Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

 

1. Introduction

At Ianna Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, our commitment to the integrity of our academic content and publishing process is an assurance. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to conduct their research in line with appropriate practices and a good code of conduct of professional relevance or internationally regulated bodies.      

2. Research integrity

We uphold a high standard at Ianna Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. As such, our esteemed contributors from different disciplines/institutions are encouraged to abide by the following principles considerably:   

a. Mental honesty in all aspects of research;

b. Thoroughgoing review, accuracy, and excellence in research practice;

c. Research report communication with heightened transparency and integrity;

d. Respect, care, and protection of all participants in the subject(s) of research.

3. Editorial process

At IJIS, we are committed to guaranteeing an elevated standard in the process through which contents are created and made independent from simple data or information. Our editorial process is interactively synergistic and subjectively high. Our all-inclusive editorial policies are articulated thus:

a. We start a preliminary check process after submission, and the submission can be accepted for peer evaluation only when:

b. The manuscript falls within the scope of the journal requirement(s).

c. Authorship information is well-grounded.

d. The presentation meets our standard of selection.

e. The needful information regarding our research ethics is included in the manuscript.

f. The manuscript is free from plagiarism.

g. When a submission is made to the journal, qualified and worthy reviewers will be contacted to assess it critically.

h. After critically assessing and evaluating reviewers' comments, editors will decide whether to accept or reject the submitted manuscript or require authors to review their manuscripts.

i. After an author’s revision, reviewers are contacted again for a rerun of the review of the manuscript. Adopting this procedure, editors will decide whether to accept or reject the revised manuscript.

j. Nevertheless, if a manuscript is eventually accepted, attention will be paid to layout editing, author proofreading, format conversion, and language structure editing before publication.

4. Peer review

We use double-blind peer review to assess submitted manuscripts.  The journal conducts external peer reviews, and the reviewers are independent of the publisher. At IJIS, we acknowledge the indispensable role of critical assessment in the integrity of the scholarly record. Our ethical publication policies for peer reviewers set out the fundamental principles and standards to which all prominent peer reviewers should adhere during the critical assessment process. Therefore, we have delineated the fundamental principles to which our peer reviewers should adhere as follows:

a. Reviewers should only agree to assess manuscripts that have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper review and that they can assess in a timely manner.

b. Reviewers should ensure the confidentiality of peer review and not disclose any detail of a manuscript or its review during or after the peer-review process except for those that are released by the journal.

c. Reviewers should neither use the details/information obtained during the critical assessment process to the disadvantage of others nor for their own, other persons, or an organisation’s advantage.

d. Reviewers should state all prospective conflicting interests and solicit advice from the journal if they are not sure whether something adds up to a relevant interest or not.

e. Reviewers should not let their reviews to be influenced by the origin of a manuscript, its nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, commercial deliberations, or other characteristics of the authors.

f. Reviewers should be unprejudiced and positive in their reviews, abstaining from being antagonistic or provocative and from making defamatory personal comments.

g. Reviewers should admit that peer review is mainly a reciprocal effort and, hence, endeavour to accomplish their fair share of reviews promptly.  

h. Reviewers should supply the journal with personal and professional information that is precise and truly represents their proficiency.

i. Reviewers should acknowledge that the impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious wrongdoing.

5. Special issue policies

The journal applies the following policies for its special issues:

a. Special issues are optional, and only one will be published per year.

b. The Editor-in-Chief may serve as the editor, or an external Guest Editor or Editors with proven expertise and publication records on the special issue theme will be appointed.

c. The Guest Editor will screen submissions, invite reviewers, coordinate the review process, and make recommendations. The Journal’s Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision to accept or reject a manuscript.

d. Where the Guest Editor(s) share an institutional affiliation with an author, such a Guest Editor will not be involved in the peer review and decision on the manuscript.

e. The review process for special issues follows the same double-blind, rigorous procedure as regular issues.

f.  While a special issue with authors from a single institution is possible, the peer review must follow our standard procedure, and the theme must fall within the journal's scope.

