Authorship provides credit for a researcher’s papers to a study and carries accountability. Each author is expected to have made substantial papers to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; and to have approved the submitted version; and to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own papers and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.
The corresponding author should be responsible for the following with respect to data and materials: ensuring that data and materials comply with transparency and reproducibility standards of the field and journal; ensuring that original data and materials upon which the submission is based are preserved following best practices in the field so that they are retrievable for reanalysis; confirming that data and materials accurately reflects the original; foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data and materials described in the work.
The corresponding author should also serve as the point of contact for queries about the published paper. It is his/her responsibility to inform all co-authors of any matters arising in relation to the published paper and to ensure such matters are dealt with promptly. Authors of published material have a responsibility to inform the journal immediately if they become aware of any aspects that requires correction.
Any changes to the author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the authors or the deletion or addition of authors, must be approved by every author. The IIETA editors are not responsible for investigating or adjudicating authorship disputes before or after publication. If they cannot be resolved amongst authors, such disagreements should be directed to the relevant institutional authority.
-Duplicate publication
Material submitted to an Forscher journal must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere. If part of a paper that an author wishes to submit to an Forscher journal has appeared or will appear elsewhere, he/she must specify the details in the cover letter at the submission. Consideration by the Forscher journal is possible only if the main result, conclusions, or implications are not apparent from the other work, or if the other work is published in a language other than English. In case of any doubt, authors should seek advice from the editor handling their paper.
If an author is re-using a figure or figures published elsewhere, or that is copyrighted, the author must provide documentation that the previous publisher or copyright holder has given permission for the figure to be re-published. The Forscher editors consider all material in good faith that their journals have full permission to publish every part of the submitted material, including figures.
-Plagiarism
Plagiarism is unacknowledged copying or an attempt to misattribute original authorship, whether of ideas, text or results. Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut-and-pasted without appropriate and unambiguous attribution. Such a paper will not be considered for publication in an Forscher journal. Aside from wholesale verbatim reuse of text, due care must be taken to ensure appropriate attribution and citation when paraphrasing and summarising the work of others.
Text recycling, or reuse of parts of text from an author’s previous research publication, is a form of self-plagiarism. When reusing text, whether from the author’s own publication or that of others, appropriate attribution and citation is necessary to avoid creating a misleading perception of unique paper for the reader.
Duplicate publication occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his/her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from publishing an identical paper in multiple journals, to only adding a small amount of new data to a published paper.
The Forscher journal editors assess all such cases on their individual merits. When plagiarism becomes evident post-publication, the Forscher may correct or retract the original publication depending on the degree of plagiarism, context within the published article and its impact on the overall integrity of the published study.
The Forscher uses CrossRef to screen for unoriginal material. Authors should be aware that their paper may be submitted to CrossRef at any point from submission to publication. Any allegations of plagiarism made to a journal will be investigated. If the allegations appear to be founded, we will request all named authors of the paper to explain the overlapping material. If the explanation is not satisfactory, we will reject the submission, and may also reject future submissions.
-Competing interests
In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgements of potential bias, the Forscher requires authors to declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interests in relation to the work described.
In this policy, competing interests are defined as financial and non-financial interests that could directly undermine, or be perceived to undermine the objectivity, integrity and value of a publication, through a potential influence on the judgements and actions of authors regarding objective data presentation, analysis and interpretation.
The corresponding author is responsible for submitting a competing interests' statement vis the Online submission system on behalf of all authors of the paper. Since the Forscher adopts a double-blind peer review, reviewers will be provided with a minimal statement disclosing the existence of any financial or non-financial interest, to prevent the disclosure of authors’ identities.
-Confidentiality
Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted papers. The peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; identities of reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality of manuscripts. If a reviewer wishes to seek advice from colleagues while assessing a manuscript, the reviewer must consult with the editor and should ensure that confidentiality is maintained and that the names of any such colleagues are provided to the journal with the final report. Regardless of whether a submitted manuscript is eventually published, correspondence with the journal, reviewers’ comments and other confidential material must not be published, disclosed or otherwise publicised without prior written consent. Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. We cannot, however, guarantee to maintain this confidentiality in the face of a successful legal action to disclose identity. The Forscher reserves the right to contact funders, regulatory bodies, journals and the authors’ institutions in cases of suspected research or publishing misconduct.
Open Access
The Forscher journals are open access: all papers will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY).
Complaint Handling
If any of its journal receives a complaint regarding infringement of copyright or other intellectual property rights, authorship, plagiarism, misappropriation of research results, allegations of research errors or fraud, violation of research standards, undisclosed conflicts of interest, reviewer bias, or multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication, the Forscher will investigate the complaint with good faith, and may request the involved parties to substantiate their claims. The editor-in-chief or managing director will determine whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material. A decision not to remove material would be based on the belief that the complaint is without sufficient foundation, or if well founded, that a legal defense or exemption may apply, such as fair use in the case of copyright infringement or truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel. The investigation and decision will be recorded for further reference.
Archiving Policy
This policy sets out the ways in which the authors of Forscher can archive copies of their work on their own web pages, corporate web pages, and various other subject repositories. Forscher is an open access license, articles can be made available immediately according to the terms of their specific Creative Common license. If an author has published an article under an Open Access license, Forscher would encourage author to share the Version of Record on publication as opposed to the Accepted Manuscript. Authors may also reuse the Abstract and Citation information (e.g. Title, Author name, Publication dates) of their article anywhere at any time including social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and Twitter, providing that where possible a link is included back to the article on the Forscher site. Preferably the link should be, or include, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which can be found in the Citation information about the article online. The accepted version may be placed on: the author's personal website and/or the author's company/institutional repository or archive. Self-archiving of the submitted version is not subject to an embargo period.
Peer Review Statement
Once the decision has been made to peer review the paper, the editor who has been assigned the paper will select reviewers. If necessary, he/she will seek advice from editors who have lately handled papers in relevant fields. The reviewers must be independent from the authors and their institutions, able to evaluate the technical aspects of the paper, and available to evaluate the paper within the required period. Each paper will be sent to at least two reviewers.
Copyright Information
The Forscher will hold copyright on all papers once they are published, while the author will maintain all the other rights, including patents and the right to use and reproduce material.
Charges and Fees
The Forscher Journals are free of charge.
Sources
DOAJ: Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, https://doaj.org/bestpractice
COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): Promoting integrity in research publication, http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines