Anafora is committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process and following the best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions. We follow the guidelines set up by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Elsevier Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) for best practices with regard to ethical expectations and the procedures for dealing with unethical behaviour.

1. Ethical Expectations

Editors’ Responsibilities

Publication Decisions

• The editor is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal shall be published.
• The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
• The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
• The editor must ensure that all published articles are double-blind peer reviewed.
• The editor must encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct.
• In the event of complaints of an ethical or conflict nature, the editor will adopt and follow reasonable procedures in accordance with the policies and procedures of the journal where appropriate and give authors a reasonable opportunity to respond to any complaints. All complaints should be investigated no matter when the original publication was approved. Documentation associated with any such complaints should be retained.

Fair Play

• Manuscripts will be evaluated for their intellectual content without discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• Submissions for sponsored supplements or special issues will be evaluated in the same way as other submissions, so that articles are considered and accepted solely on their academic merit and without commercial influence.

Confidentiality, Disclosure, and Conflicts of Interest

• The 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, as appropriate.
• The editor and any editorial staff must ensure that the information or ideas obtained through peer review will be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
• Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author.
• In limited occasions, the journal may publish submissions from a guest editor in a special issue/section he/she has edited. In such cases, the guest editor is obliged to notify the Editorial Board before submitting a manuscript to an issue in which he/she is also a guest editor to ensure that there is no conflict of interest in its management and evaluation. Such submissions shall be handled completely independently of the guest-editor, by a member of the journal’s Editorial Board.

For more information on editors’ responsibilities, please visit COPE International Standards for Editors.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

• Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist in improving the quality of the paper.

Standards of Objectivity

• Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
• Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Confidentiality

• Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the review process and any information supplied by the editor or author.
• Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
• Copies of the manuscript may not be retained.

Acknowledgement of Sources

• Reviewers should identify and alert the editor to any relevant published or submitted content substantially similar to or overlapping with that under review that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement, observation, derivation, or argument that had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

• Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative, or other relationships between the reviewer and author/connected to the papers).

For more information on reviewers’ responsibilities, please visit COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers [PDF, 145 KB. Version 1, March 2013].

Authors’ Responsibilities

Reporting Standards

• Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed, as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
• Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper.
• A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.
• Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention

• Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review.
• Authors should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

• The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works that strictly follow the rules of scientific methodology, and if they have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.
• In submitting the manuscript for publication, the authors certify that they agree to the “Author’s Statement on the Copyright Regulations” noted in the Copyright and Related Rights Act (NN 167/03). Thereby the author guarantees that all the work in the submitted manuscript is original and is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere.
• In an effort to ensure the highest ethical standards and academic quality, the originality of content of all submissions considered for publication in Anafora journal is verified using Turnitin plagiarism screening service. By submitting the manuscript to the journal, the author agrees to any necessary originality checks that the manuscript may have to undergo during the evaluation or the production process.

Copyright

• The authors should confirm that the submitted manuscript does not infringe upon any copyright regulations.
• The authors should obtain copyright permission where necessary, to reproduce any content from other sources. Anafora journal does not bear any responsibility for verifying copyright permissions provided by the author. Any breach of copyright laws will result in rejection of the submitted material or its retraction after publication. Furthermore, the submitted manuscript should not contain any libellous, defamatory, obscene, or unlawful material.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

• An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources

• Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper

• Authorship of the paper must be accurately represented. This includes ensuring that all individuals credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work and that all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

• If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript and ensure that any studies involving human or animal subjects conform to national, local, and institutional laws and requirements (e.g. WMA Declaration of Helsinki, NIH Policy on Use of Laboratory Animals, EU Directive on Use of Animals) and confirm that approval has been sought and obtained where appropriate.
• Authors should obtain express permission from human subjects and respect their privacy.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

• All authors should disclose in their manuscript any potential conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript, for example if there is a competing interest (real or apparent) that could be considered or viewed as exerting an undue influence on the author’s duties at any stage during the publication process.
• All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

• If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to publish an erratum, addendum, corrigendum notice, or to retract the paper, where this is deemed necessary.

For more information on authors’ responsibilities, please visit COPE International Standards for Authors.

2. Procedures for Dealing with Unethical Behaviour

Identification of Unethical Behaviour

• Misconduct and unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone.
• Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence in order for an investigation to be initiated. All allegations would be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.

Investigation

• An initial decision would be taken by the editor, who would consult with or seek advice from the publisher, if appropriate.
• Evidence would be gathered, while avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know.

Minor Breaches

• Minor misconduct might be dealt with without the need to consult more widely. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.

Serious Breaches

• Serious misconduct might require that the employers of the accused be notified. The editor, in consultation with the publisher or Society as appropriate, would make the decision whether or not to involve the employers, either by examining the available evidence themselves or by further consultation with a limited number of experts.

Outcomes (in increasing order o severity; may be applied separately or in conjunction)

• Informing or educating the author or reviewer where there appears to be a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.
• A more strongly worded letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behaviour.
• Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
• Publication of an editorial detailing the misconduct.
• A formal letter to the head of the author’s or reviewer’s department or funding agency.
• Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal, in conjunction with informing the head of the author or reviewer’s department, Abstracting & Indexing services and the readership of the publication.
• Imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period.
• Reporting the case and outcome to a professional organisation or higher authority for further investigation and action.

For details on the journal’s policy for dealing with unethical behaviour, please visit Elsevier Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK).