Ethical Guidelines

Ethical Guidelines for the Author(s)

The following ethical guidelines are obligatory for all author(s) violation of which may result in application of penalties by the editor, including but not limited to the suspension or revocation of publishing privileges.

Reporting Standards

• It is the author(s)' responsibility to ensure that the research report and data contain adequate detail and references to the sources of information in order to allow others to reproduce the results.
  • Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are
  unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

• It is the author(s)' responsibility to ascertain that s/he has submitted an entirely original work, giving due credit, by virtue of proper citations, to the works and/or words of others where they have been used.
• Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is not acceptable.
  • Material quoted verbatim from the author(s)' previously published work or other sources
  must be placed in quotation marks.
• As per HEC’s policy, in case the manuscript has a similarity index of more than 19%, it will either be rejected or left at the discretion of the Editorial Board for the purposes of a conditional acceptance.

Declaration
• Authors are required to provide an undertaking / declaration stating that the manuscript under consideration contains solely their original work that is not under consideration for publishing in any other journal in any form.

• Authors may submit a manuscript previously published in abstracted form, for e.g. in the proceedings of an annual meeting, or in a periodical with limited circulation and availability such as reports by the Government agencies or a University.
• A manuscript that is co-authored must be accompanied by an undertaking explicitly stating that each author has contributed substantially towards the preparation of the manuscript in order to claim right to authorship.
• It is the responsibility of the corresponding author that s/he has ensured that all those who have substantially contributed in the manuscripts have been included in the author list and they have agreed to the order of authorship.

Multiple, Redundant and Current Publication

• Authors should not submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal or publication except if is a re-submission of a rejected or withdrawn manuscript.
  • Authors may re-publish previously conducted research that has been substantially altered or corrected using more meticulous analysis or by adding more data.
• The authors and editor must agree to the secondary publication, which must cite the primary references and reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document.
  • Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources

• A paper must always contain proper acknowledgment of the work of others, including clear indications of the sources of all information quoted or offered, except what is common knowledge.
  • The author(s) must also acknowledge the contributions of people, organizations and institutes who assisted the process of research, including those who provided technical help, writing assistance or financial funding (in the acknowledgement).
• It is duty of the author(s) to conduct a literature review and properly cite the original publications that describe closely related work.

Authorship Credit

• Authorship of the work may only be credited to those who have made a noteworthy contribution in conceptualization, design, conducting, data analysis and writing up of the manuscript.
  • It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to include the name(s) of only those coauthors who have made significant contributions to the work.
• The corresponding author should ensure that all co- authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspect of the research should be acknowledged for their contribution in an "Acknowledgement" section.

Privacy of Participants

• Authors must respect the privacy of the participant of research and must not use any information obtained from them without their informed consent.
• Authors should ensure that only information that improves understanding of the study is shared.
  • Authors must ensure that in instances where the identity of the participant needs to be revealed in the study, explicit and informed consent of the concerned party is obtained.
  • In the case of the demise of a participant, consent must be obtained from the family of the deceased.

Data Access and Retention

• If any question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review
  process, the author(s) should provide raw data to the Editor.

Images
• The author(s) should ensure that images included in an account of research performed or in the data collection as part of the research are free from manipulation,

• The author(s) must provide an accurate description of how the images were generated and
  produced.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

• The potential and relevant competing financial, personal, social or other interest of all author(s) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the manuscript must be conveyed to the editor.
• The author(s) should disclose any potential conflict of interest at the earliest possible stage
  including but not limited to employment, consultancies, honoraria, patent applications/registrations, grants or other funding.
• All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed alongside a brief overview of the role played, if any by the responses during various stages of the research.

Copyright
Authors may have to sign an agreement allowing the journal to reserve the right to circulate the article and all other derivative works such as translations.

Manuscript Acceptance and Rejection

• The review period can last between 1-2 months or longer and during this period the author(s)
  reserve the right to contact the Editor to ask about status of the review.
  • Once the review process has been completed, the author will be informed about the status of the manuscript which could either be an acceptance, rejection or revisions. In the case of rejection, the author(s) reserves the right to publish the article elsewhere.
• In case of revisions, the author(s) must provide an exposition of all corrections made in the manuscript and the revised manuscript should, then, go through the process of affirmation of revisions and be accepted or rejected accordingly.
• In case of dissatisfaction over the decision of rejection, the author can appeal the decision by contacting the Editor.

Ethical Guidelines For the Reviewers

Preamble:
Review of the manuscript by reviewers is not only an essential component of formal scholarly engagement, but is also a fundamental step in the publication process as it aids Editor in the editorial decision making. It also allows author(s) improve their manuscript through editorial communications. Scholars accepting to review a research paper have an ethical responsibility to complete this assignment professionally. The quality, credibility and reputation of a journal also depend on the peer review process. The peer review process depends on the trust, and demands that a reviewer is supposed to fulfill ethically. These professionals are the momentum arm of the review process, but they may be performing this job without any formal training. As a consequence, they may be (especially young professionals) unaware of their ethical obligations. The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan wants to list down 'Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers' so that all reviewers provide their valuable services in a standardized manner.

