Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics in Journal of Social Sciences

Publication ethics

The Journal of Social Science is committed to maintaining the integrity of scholarly publishing. We encourage authors to refer to the International Standards for Authors established by the Publication Ethics Committee.

The journal strives to maintain the highest standards related to the ethics of publishing and scientific research, through its keenness to respect all ethics and take the necessary measures against any unethical practices, the journal adopts "global" ethical standards of behavior in line with the guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and these standards concern all parties involved in the publication process (researchers, editorial board, scientific staff), so that each of them must adhere to them, based on their position and function, and ensure compliance with them, although failure to do so may result in taking the necessary measures.

The journal follows the ethics of scientific publishing and follows ethical guidelines to ensure best practices, which the author must honor.

The journal relies on the Code of Ethics for Scientific Research and Scientific Publishing, and regulations governing the refereeing process, and the process of selecting quality research that provides scientific addition to knowledge.

It is important that the author adheres to the ethics of scientific publishing and avoids any scientific plagiarism. In the event that scientific plagiarism is discovered, the journal takes the necessary measures by conducting the customary procedures where any party affected or discovering any plagiarism can write to the journal directly to verify it.

The journal works to prevent any conflict of interest, so the author must abide by the conditions of publication by avoiding sending his article to any journal until it is decided by the journal's boards. In addition, he must abide by the ethics of scientific research and scientific publication while not violating any conflict between him and the institutions sponsoring his study when publishing, given that he must inform the journal when submitting his article for publication.

The journal relies on plagiarism detection, whereby any article is rejected according to the journal's publication conditions in order to avoid scientific plagiarism and exaggerated plagiarism in accordance with the principles of international journals.

The editorial team, the scientific board, the referees, and the publisher are responsible for maintaining confidentiality and avoiding conflicts with any party while adhering to objectivity, neutrality, and accuracy in any task assigned to them from the beginning of the article submission until its final publication.

Peer Refereeing

-Please refer to the submission guidelines of the journal to which you wish to submit.

-The journal does not allow the use of suggested (recommended) reviewerss by the author at any stage of the submission process, whether through the online submission system or other means of communication.

-Reviewers must be experts in their fields and must be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. It is our policy not to appoint reviewers for scientific research in the following cases:

The reviewer resides in the same organization as any of the co-authors.

The reviewer is based at the funding organization of the paper.

The reviewer has been recommended by the author.

The reviewer has provided a personal email account (Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) and an institutional email account cannot be found after a basic Google search of name, department, and organization.

-Please note that the journal editors are not required to invite any recommended or dissenting reviewers to evaluate your manuscript.

-The referee is committed to the ethics of scientific research and publication by evaluating the submitted manuscripts objectively and impartially according to recognized scientific principles.

-The article is judged by two referees in the specialty according to the subject matter of the submitted article.

-The referee is required to review the articles within the deadlines agreed upon by the journal's editorial board

-The journal is provided with the scientific biography of each referee, including degree, affiliation, and country.

-The referee must inform the editorial board of any conflicts of interest when reviewing the submitted manuscripts before starting the refereeing process

-The referee is required to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts during the refereeing process

-The journal adopts the Double-Blind Peer Review model.

Editors' criteria:

-Any manuscript submitted to the journal will be accepted and rejected on the basis of its scientific merit, originality, relevance, seriousness, and its contribution to scientific knowledge without any bias.

-Only manuscripts that are in line with the research interests of the journal will be accepted.

-Any unethical quality of manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal shall be reported.

-Editors coordinate with referees by communicating periodically to review manuscripts accurately and effectively, while maintaining their confidentiality regardless of their type and not revealing the identity of the referees or authors to any party.

-It is important to follow the journal's editorial policies and respect all publishing procedures in order to maintain the credibility of the journal and the quality of the research published in the journal.

-Submitted manuscripts are subjected to a program to avoid scientific plagiarism, with the need to respect the plagiarism rate in accordance with the conditions of publication.

Publisher standards:    

-The publisher must adhere strictly to the ethical standards of publishing, in order to preserve the reputation and credibility of the journal.

-The publisher shall provide all necessary support to the journal in order to promote and develop it and preserve the legally guaranteed copyrights

-The publisher must intervene firmly and strictly to prevent articles or publications that violate the international ethical standards of publishing.

Authorship

-The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship.

-He or she agrees to be responsible for all aspects of the work to ensure that questions regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are investigated and resolved appropriately by the author who submitted the manuscript.

-Authors must fulfill the requirements of all of the above points. Each author must have been sufficiently involved in the work to assume overall responsibility for appropriate sections of the content.

-When a large, multicenter group performs the work, the group must identify individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals must fully meet the criteria for authorship.

-For authors submitting the manuscript, all parties who made a substantial contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Primary authorship, authorship ranking, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is typically listed as lead author on any multi-author publication that is substantially derived from the student's thesis or dissertation.

Corresponding author

The single person who has primary responsibility for communicating with the journal during manuscript submission, peer review, and the publication process, and typically ensures that all administrative requirements of the journal, such as submission of authorship details, ethics committee approval, trial and field study registration documents, and conflict of interest forms and statements are properly completed. However, these duties may be delegated to one or more of the co-authors.

