Publication Ethics

Ethics Statement

IAFOR aims to ensure that best practice and ethical standards are maintained by journal editors, authors and reviewers. IAFOR editors and reviewers are required to assess manuscripts fairly and maintain confidentiality. Authors must ensure that research submitted to IAFOR journals is their own original work and is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere.

The IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines.


Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Editors and editorial board members/reviewers will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering 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. In the event that this kind of conflict arises, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to publish are not determined by any policies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and its publication.

Authors too must disclose any conflicts of interest that could be considered as influencing the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. This information should be provided on submission.


Authorship

Only persons who meet proper authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication.

Those who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list and verify that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication

Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and unacceptable.

Disclosure / Conflicts of interest

Authors should, at time of initial submission, disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Some examples of potential conflicts that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed.

Elemental errors in published works

Should authors discover significant errors/inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper.

If it is leart from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.


Plagiarism

Manuscript submissions are checked with iThenticate anti-plagiarism software for exact or near-exact matches in the public domain to satisfy the Editor that the submitted manuscript has not been plagiarised. However, when authors submit their manuscripts for consideration in the Journal, they declare that their work is not plagiarised. While the Editor makes reasonable efforts to determine the academic integrity of papers published in the Journal, ultimate responsibility for the originality of submitted manuscripts thus lies with the author.

Plagiarism takes place when one author deliberately uses another’s work without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Authors must always remember that crediting the work of others (including your advisor’s or your own previous work) is paramount. Authors should always place their work in the context of the advancement of the field, and acknowledge the findings of others on which you have built your research.


Publication Malpractice Statement

Concerned with the increase of plagiarism, fraud and misconduct in academic publishing, the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Advisory Board of the IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies officially endorse the position statements for editors and authors developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010 (Kleinert & Wager, 2011), notably the following statements:

  • Editors are accountable and should take responsibility for everything they publish
  • Editors should make fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process
  • Editors should adopt editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting
  • Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct
  • Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct.

As to authors:

  • The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation
  • Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation
  • Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others
  • Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere
  • Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work
  • The manuscript must contain nothing that is abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

Editors and reviewers will ensure that articles submitted to the journal are original studies which have not been submitted anywhere else (nor have been submitted as Conference Proceedings). Manuscripts will be fairly and objectively reviewed; authors will receive corrections and suggestions relatively quickly depending on the availability and expertise of reviewers.


Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behaviour

In cases of alleged or proven misconduct, fraudulent publication including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others, the journal editor will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the publisher or editor shall follow COPE’s guidelines in dealing with allegations.


References

Kleinert, S., & Wager, E. (2011). Responsible research publication: international standards for editors. A position statement developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore, July 22-24, 2010. Chapter 51 in: Mayer, T., & Steneck, N. (eds) Promoting Research Integrity in a Global Environment. Imperial College Press / World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (pp 317-28). (ISBN 978-981-4340-97-7). Retrieved October 10, 2016 from http://www.riha-journal.org/international-standards-editors.