IJCSNT: Statement of Ethics and Malpractices

International Journal of Communication Systems and Network Technologies (IJCSNT) is peer reviewed journal. This statement of ethical conduct compels all the parties involved in the act of publishing of an article for journal (IJCSNT), which includes behaviour of authors, the editors, the reviewers and the publisher. This statement of ethics is based on the best practice Guidelines for journal editors. The standard for publication exist to ensure high quality scientific publication. The publisher MIR Labs Society^TM follows international code of Conduct for Research Integrity. It is expected that authors should be honest in sending their work to this journal. Research misconduct is always harmful for knowledge and the society at large. It could mislead other researchers and readers. Submission of fabricated, falsified or selective data is considered as unethical. The results must be retained by the authors, which may include codes for reasonable time and to be made available if needed. Publication in peer reviewed journal is basic pillar for development of respected network of knowledge. This reflects quality of work of author and the organisation to which author (s) is associated. Therefore it is an important step to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour.

The journal is committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity in the content published.

This journal has a Conflict of Interest policy in place.

The journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and subscribes to its principles on how to deal with acts of misconduct thereby committing to investigate allegations of misconduct in order to ensure the integrity of research.

The journal may use plagiarism detection software to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.

• Responsibilitis of Editors The Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and Associate Editors; responsible for deciding, which of the articles accepted for publication after undergoing required peer review should be published. The Editor in chief and other editors may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and subject to such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. However, neither the editor in chief nor the associate editor have the authority to influence reviewers who are conducting the review of the articles..


• Fair Play:
  TManuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.


• Confidentiality
  The Editor in Chief, the Associate Editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.


• Authorship
  Credit must be given to those who have made a contribution to the work directly or indirectly. Manuscript should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate. Authors’ name should be given in full with their email address.


• Originality
  The authors must insure that they have submitted original work to this journal. Text from other papers without properly acknowledging the source and the self plagiarism more than the standard limit is also not encouraged. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. However, in review manuscript standard is bit different. This journal accepts 10-15% similarity provided that there is maximum 3% from single source and 5% if it is self paper of same nature.


• Data access and retention:
  Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review and should be prepared to provide public access to such data.


• Multiple Publication:
  Author should not submit a manuscript in multiple publications simultaneously or send redundant results to multiple papers with different titles. This is considered as un-ethical.


• Acknowledgement of sources:
  proper acknowledgement.


• Conflicts of interest:
  All submissions must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflict of interest. Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.


• Hazardous and animal subjects:
  Compliance of various standards and regulations must be followed and described in such publication.
  


• Citation Manipulation
  Submitted manuscripts that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.
  


• Data Fabrication and Falsification
  Submitted manuscripts that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Policies

IJCSNT works in partnership with the research community, librarians, promotors and other stakeholders to develop policies to help our stake holders. Our policies include:

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Acknowledgment of Funding Sources
Sources of funding for the research reported in the article should be duly acknowledged at the end of the article.

Accessibility
Policy to make our products fully accessible to all users, regardless of physical abilities.

Article withdrawal
Policy for article removal or retractions.

Copyright
Outlines authors rights when publishing with Publisher.

CrossMark
Policy to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record.

Custom Publications
Global standards for Health Sciences’ custom publications & commercial activities.

Digital Archive
Policy on the permanent availability and preservation of published content.

Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism is the unethical act of copying someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. Self-plagiarism occurs when an author utilizes large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. This can range from getting the same manuscript published in multiple journals to modifying a previously published manuscript with some new data.

Type of Plagiarism
The following types of plagiarism are considered by IJCSNT:

Full Plagiarism:
IPreviously published content without any changes to the text, idea and grammar is considered as full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one’s own.

Partial Plagiarism:
If content is a mixture from multiple different sources, where the author has extensively rephrased text, then it is known as partial plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism:
When an author reuses complete or portions of their pre-published research, then it is known as self-plagiarism. Complete self-plagiarism is a case when an author republishes their own previously published work in a new journal.

Policy and Action for Plagiarism
IJCSNT respects intellectual property and aims at protecting and promoting original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarized material are against the standards of quality, research and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to IJCSNT are expected to abide ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism, in any form. In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript then, IJCSNT shall contact the author (s) to submit his / her (their) explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the Fact Finding Committee (FFC) constituted for the purpose, for further course of action. If IJCSNT does not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author is affiliated shall be contacted to take strict action against the concerned author. IJCSNT shall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from IJCSNT website and other third party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment, any article published in IJCSNT database is reported to be plagiarized, IJCSNT will constitute a Fact Finding Committee (FFC) to investigate the same. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarized from some previously published work, IJCSNT shall support the original author and manuscript irrespective of the publisher and may take any or all of the following immediate actions or follow the additional course of actions as recommended by the committee:

1. IJCSNT editorial office shall immediately contact the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author(s) is (are) affiliated to take strict action against the concerned author.
2. IJCSNT shall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website and disable all links to full text article. The term Plagiarized Manuscript shall be appended to the published manuscript title.
3. IJCSNT shall disable the author account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 03 / 05 / 10 years or even ban the authors permanently.
4. IJCSNT may also display the list of such authors along with their full contact details on the IJCSNT website.
5. Any other course of action, as recommended by the Committee or as deemed fit for the instant case or as decided by the Editorial Board, from time to time.