6. Authorship

Any form of scholarly contribution to the development and conclusion of research work has significant academic implications. This suggests that for published works, authorship comes with liability and accountability. Subsequently, in enlisting authors for research work, potential authors must be acquainted with the following:      

a. Individuals with considerable contributions to the conception, design of the work, acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data, and drafting of the work or its revision must be listed as authors.

b. The position of a corresponding author is not superior to that of other authors or collaborators; rather, the corresponding author assumes primary responsibility for communicating with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process.

c. For those individuals whose contributions did not justify authorship (e.g., data collectors, data managers, professional writing assistants, etc.), a short acknowledgement section should be made to highlight their contribution(s) during the research process.

7. Management of Author Affiliation and Contact Information Changes

Purpose and Scope

This policy outlines the procedures and constraints governing requests for changes to author affiliation and contact information (including institutional and email addresses) after a manuscript has been submitted to the journal. The core goal is to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the published scholarly record, specifically by maintaining the affiliation under which the research and writing were initially conducted.

7a. General Policy Statement (Strict Policy)

The institutional affiliation published in the final article must strictly and solely reflect the author's primary affiliation at the time the manuscript was written and finalised for submission. Changes to the primary affiliation due to new employment or relocation after this writing period are not permitted, as they would compromise the historical record of the work's institutional origin.

7b. Affiliation Change Status and Constraints

The allowance for any modification is strictly dependent on the manuscript's current stage of production:

i Stage 1: Pre-Acceptance (Under Review or Revision)

If the submitted affiliation contains a minor error (e.g., department name, street address typo), corrections are permitted. However, a complete change of institution is generally prohibited, as the manuscript's primary affiliation must reflect the institution at the time the manuscript was written.

ii Stage 2: Post-Acceptance / Pre-Proofing

Only minor administrative corrections to the existing affiliation (e.g., correcting a misspelling or department name) are permitted. Any request for a complete change of institution will be rejected. For any correction, the corresponding author must secure explicit written confirmation from all co-authors approving the change.

iii. Stage 3: Post-Proof Approval / Archived Version Lock

Requests to change the primary affiliation or any article metadata at this late stage are strictly prohibited and will be rejected. Once the galley proofs have been approved by the author and the final PDF has been deposited with an external repository (such as Zenodo) and assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), the scholarly record is considered locked and immutable.

7c. Accommodation for Current Affiliation

In the event an author wishes to indicate a change in status that occurred after the manuscript was written, and if the article has not yet been archived with the final DOI, the Editorial Office may consider offering a non-editable footnote. The author may request the inclusion of a "Present Address" or "Current Affiliation" note, which will appear as a footnote on the first page, indicating the author’s current institution without altering the mandatory primary affiliation.

7d.  Management of Corresponding Author Email Changes

Updates to the corresponding author's email address are generally permitted at any stage up to the point of publication. However, the original email address used for the submission system will remain associated with the manuscript record for historical and archival tracking purposes.

8. Plagiarism

We made use of  Turnitin to screen all manuscripts submitted to IJIS. The use of another author’s language, ideas, expressions, and or thoughts as one’s own original work is highly unacceptable. By percentage, at IJIS, the maximum range of acceptability for the originality of a manuscript is  20% and below. Self-plagiarism is also considered an offence. It occurs when an author uses a considerable part of his/her work that has been previously published without referencing or citing properly. It can range from modifying a previously published manuscript to publishing the same one in more than one journal. To solve this problem, authors are advised to do the following:

a. Avoid exact repetition of another person’s work if proper acknowledgement of the author or source cannot be done;

b. Avoid rearranging, rewording, or rephrasing another person’s ideas or work if proper citation of the source cannot be done;

c. Avoid using works or ideas of people from the Internet to make an imitation of online sources;

d. Using the work of other authors as part of one’s own when proper acknowledgement of the author cannot be made should be avoided.

