Publication Ethics
Copyright: The author is required to sign a copy right form/agreement with SUMERIANZ thereby rendering publication and distribution rights. By this agreement he also retains significant rights to use and share his own published article. All publisher and author rights are mentioned in the copyright form/agreement available here.
SUMERIANZ retains unlimited rights to publish and distribute the published article by this agreement. The copyright/agreement transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprint, translation, photographic reproduction, microform, electronic form (online, offline) or any other reproduction of similar nature.
Article Sharing: After publication, published work can be shared at several platforms. Article sharing assists author to get more citations, audience, visibility and reputation which proves helpful in promoting the author in his professional career. Here are some suggestions that will help you to promote your paper after publication.
1-You can consider search engine optimization and keywords to help readers to discover your article.
2-You can share your paper on press and social media. A sharing option is available on every published article.
3-You may share your article on your personal website or blog.
4-You may share your article on any indexing database or institutional repository.
SUMERIANZ Publication publishes articles open access. All articles are CC-BY licensed. So, you can share articles with anyone, at any platform via any communication channel.
Policies on Article Withdrawal: SUMERIANZ comprehends the significance of scholarly record for researchers and librarians and gives highest importance to maintaining trust in the authority of its electronic archive. After publication, it is necessary that the article must be exactly what it is. But in some cases (RARELY) it comes necessary to withdraw, retract, remove or replace the article. Such cases are not taken very lightly. SUMERIANZ follows some strict specific rules and policies mentioned below.
Article Withdrawal: If an author needs withdraw his article after submission due to some reasons, the editor investigates the matter and reason of withdrawal. The editor proceeds to the withdrawal after investigating the matter. Author can request for withdrawal within one week of submission. The author can withdraw his article after submission or after payment before publication. In case he demands withdrawal after payment, the manuscript may be withdrawn but the publication fee will not be refunded.
Article Retraction:
In case of any infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication.
Article Removal: Legal Limitations:
In an extremely limited case, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk.
Article Replacement:
In case, where an article might pose a serious health risk, the author can replace his article with correct version. In this case we will post a notice and link to the corrected re-published article.
Publication Ethics Statement
To ensure the quality of research, a blind peer review process of the journal is deemed an essential. Hence, it is pertinent for all including the author, the editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals, to follow certain standards of ethics. Sumerianz Publication is committed to ensure the guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and its Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. All journals enlisted in SUMERIANZ ensure COPE’s procedures for dealing with potentially unethical behavior by authors, reviewers or editors. SUMERIANZ editorial staff is well trained recognizing and responding to ethical problems and issues if any.
Duties of the Publisher
Editorial Independence: Editorial decisions are no more taken under any potential for advertising, reprinting or other commercial revenue than quality of research work.
Best Industry Oriented Practice: Best industry oriented practice is top priority of SUMERIANZ. We are always committed to promoting the best practice by offering editors publication ethics advised by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and providing them with Similarity Check reports for all the submissions to our editorial systems.
Technical, Procedural & Legal Support: Editors’ communication with other journals and/or publishers where it is useful to editors is ensured. Specialized legal review and counsel if needed is also provided.
Researchers Training On Publishing Ethics: For beginner researchers, the opportunities for extensive education and advice on publishing ethics are also ensured.
Duties of Editors
Publication Decision: With respect to decisions for the publication process of the concerned journal, the editor of the particular journal is solely and independently authorized. Such decisions are related to the validation of work in question and its importance to the researchers and readers. Hence, the editorial board also supervises the editor in the light of editorial policies. The editor may also be under constraints such as copyright infringements and plagiarism. The editor may counsel other editors or reviewers in taking such decisions.
Peer Review: To ensure fair, unbiased, and timely review process is the sole responsibility of the editor. All research articles must pass through the rigorous process of blind review at least by two reviewers. The editor may seek further opinions if needed.
It is sole responsibility of the editor to ensure suitable expertise in the relevant field while selecting reviewers. He must follow best practice to avoid the selection of fraudulent peer reviewers. The editor shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.
Fair Play: The editor should ensure bias free evaluation of research articles for their intellectual content without any other influence such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Transparency, thorough and honest reporting should be focus of the editorial policies of the journal and the editor should ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. The editor of the journal will use the journal’s standard electronic submission system for all journal communications.
In addition to this, the editor will also establish, along with the publisher, a transparent mechanism for appeal against editorial decisions.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality of all submitted material and all communication with reviewers should be ensured by the editor unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers. The editor may share a little information with editors of other journals where it is pertinent to investigate suspected research misconduct and he may also consult with the publisher in extreme cases. Reviewers’ identities should be kept in secret unless the journal is operating in an open peer review system or the reviewers agree to unfold their identities.
Moreover, the editor cannot use unpublished material of the submitted articles for his own research without the express written consent of the author. He is expected to keep confidential all privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review.
Declaration of Competing Interests: If there is any potential editorial conflicts of interest, they should be communicated to the publisher in writing prior to the appointment of the editor, and then updated if and when any other conflicts arise. Such declarations may be published in the journal.
The research articles written by the editor him/herself or by any member of family or any colleagues must be dealt on merit before publication. Moreover, any such submission must be subject to journal’s usual procedure.
Vigilance over the Published Record: The editor is responsible to safeguard the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing the reported or suspected misconduct regarding research, publication, reviewer and editorial along with the publisher.
The editor is also responsible to take such measures as contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration to the respective complaint or claims made. He may further communicate to the relevant institutions and research bodies too. He will also ensure apt use of the publisher’s systems for the detection of misconduct, such as plagiarism.
An editor, if presented with convincing evidence of misconduct, is also responsible to coordinate with the publisher (and/or society) to arrange the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other correction to the record, as may be relevant.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review an important component of formal scholarly communication, lies at the heart of the scientific method.