Suitability and Promptness

The Reviewers should:

• Inform the Editor, if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review and s/he should inform the Editor immediately after receiving a request.
• Be responsible to act promptly and submit review report on time.
• Immediately inform the Editor of any possible delays and suggest another date of submission for a review report, and
• Not unnecessarily delay the review process, either by prolonged delay in submission of their review or by requesting unnecessary additional data/information from the Editor or author(s).

Standards of Objectivity

• The reviews should be objectively carried out with a consideration of high academic, scholarly and scientific standards.
• All judgments should be meticulously established and maintained in order to ensure the full comprehension of the reviewer's comments by the editors and the author(s).
• Both reviewers and author(s) in rebuttal should avoid unsupported assertions.
• The reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript but it would be inappropriate to resort to personal
  criticism on the author(s), and
• The reviewers should ensure that their decision is purely based on the quality of the research paper and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual bias.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

• A reviewer should not, for the purpose of his/her own research, use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript, without the approval of the Editor.
• The data included in the research paper is confidential and the reviewer shall not be allowed to use if for his/her personal study.
• A reviewer must declare any potentially conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious). In such situation, s/he will be required to follow the journal's policies.
• A reviewer should be honest enough to declare conflicts of interest, if, the research paper under review is the same as to his/her presently conducted study.
• If the reviewer feels unqualified to separate his/her bias, s/he should immediately return the manuscript to the Editor without review, and justify to him/her about the situation.

Confidentiality
• Reviewers should consider the research paper as a confidential document and must not discuss its content on any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the Editor, and

• Reviewers are professionally and ethically bound not to disclose the details of any research paper prior to its publication without the prior approval of the Editor.

Ethical Considerations

• If the reviewer suspects that the research paper is almost the same as someone else's work, s/he will ethically inform the Editor and provide its citation as a reference.
• If the reviewer suspects that results in the research paper to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, s/he will share it with the Editor,
• If there has been an indication of violating ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, female, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc.), then this should be identified to the Editor, and
• If the research paper is based on any previous research study or is replica of an earlier work, or the work is plagiarized for e.g. the author has not acknowledged/referenced others' work appropriately, then this should be brought in the Editor's knowledge.

Originality
For evaluating originality, the reviewers should consider the following elements:
■ Does the research paper add to existing knowledge?

■ Are the research questions and/or hypotheses in line with the objective of the research work?

Structure
If the layout and format of the paper is not according to the prescribed version, the reviewers should discuss it with the Editor or should include this observation in their review report. On the other hand, if the research paper is exceptionally well written, the reviewer may overlook the formatting issues. At other times, the reviewers may suggest restructuring the paper before publication. The following elements should be carefully evaluated:

■ If there is serious problem of language or expression and the reviewer gets the impression that the research paper does not fulfill linguistic requirements and readers would face difficulties reading and comprehending the paper. The reviewer should record this deficiency in his/her report and suggest the editor to make its proper editing. Such a situation may arise when the author(s)’ native language is not English.

■ Whether the data presented in the paper is original or reproduced from previously conducted or published work. The papers which reflect originality should be given preference for publication.

■ The clarity of illustrations including photographs, models, charts, images and figures is essential to note. If there is duplication then it should be reported in the review report. Similarly, descriptions provided in the “Results” section should correspond with the data presented in tables/figures, if not then it should be clearly listed in the review report.

■ Critically review the statistical analysis of the data. Also check the rational and appropriateness of the specific analysis.

■ The reviewers should read the “Methodology” section in detail and make sure that the author(s) has demonstrated the understanding of the procedures being used and presented in the manuscript.

■ The relationship between “Data, Findings and Discussion” requires a thorough evaluation
thoroughly. Unnecessary conjecture or unfounded conclusions that are not based on the presented data are not acceptable.

■ Further questions to be addressed are whether: the organization of the research paper is
appropriate or deviates from the standard or prescribed format?

■ Does the author(s) follow the guidelines prescribed by the journal for preparation and submission of the manuscript?

■ Is the research paper free from typographical errors?

Review Report

• The reviewer must explicitly write his/her observations in the section of 'comments' because
  author(s) will only have access to the comments reviewers have made,
• For writing a review report, the reviewers are requested to complete a prescribed form (s).
  • It is helpful for both the Editor and author(s) if the reviewer writes a brief summary in the first section of the review report. This summary should comprise the reviewer's final decision and inferences drawn from a full review.
• Any personal comments on author(s) should be avoided and final remarks should be written in a courteous and positive manner,
• Indicating any deficiencies is important. For the understanding of the Editor and author(s), the reviewers should highlight these deficiencies in some detail with specificity. This should help justify the comments made by the reviewer,
• When a reviewer makes a decision regarding the research paper, it should be clearly indicated as 'Reject', 'Accept without revision', or 'Need Revision' and either of the decisions should have justification.
  • The reviewers should indicate the revisions clearly and comprehensively, and show
  willingness to confirm the revisions submitted by the author(s), if Editor wishes so, and
  • The final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) will solely
  rest with the Editor and it is not a reviewer's job to take part in this decision. The editor
  will surely consider reviewer's comments and have a right to send the paper for another
  opinion or send it back to the author(s) for revision before making the final decision.