9. Generative AI Use

a. For authors

Authors should note the following before submitting their manuscripts to IJIS:

i. The AI policy of IJIS only refers to the writing stage, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

ii. Authors are not allowed to use AI to generate their manuscripts; they should write them themselves.

iii. Where authors use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, these technologies should only be used to improve the readability and language of the work.

iv. The use of AI technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. The authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

v. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as authors or co-authors or cite AI as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans.

vi. Each (co-) author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authorship requires the ability to approve the final version of the work and agree to its submission.

b. The use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork

i. At IJIS, authors are not allowed to use Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. This may include enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image or figure.

ii. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Image forensics tools or specialised software might be applied to submitted manuscripts to identify suspected image irregularities.

iii: The only exception is if AI or AI-assisted tools are part of the research design or research methods (such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data, for example, in biomedical imaging). If this is done, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section. This should include an explanation of how the AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the image creation or alteration process, as well as the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer.

iv. Authors should adhere to the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure correct content attribution. Where applicable, authors could be asked to provide pre-AI-adjusted versions of images and/or the composite raw images used to create the final submitted versions, for editorial assessment.

v. The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork, such as for graphical abstracts, is not permitted.

vi. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may, in some cases, be allowed if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

c. For reviewers

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal peer review process

i. When a researcher is invited to review another researcher’s paper, the manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Reviewers should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool, as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

ii. This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, reviewers should not upload their peer review reports to an AI tool, even if it is only to improve language and readability.

iii. Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem, and IJIS abides by the highest standards of integrity. Reviewing a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Reviewers should not use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to assist in the scientific review of a paper, as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for peer review are outside of the scope of this technology, and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript.

iv. The reviewer is responsible and accountable for the content of the review report. The IJIS AI author policy states that authors may use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process before submission, provided they improve the language and readability of their paper and are appropriately disclosed.

d. For Editors

i. A submitted manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. IJIS Editors should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights.

ii. This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript, including any notification or decision letters, as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, editors should not upload their letters into an AI tool, even if it is just to improve language and readability.

iii. Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem, and IJIS abides by the highest standards of integrity. Managing the editorial evaluation of a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Editors should not use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to assist in the evaluation or decision-making process of a manuscript as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for this work is outside of the scope of this technology and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The editor is responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision and the communication thereof to the authors.

10. The average number of weeks between article submission & publication

It takes an average of   16 weeks from submission to publication

11. Research with animals or humans     

Research involving animals or humans must be well evaluated and approved by a research ethics committee (IRB) before the study begins. The rights of study subjects and participants to privacy must be respected. In addition, the informed consent of subjects who have consented to participate in research must be obtained. Authors should be reminded that informed consent is not just a form to be signed, but a process in which participants are made aware of their roles, the objectives, and the risks the research poses. 

12. Research involving vulnerable groups

At IJIS, the following must be considered in studies that involve vulnerable groups:

i. For studies involving children (those below 18 years), their parents or guardians must sign a consent form for them to take part in any study.

ii. The vulnerable group and their parents/guardians must be made to understand the full implications of participating in their study.

iii. They must also consent to the publication of the study.

iv. Authors are under an obligation to provide evidence that the above ethical requirements were met.

13. Conflicts of Interest (COI) and funding

At IJIS, one of our esteemed aims is to ensure that our issues are free from immoderate influence. As such, we expect that our authors must make the following declarations:   

i. All financial COI with no time limits.

ii. Relevant non-financial potential COIs.

iii. Libel, defamation, and freedom of expression

We discourage any form of false publication or statements that threaten the reputation of individuals, groups, and organisations. If such a situation arises, our legal team will act appropriately.   

14. Retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern

At IJIS, we encourage retractions, corrections, and expressions of concern for papers published in our journal. A retraction may be initiated by our editors, the author(s) of the documents, or their institution. In rare cases, retraction is accompanied by apologies for the previous error and/or expressions of gratitude to persons who disclosed the error to the author. An expression of concern is also recommended in the same manner as the case with retraction or correction.   

15. Falsification, fabrication, and image manipulation

We concede that the results of data collected or presented as images may be confusing if they are not appropriately modified. In light of this, we advise that authors should be more evaluative when deciding whether to modify data elicited in this form. We have grounds to believe that a painstaking consideration of modifying such images is crucial to preventing falsification, fabrication, or misrepresentation of their results.     

16. Fraudulent research and research misconduct

In a case where we discover fraudulent research and or research misconduct by our author, our feedback will be to collaborate with the relevant editor(s), and other appropriate institutions or organisations for investigation. Any publication that we find to include fraudulent content will be retracted, or an appropriate correction or expression of concern will be issued.