Peer review assists the editor in taking editorial and he may also help the author in improving the paper decisions through the editorial communication with the author. Apart from the described and specific ethics-related duties, reviewers are expected usually to observe good reviewing etiquettes and treat authors and their work as they would like to be treated themselves and to observe. If any selected reviewer feels unqualified to review the research article or knows that timely review will be impossible, should communicate to the editor and refuse to participate in the review process.
Confidentiality: The reviewer is expected to observe confidentiality in the review process. Any research article received for review must be dealt as a secret document. The review report or information about the paper should not be shared or communicated with the authors directly without permission from the editor. Discussion with colleagues or co-reviewing exercises may be held, but reviewers should first communicate this with the editor in order to ensure confidentiality.
The reviewers are not allowed to use unpublished materials presented in a submitted research articles for their own research without prior written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gains.
Alertness to Ethical Issues: A reviewer is expected to be vigilant in case of any potential ethical issues in the paper and the same should be brought to the attention of the editor. Potential ethical issues may include any similarity in the disclosed material or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper the reviewer has knowledge about. Any statement or any observation, derivation, or argument that had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
Standards of Objectivity & Competing Interests: Reviewers are expected to maintain objectivity in the review process. Personal criticism of the author is deemed inappropriate. Referees should express their opinions clearly with supporting arguments.
The reviewers should consult the Editor before agreeing to review a paper in case they have potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
If a reviewer suggests that an author includes citations to the reviewer’s work, this must be based on genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of increasing the reviewer’s citation count or enhancing the visibility of their work.
Duties of Authors
Submission: In case of multiple authors, an article should be submitted by one author. Submissions by more than one authors will not be accepted. The submitted paper, or any translation of it, must neither be published, nor be submitted for publication elsewhere. Violations of these rules normally results in an immediate rejection of the submission without further review process.
When a new submission is received, a couple of checks are done at the publisher’s end:
*Initial check of format, completeness, publication status, author’s background, plagiarism check and machine product manuscript checking etc.
Reporting Standards: An accurate account of the work as well as an objective discussion on its importance is required from the author. The authors should present underlying data accurately in the research paper. There should be sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work if desired. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate information constitute unethical behavior and is unbearable in any circumstances.
Data Access and Retention: The reviewers may demand from authors the research/raw data supporting their paper for review process and/or to comply with the open data requirements of the journal. Authors are expected to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should retain such data for a reasonable number of years after publication.
Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources: Originality in the research work is top priority, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, they should ensure appropriate citation and permission should be obtained where necessary. Authors are required to acknowledge the works of others properly. They should cite the publications that have influenced the reported work and that have given the work appropriate context within the larger scholarly record. Information obtained privately, such as face to face conversation, correspondence, or discussion with the third parties, must not be used or disclosed without explicit, written permission from the original source.
Plagiarism: All types of plagiarism, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper to claiming results from others’ research is thoroughly unethical and unacceptable. Such articles will be rejected immediately. All submitted articles must contain original material. An Initial Plagiarism Check is carried out for every manuscript submitted to SUMERIANZ.
Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: The authors are advised to abstain from multiple, redundant and concurrent publication. Manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal of primary publication are taken to be multiple redundant or concurrent. Such practice is deemed unethical and unacceptable. Apart from an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, the author should not submit any research work that has already been published in another journal.
Publication of research (material) such as clinical guidelines and translations in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are fulfilled. The authors and editors of the concerned journals 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.
Confidentiality: Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be utilized without the explicit written permission of the author.
Authorship of the Paper: Authorship is such a privilege as can be enjoyed by those who have made a significant contribution in the research design, execution of the study and interpretation of data of the reported study. All those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors. All others who have rendered their services in certain substantive aspects of the paper such as language editing or medical writing should be recognized in the acknowledgement section.
The corresponding author/ authors are responsible to ensure that all appropriate co-authors have been listed in the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper before its submission for publication.
Authors are expected to consider the list and order of authors carefully before submitting their research articles and provide the definite list of authors at the time of the original submission. The addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been submitted will be executed under the discretionary powers of the editors. Furthermore, all authors must agree with any such addition, deletion transposal or rearrangement.
As authors take collective responsibility for the work, each individual author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are suitably investigated and resolved.
Authors are expected to follow definition of authorship according to the journal they are desirous to submit their research for. Compliance with the policies of the relevant journal is highly laudable.
Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: In case of using hazardous chemicals, procedures or equipment in the research, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the animal or human subjects have been involved to conduct research work, the author should ensure that all procedures were carried out in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. A statement regarding the informed consent for experimentation with human or animal subjects should also be presented with the manuscript.
The author can take help from The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. For animal experiments the author should comply with the ARRIVE guideline, the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedure Act 1986 and associated guidelines, or EU Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, or the U.S. Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Animal Welfare Act.
If the author needs include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in a publication, he/she must ensure consents, permissions and all that is relevant in black and white and the same should be provided to SUMERIANZ on request.
Declaration: The authors are advised to uncover all the financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could have caused any biased influence on their work.
They should disclose all sources of financial support for the conduction of the research and/or preparation of the article, as well as the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. In case of no funding sources, this should be ignored.
Notification of Fundamental Errors: It is sole responsibility of the author to notify the editor if he discovers any significant error or inaccuracy in his published work. Further, he should cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary by the editor. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party about an error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is obligatory for author to cooperate with the editor, including providing evidence to the editor where requested.
Image Integrity: To obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image is unethical and unacceptable. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable and permitted if they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Manipulating images for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes could be seen as unethical and will be dealt with accordingly.
Authors are required to comply with any specific policy for graphical images applied by the relevant journal, e.g. providing the original images as supplementary material with the article, or depositing these in a suitable repository.