift authorship

COPE Recommendation for suspect redundant (duplicate) publication

• Suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript
• Suspected redundant publication in a published manuscript

Conflicts of interest and financial disclosures Conflicts may be financial, academic, commercial, political or personal. Financial interests may include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock or share ownership, patents, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, non financial support, or any fiduciary interest in a company. When any author(s) has such type of financial or personal obligation, it is required to mention such potential conflict of interest along with financial interests and related affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) relevant to the subject of their manuscript. For all accepted manuscripts, author must declare such conflicts of interest at the end of the manuscript before the manuscript publish. Author without a conflict of interest should include a statement that no such conflicts exist.

COPE Recommendation for Conflict of Interest  

• Undisclosed conflict of interest (Col) in a submitted manuscript
• Undisclosed conflict of interest (CoI) in a published article

Funding / Support and Role of sponsor

All the author(s) who have received financial assistance for carried out research work and publication should be described clearly in an Acknowledgment section of the manuscript.
 

Data access and responsibility

Regardless of funding source for any manuscript containing original data, corresponding author must indicate in acknowledgement section that he/ she “had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis”. Modified statements or generic statements indicating that all authors had such access are not acceptable.
 

Acknowledgment section

The acknowledge section should be at the end of the manuscript text but before the reference section. It should includes the list of contributor(s), information on author access to data, conflicts of interest including financial interests and relationships, sources of funding and support like information’s. Authors should obtain written permission from all individuals whose names included in the Acknowledgment section and the corresponding author must confirm that such permission has been obtained in the Authorship Form.

Plagiarism
Author should make clear that manuscripts submitted to the journal for consideration of publication should not be previously publish anywhere either in print or electronic format. Submitted manuscript should not be under consideration by another publication or electronic medium. Copies of related or possibly duplicate materials (i.e. those containing substantially similar content or using the similar data) that have been previously published or are under consideration elsewhere are coming in the plagiarism and such manuscript will be rejected on the first step of publication.

COPE Recommendation for Plagiarism  

• Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript
• Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript

Ethical approval of studies and informed consent
For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants or animals, formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required. For investigations involving humans, state in the Methods section whatever oral or written informed consent was obtained from the study participants. Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study. 

Ethics for Editor/Editorial Members

The role of Editorial board is most important in publication process, Editor in Chief and members of editorial board is deciding that which article should publish or which should
not accept for publication. In Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences this decision of publication is exclusively based on the academic merits of the evaluated
manuscripts. Member of JEBAS editorial should follow below mentioned ethical guideline.

• Editor should strictly follow the guide line of IPR and should not use submitted unpublished information for their personal benefits without author consent.

•  Editor decision on manuscripts should be strictly based on the scientific contents and its merits and it should not be influenced by the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
•  Any manuscript received by editorial member must be treated as confidential documents and editorial members should not discuss or disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author or its authorized person.The idea or information obtained during the processing of manuscripts must be kept confidential and should not be used for personal benefits. Editor should not consider any manuscript in which they have conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Under such condition editor should declare conflict of interest.
• The idea or information obtained during the processing of manuscripts must be kept confidential and should not be used for personal benefits. Editor should not consider any manuscript in which they have conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Under such condition editor should declare conflict of interest.

• Editor should take misconduct seriously especially when ethical complaints have been received regarding the breach of confidentiality, plagiarism, non-declaration of conflicts of interest or financial discloser, or inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage.

Guide line for Reviewers

All the reviewers are requested that before accepting to review a manuscript they should ensure the following:

i. The manuscript is within their area of expertise.

ii. They can dedicate the appropriate time to conduct a critical review of the manuscript.

• All the reviewers should declare their conflict of interest and can decline the review if conflicts exist.
• The Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences follow the blind review process so the manuscript and the review process should remain confidential during and after the review process. Reviewers should ensure it on their part.
• Review of a manuscript should be fair so reviews should be honest and should not influenced by:-

i. The origin of the manuscript

ii. Religious, political or cultural viewpoint of the author

iii. Gender, race, ethnicity or citizenry of the author

• In evaluating a manuscript, reviewers should focus on the criteria decided by Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural.
• Reviewers should only accept manuscript that they are confident that they can dedicate appropriate time in reviewing. Thus, reviewers should review and return manuscripts in a timely manner.