17. Data and supporting evidence

Authors are encouraged to be transparent regarding data coding and reports of the materials used during the research process. Therefore, authors are expected to provide and store accurate data and supporting evidence for their research in a repository or other storage location. The reason for doing this is to enable others to access the data, verify it, understand it, and, with ease, replicate new findings from the data the authors provided.

18. Copyright and License

By submitting manuscripts to IJIS, contributors agree to the following:

a. Copyright on articles published by IJIS  is retained by the author(s).

b. By submitting manuscripts to the journal,  authors grant IJIS a license to publish the articles and identify itself as the original publisher.

c. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely provided that its integrity is sustained and its original authors, citation details, and publisher are clearly identified.

d. Where an author is not allowed to hold the copyright, minor adjustments may be needed to accommodate the peculiarities.  It is mandatory for authors who require such variations to inform the IJIS editorial team after their manuscripts have been accepted.

19. License agreement

In submitting an article to IJIS,  I certify that;

a. My co-authors authorise me to enter into these arrangements.

b. I warrant, on behalf of myself and my co-authors, that:

c. ​​The article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third-party rights. 

d. I am/we are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement in granting rights to IJIS, and IJIS is not in breach of any other obligation;

e. The article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;

f. I/we have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article. To my/our - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge of all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true, and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not, if followed accurately, cause any injury, illness, or damage to the user.

g. I, and all co-authors, agree that the article, if accepted for publication, shall be licensed in line with IJIS policies.  

IMPORTANT

Whether the authors complete a form or not, the license agreement applies to all articles published by the journal. Therefore, authors need to read the license agreement before submitting their manuscripts.

20. Licensing

All articles published by IJIS are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License  (CC BY-NC-SA). Therefore, through the noncommercial use of works published by IJIS, readers can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of our published articles and allow readers to use them for any other lawful purposes. Readers must acknowledge sources accordingly. 

21. Archiving Policy

IJIS  archiving policy covers the following aspects:

a. The journal allows article authors to archive their own articles on their personal website or corporate pages and/or to use the final published version of the article for archiving in an institutional repository after publication.

b. Authors are allowed to self-archive their articles in public and/or commercial subject-based archives.

c. Authors are not subject to an embargo, but the published source should be cited, and a link should be provided to the article's URL in the journal.

d. Authors can download the article as a PDF document and send copies to their colleagues without any embargo.

e. Articles published in our journal are digitally archived on the journal website and PKP Preservation Network (PN), LOCKSS, CLOCKSS pages.

21b. Version Published in the Journal.

21c. Publication Type: Open Access

20d. Distribution and Archiving: PKP Preservation Network (PN), LOCKSS and CLOCKSS

21e. Embargo Period: There is no embargo period.

22. Open Access License: CC BY-NC-SA

23. Copyright Holder: The author(s)

24. Archive Location: Journal website, institutional archive, institutional site, author's personal website, public and/or non-commercial subject-based archives.

25. Policy Conditions: The journal should be cited following the citation and citation standards. It should be linked to the publisher version.

26. The Version  Accepted after peer-review

27. Embargo Period: None

28. Archive Location: Journal website, institutional site, author's personal website, public and/or non-commercial subject-based archives.

29. Copyright Owner: The author (s).

30. The Initial manuscript submitted to the journal

31. Embargo Period: None

32. Archive Location: Journal website, and any other location that is not publicly available to avoid being flagged for plagiarism.  

33. Repository Policy

Authors are allowed to deposit their works in the institutional repository of their choice, depending on the versions of their works. The three versions are explained thus:

34. Submitted Version

Submitted versions should not be deposited in an online repository so that they do not get flagged for plagiarism when our editorial team conducts plagiarism checks.

35. Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript)

Accepted manuscript can be deposited in an institutional or any repository of the author’s choice.

36. Published version (Version of Record)

Accepted manuscripts can be deposited in institutional repositories, the author's personal websites, and public and non-commercial subject-based repositories.

LAST UPDATED: October 2, 2024