Withdrawal, Correction and Retraction Policy

International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) ISSN (Online): 2321-3418 | DOI Prefix: 10.18535/ijsrm Publisher: Valley International

1. Principle

The published article is the version of record. Once an article has been published, assigned a DOI, indexed, downloaded, and potentially cited, it has entered the scholarly record permanently — and the record cannot be corrected by making things disappear from it.

IJSRM therefore distinguishes clearly between withdrawal of a manuscript before publication and correction, expression of concern, or retraction of an article after publication. This policy follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines and the COPE Core Practices.

2. Withdrawal Before Publication

Withdrawal applies only to manuscripts that have not yet been published.

Before acceptance. Authors may withdraw a manuscript at any point during peer review by writing to the editorial office. No reason is required and no penalty applies. Withdrawal takes effect once the editorial office confirms it in writing.

After acceptance but before publication. Withdrawal at this stage is discouraged, because editorial and production work has already been carried out. A written request from the corresponding author, endorsed by all co-authors, stating the reason, should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief. The journal will normally agree, but may decline where withdrawal is sought in order to avoid an ethics investigation already under way.

Authors must not submit a manuscript elsewhere until withdrawal has been confirmed in writing. Submitting to another journal while a manuscript remains under consideration at IJSRM is duplicate submission and is treated as a breach of publication ethics.

3. After Publication: Articles Are Not Removed

A published article is never deleted from the IJSRM website. Where a published article proves to be flawed, unreliable, or unethical, the journal responds by publishing a linked notice — a correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction — while the original article remains permanently accessible.

This is deliberate. Readers who have already downloaded, cited, or built on an article must be able to find out what happened to it. Deleting it leaves those citations pointing at nothing and hides the correction from precisely the people who need to see it.

All post-publication notices:

• are published openly and free of charge, with no access restrictions;
• carry their own DOI and appear in the journal's table of contents;
• are linked bidirectionally with the original article, so each points to the other;
• state clearly who is issuing the notice — the authors, the editors, or both — and why;
• are transmitted to Crossref and to indexing services so that the status propagates to databases.

4. Correction (Corrigendum / Erratum)

A correction is published where a discrete error affects part of an article but the findings and conclusions remain reliable. Examples include an incorrect author name or affiliation, a mislabelled figure, an error in a table value that does not alter the conclusions, a missing funding or competing-interest declaration, or an omitted citation.

• A corrigendum corrects an error introduced by the authors.
• An erratum corrects an error introduced by the publisher during production.

The original article remains in place and is annotated with a prominent link to the correction notice.

5. Expression of Concern

An expression of concern is published where the editors have well-founded but as yet unresolved concerns about an article — for example, where an investigation into possible misconduct is under way, where the authors' institution has been asked to investigate and has not yet reported, or where there is credible but inconclusive evidence that the findings are unreliable.

It is an interim measure. When the investigation concludes, the expression of concern is followed by a correction, a retraction, or a notice confirming that the concerns were not substantiated.

6. Retraction

Retraction is reserved for cases where the article's findings or its publication are fundamentally unsound. Grounds include:

• clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, whether through honest error or through fabrication or falsification of data;
• plagiarism or substantial unattributed reuse of another's work;
• duplicate or redundant publication — the work has been published elsewhere, in any language, without proper disclosure, attribution, or permission;
• unethical research — absence of required ethics approval or informed consent, or research conducted in breach of ethical standards;
• copyright infringement or other legal breach;
• compromised or manipulated peer review;
• undisclosed competing interests that materially affect the interpretation of the work;
• publication of material that infringes the privacy or confidentiality of individuals.

Retraction is not a punishment. A retraction for honest error carries no imputation of misconduct, and the notice states this explicitly where it applies. Authors are encouraged to come forward when they discover a serious error in their own published work; self-retraction is treated as responsible conduct.

How a retracted article appears. The original article stays online with its original DOI. Every page of the PDF and the HTML landing page is watermarked "RETRACTED", and a retraction notice is displayed prominently, identifying the article, stating the reason for retraction, and naming who requested it. The full text remains readable so that the retraction can be understood in context.

Partial retraction may be used where only a defined part of an article is unreliable and the remainder stands.

7. Article Removal — Exceptional Only

In rare circumstances an article may be removed from the site altogether. This is limited to cases where the content is:

• defamatory, or infringes legal rights;
• subject to a valid court order;
• a serious risk to health if acted upon;
• a breach of an individual's privacy that cannot be remedied in any other way.

Even then, the article metadata — title, authors, and DOI — remains in place, together with a notice explaining that the content was removed for legal reasons. The DOI is never broken.

8. Procedure

1. Raising a concern. Anyone — an author, a reader, a reviewer, an editor, or an institution — may raise a concern in writing to editor@ijsrm.net. Evidence should be provided where possible. Concerns are handled confidentially.
2. Initial assessment. The editorial office acknowledges receipt, normally within one week, and the Editor-in-Chief or a delegated editor assesses whether the concern is substantive.
3. Author response. The corresponding author is shown the specific evidence and given a reasonable period — normally 21 days — to respond on behalf of all authors. No notice is published without this opportunity, except where the law requires immediate action.
4. Investigation. Where the response does not resolve the matter, the case goes to the Editorial Board. The journal may consult independent experts and may ask the authors' institution to investigate, following the relevant COPE flowchart. The journal does not itself adjudicate on research misconduct, which is properly a matter for the institution, but it does decide what happens to the article.
5. Decision and notice. The Editor-in-Chief decides the outcome. The notice is drafted, shown to the authors where practicable, published, and transmitted to Crossref and indexing services. The person who raised the concern is informed of the outcome.

Editors with any competing interest in the article concerned recuse themselves from the process.

9. Fees

The Article Processing Charge is not refunded where an article is retracted for reasons attributable to the authors. Where an article is corrected or retracted because of an error made by the journal or publisher, no charge falls on the authors and any fee paid in respect of that error is refunded.

10. Citing Corrected and Retracted Articles

Authors who cite an IJSRM article should check whether a correction or retraction notice attaches to it. Retracted work should not be cited as evidence for its findings; where it is cited — for example in discussing the retraction itself — the retracted status must be stated.

11. Appeals

Authors who disagree with a decision to publish a correction, expression of concern, or retraction may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days, setting out specific grounds. The appeal is considered by an editor not involved in the original decision, who may consult an independent expert. Where a retraction is upheld, the notice records that the authors disagreed, if that is the case.

12. Contact

Editorial Office — International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) Website: https://ijsrm.net | Email: editor@ijsrm.net