Duties of Publisher

Duties and Responsibilities of Publisher

UNIMAS Publisher aims to oversee and promote the sustainability of all journals under UNIMAS. It works with Journal Editor Committee to create relevant journal policy and guidelines. It also promotes a better scholarly communication system for journal management of UNIMAS journals. It assists the publication and indexing of all journal articles.

UNIMAS Publisher ensures that journal editors, authors, reviewers, and other stakeholders adopt best publishing policies and practices.

UNIMAS Publisher will review these journal policies regularly and update the policies when necessary. UNIMAS Publisher appoints Senior Ethics Advisor and panels to advise on publication misconducts, issues related with animal and human ethics, journal policy and guidelines, etc. periodically. If allegations of misconducts are brought to the attentions by journal editors, authors, reviewers, sponsors, or users, UNIMAS Publisher is also responsible for the investigation of any suspected publication misconducts and provides solution of these cases (refer to Section 4.0).

UNIMAS Publisher will also work and collaborate with Senior Ethics Advisor and panels to handle any potential breaches cases of intellectual property, laws and issues related to these.

References:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2016). Code of Conduct. Available at: https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct
Council of Science Editors (2018). White Paper on Publication Ethics. Available at: https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/
European Science Foundation (2011). The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Available at: https://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/Code_Conduct_ResearchIntegrity.pdf
Kassirer, JP (1995). Authorship criteria. Science, 268: 785-786.
Mandal, J, Ponnambath, DK, & Parija, SC. (2016). Ethics of scientific publication. Tropical Parasitology, 6(2): 100-102.
Nature Cell Biology. (2014). Improving author experience. Exploring avenues to optimize the peer-reivew process and improve author experience. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb3081
Natural Research Journals’ Policies on publishing ethics. Available at: https://www.nature.com/authors/policies/publication.html
Nature Nanotechnology (2012). A matter of duty. Corresponding authors should not neglect their responsibility to a journal or their co-authors. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2012.234
PLoS Medicine. Ethical Publishing Practice. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/ethical-publishing-practice
Science Journals: editorial policies. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/authors/science-journals-editorial-policies

Plagiarism and Ethics

Definition of Publication Malpractice or Research Misconduct

UNIMAS Publisher adopts the definition of research misconduct by the United States Public Health Service Policies on Research Misconduct-42 CFR Part 93 (June 2005) as the following:

“Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.

Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, process, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. ”

UNIMAS Publisher also adopts the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and Journal Publisher in COPE in this policy. The roles and responsibilities in publishing are refer to Section 2.0. Departure in publishing practices by the Editors/Reviewers/Authors/Sponsors in this policy will be investigated by UNIMAS Publisher with Senior Ethics Advisor and panels.

Provision for Action

Any research misconduct, complaints, and other related matters should be addressed to the Journal Chief Editor and later reported to UNIMAS Publisher. Authors, reviewers, sponsors, or users can also report an allegation of publication malpractices directly to UNIMAS Publisher.

Journals under UNIMAS Publisher will adopt and follow the Ethical Oversight Flowcharts in COPE’s Core Practices when handling an allegation of any research misconduct/publication malpractice. The flowcharts include step-by-step guideline to handle ethical issues related to redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data in a submitted manuscript or published article, authorship problems, undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript or published article, ethical problem, reviewer misconduct, etc.

The requirements for findings of research misconduct include:

The allegation be proven by compelling evidence for a significant departure in the research work or publication practices
The research misconduct is committed intentionally and/or recklessly

UNIMAS Publisher has primary responsibility for investigating the allegations of publication malpractice/ethical issues/research misconduct. UNIMAS Publisher together with Senior Ethics Advisor and panels (members may include active researchers or scientific expert assessors who are free from bias) will conduct the investigation of an allegation.

For refutations of published articles related to fabricated data or other research misconduct or ethical problem, a copy will be sent to the corresponding authors for signed comments, they will be peer-reviewed, and where possible to the same reviewers. UNIMAS Publisher may bring the attention of research work misconduct to the authors’ institution asking for an investigation to ensure the integrity of the published data.

For clear plagiarism (unattributed used of large portion of text/data) in a submitted manuscript, a copy of evidence will be sent to the corresponding authors for signed comments. If author response is unsatisfactory or guilt admitted, submission will either be rejected or revised. For clear plagiarism in a published article, this will result in either retraction or corrigendum (see Section 4.3).

The respondent has access to all materials related to the allegation, its assessment, investigation, and decision.

The findings and decision of publication malpractice or research misconduct may be appealed by the respondent. An appeal must be filed within 30 days after the decision is made and notified to the respondent.

Post-Investigation

The journal should make amendments or correction of errors for peer-reviewed articles which have been previously published. The amendments can be in the form of erratum (or notification of error made by the journal), corrigendum (or notification of error made by authors), retraction (or notification of departure of research work or invalid work in a previously published article) or addendum (notification of additional information about a published article).

UNIMAS Publisher may impose different types of sanctions to individuals who are found to be involved in serious publication malpractice or research misconduct with compelling evidence. These sanctions range from retraction of articles, prohibition of submitting manuscripts to journals under UNIMAS Publisher, letters of notification to the author’s affiliated institutions, etc.