The corresponding author is the person who signs the publication agreement on behalf of all authors and whose contact details are included in the article. They must be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for additional data or information should questions about the paper arise after publication.

Scientific plagiarism:

The Journal of Social Science takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other violations of best practices in publishing very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Similarly, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked using a duplicate check program. Where it is found, for example, that an article has plagiarized other works or included third-party copyrighted material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgment, or where the authorship of the article is disputed, we reserve the right to take the appropriate action.

Emphasizing the importance and necessity of integrity as a basic principle regulating aspects of our mission. We always strive to achieve transparency, objectivity, and fairness in evaluating research, with our firm commitment to honesty and respect towards all contributors to the scientific process, including researchers and reviewers. Integrity and transparency are the title of our work and a firm principle for us in order to develop human knowledge.

Plagiarism and Anti-Fraud Policy:

The Journal is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics in accordance with COPE guidelines. All submitted manuscripts undergo rigorous and mandatory plagiarism screening before being sent to peer review, utilizing international anti-plagiarism software.

Similarity Index Threshold: The maximum acceptable overall similarity index is 20%, provided that the citation from a single source does not exceed 2%, and all borrowed text is appropriately cited and referenced.

Action Taken: Any manuscript exceeding the allowed threshold or found containing plagiarized content will be automatically rejected during the initial screening stage (Desk Reject).

Publication Ethics Charter and Policy on Misconduct Responsibilities of the Editorial Board:

Objectivity and academic freedom: Editors are committed to evaluating research objectively, based solely on its scientific and intellectual merit. This evaluation will be conducted regardless of the researcher’s nationality, ethnicity, personal beliefs or gender.

Strict confidentiality: The Editorial Board pledges to protect the data of submitted research and not to share any details regarding the research with any external party, except for the journal’s approved reviewers.

Handling violations and errors: If an ethical complaint is made against a research paper that has been submitted or published, the Editorial Board will conduct a transparent and immediate investigation in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' (ICMJE) guidelines to resolve the issue promptly.

Responsibilities of reviewers:

Supporting decisions and research quality: The peer review process requires reviewers to assist the Editor-in-Chief in making an appropriate publication decision. Reviewers also provide researchers with clear advice to help them develop and refine their research, based on an objective review of the article and the reviewers’ areas of expertise and research interests.

Timeliness: If a selected reviewer feels that they are not an expert in the research topic or will not be able to complete the review by the specified deadline, they must notify the Editor-in-Chief immediately to allow time for another expert to take over. This streamlines the review process, giving authors sufficient time to revise and edit their articles to ensure they meet high scientific standards Integrity and objectivity: Research documents must be treated as highly confidential. Reviewers must write objective and professional reports supported by scientific evidence, free from personal impressions, biases or opinions.

Responsibilities of researchers (authors):

Integrity of results and data: Researchers must present their scientific articles in accordance with methodological principles and adhere to scientific accuracy and integrity in the structure of the article and the presentation of their findings. They must also completely refrain from fabricating data or providing misleading information and be prepared to submit raw data for review if requested.

Originality and anti-plagiarism: Researchers must confirm that the work they submit is entirely original and that any quotations or use of others' ideas are clearly documented and cited. If the opposite is proven, the researcher will be notified; plagiarism in all its forms is strictly unacceptable. Prohibition of simultaneous or duplicate publication: Researchers must not submit the same research to more than one journal at a time. They must also not publish research containing the same results and methodology in two different journals, as this constitutes a clear violation of academic publishing ethics.

Proper citation of references: Researchers must accurately cite and document all sources, references, and previous studies used in their research, both in the text and in the reference list. Policies for handling plagiarism and corrections resulting from automated software checks: Every research paper undergoes a thorough check using internationally recognised software to detect plagiarism and academic misconduct before being sent to reviewers. The paper will be rejected immediately if it exceeds the permitted thresholds.

Corrections and retractions: The journal is committed to publishing clarifications and corrections, or completely retracting a paper from its website and archives, if a material error or manipulation of scientific data is proven after publication.

The journal also takes strict measures in such cases. These ethical guidelines have been formulated in full accordance with the core practices and international guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Procedure followed in the event of a breach of ethics of the publication:

Anyone can file a complaint for breach of ethics of the publication to the editorial board of the journal. The person filing the complaint must provide supporting elements. Any complaint is to be taken seriously by the editorial board and must be treated until conclusion.

Any complaint will be handled, no matter its date of publication. The supporting elements submitted as part of a complaint must be kept and archived by the editorial board. Measures to could be implemented in the event of a complaint include:

Interview with the author of the article, if the complaint stems from a misunderstanding of the code of ethics of the journal or the publication guidelines

Written notification sent to the author, providing details about the alleged breach of ethics of the publication. This notification serves as a first warning.

Written notification sent to the institution/organization where the author is employed Publication of an editorial in the journal, informing the readers about the procedure

Withdrawal of the article from the journal and indexes where it might be featured

Ban on any new articles written by the author, duration to be determined

Refer to an outside organization with authority to deal with the complaint