The reports of the investigation may be made available on UNIMAS Publisher website/journal webpage to inform the scientific community, sponsors, readers, and users. However, the names of individuals found to have committed publication malpractice/research misconduct will be masked or removed from the reports.

References:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2016). COPE’s Core Practices. Ethical Oversight Flowcharts. Available at: https://publicationethics.org/files/Full%20set%20of%20English%20flowcharts_9Nov2016.pdf
Council of Science Editors (2018). White Paper on Publication Ethics. Available at: https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/
European Science Foundation (2011). The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Available at: https://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/Code_Conduct_ResearchIntegrity.pdf
Mandal, J, Ponnambath, DK, & Parija, SC. (2016). Ethics of scientific publication. Tropical Parasitology, 6(2): 100-102.
Natural Research Journals’ Policies on publishing ethics. Available at: https://www.nature.com/authors/policies/publication.html
Publich Health Service Policies on Research Misconduct-42 CFR Part 93 (June 2005). Available at:https://ori.hhs.gov/public-health-service-phs-policies-research-misconduct-%E2%80%93-42-cfr-part-93-%E2%80%93-june-2005
PLoS Medicine. Ethical Publishing Practice. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/ethical-publishing-practice

Copyrights and Permissions

Author License Policy

Authors grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers, and to reproduce, recreate, extract and distribute worldwide in various languages, forms, formats and media. However, the authors can make certain uses of their work for educational purposes (such as presentations, dissertations, lecture notes, etc.) and/or for further dissemination (such as authors’ personal and institution websites and databases, etc.), so long as not for commercial purposes, without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher.

Open Access Articles

All open access articles published in the journal under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA license (Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work is properly cited. Under Creative Commons, authors retain copyright in their articles.

Subscription Articles

For subscription articles published in the journal under UNIMAS Publisher, UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use:

Any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher
Archived materials may only be used for academic research
Archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.
Archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.

References:

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2016). Code of Conduct. Available at: https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct
Council of Science Editors (2018). White Paper on Publication Ethics. Available at: https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/
Natural Research Journals’ Policies on publishing ethics. Available at: https://www.nature.com/authors/policies/publication.html
PLoS Medicine. Ethical Publishing Practice. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/ethical-publishing-practice
Science Journals: editorial policies. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/authors/science-journals-editorial-policies

Editorial Policies

Authorship

An author is a person who has made a substantial contribution to the creation of a manuscript. The following four factors are used to determine authorship:

providing significant contributions to the work's idea or design; or the work's acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; AND
drafting or editing the work critically for substantial intellectual substance; AND
giving final approval of the published version; AND
accepting responsibility for all aspects of the work, including ensuring that any questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, should be thoroughly investigated and resolved.

Acknowledgement

Individuals who contributed to the production of an article but did not meet the criteria for authorship should be recognised. Organisations that provided financial or other types of support should also be recognised accordingly.

Changes in authorship

The adjustments will be made following COPE specifications whenever revisions to the authorship of a manuscript or a published article are required. Only corresponding authors have the authority to request a change in authorship, and they must contact the editor directly.

Submission of Manuscript

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should read the Author Guidelines on the journal website. The manuscript should be formatted following the journal's style and standards.

The authors named on the manuscript should meet the authorship standards outlined above. Each author's contribution should be specified as much as feasible.

Before submission, all authors should approve the final version of the work. When a paper is submitted, it is presumed that all authors have already reviewed the article and have given their approval for it to be submitted.

All authors' contact information, including full names, affiliations and email addresses, should be included in the manuscript.

A conflict of interest declaration should be included in the manuscript.

The manuscript should be submitted via the journal website.

Conflict of interest

All financial/relevant interests that may have influenced the writing of the article should be disclosed by the authors.

Reviewers should state any potential conflicts of interest and, if required, decline to examine any manuscript with which they believe they have a conflict. Editors should also reject any manuscript that has a potential conflict of interest. Manuscripts that fall into this category will be reassigned to other editors.

Confidentiality

A manuscript that has been submitted is considered confidential. The journal will not reveal the submitted manuscript to anyone except those involved in the processing and preparing the manuscript for publication (if accepted), such as editorial staff, corresponding authors, reviewers and editors. In suspected situations of misconduct, however, a manuscript may be disclosed to members of the UNIMAS Journals Ethics Committee and institutions/organisations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.

Misconduct

Misconduct is defined as a violation of this editorial policy, journal policies, publishing ethics, or any applicable ethical guidelines/policies. Any such behaviours that endanger or damage the research/publication process are considered potential misconduct. COPE rules shall be followed in the investigation of suspected occurrences of misconduct.

Correction and retraction of articles

Corrections to a published article may be made with the permission of the journal's editor. The editors will determine the magnitude of the revisions. Minor changes are directly made to the original article. However, in essential corrections, the original article will be published alongside the revised version. Both the original and the modified versions will be linked. The rationale for the significant change to the manuscript will also be announced in a statement. When necessary, articles will be retracted following the COPE guidelines.