Publication Ethics and Editorial Policy

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

1. Statement of Commitment

IJSRM is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. The journal's policies follow the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing issued jointly by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME.

These standards bind everyone involved in publication — authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher. Where a case is not covered explicitly by this policy, the journal applies the relevant COPE flowchart.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Originality. Manuscripts must report original work that has not been published before and is not under consideration elsewhere. Every submission is screened with similarity-detection software before it is sent for review. Text reused from the authors' own earlier work must be cited and kept to a minimum; self-plagiarism is treated in the same way as any other form of plagiarism.

Authorship. All listed authors must satisfy the four ICMJE criteria: substantial contribution to conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis; drafting or critically revising the manuscript; approval of the final version; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Guest, gift, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Anyone who contributed but does not meet these criteria should be named in the Acknowledgements with their permission. Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be made in writing by the corresponding author and accompanied by the written agreement of every author, including any being removed.

Data integrity. Data must be accurate, honestly reported, and retained. Fabrication, falsification, selective omission of results, and inappropriate image manipulation (including cutting and pasting within or between images, or adjustments that obscure or enhance specific features) are serious misconduct. Editors may request raw data, analysis files, or original images at any stage.

Research ethics. Studies involving human participants must have been approved by an appropriate research ethics committee or institutional review board and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki; the approving body and reference number must be stated in the manuscript. Informed consent must have been obtained from all participants, and separate written consent for publication is required for case reports and for any identifiable images or personal details. Studies involving animals must comply with applicable institutional and national regulations, which must be named. Clinical trials should be prospectively registered and the registry name and number given.

Disclosure. All financial and non-financial competing interests, and all sources of funding with grant numbers, must be declared in the manuscript. Any use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools must be disclosed and described; AI tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot bear responsibility for the work.

Errors after publication. An author who discovers a significant error in their published article must notify the editorial office promptly and cooperate in publishing a correction or retraction.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Confidentiality. A manuscript under review is a privileged document. Reviewers must not share it, discuss it, or show it to anyone without the editor's permission, must not retain copies after review, and must not use unpublished material or ideas from it for their own purposes or advantage.

Objectivity. Reviews must assess the work, not the authors. Comments should be specific, constructive, and supported by argument; personal criticism is unacceptable.

Competing interests. Reviewers must decline any manuscript where they have a conflict — collaboration or shared institution with the authors within the past three years, a competing project, a financial interest, or a personal relationship — and must inform the editor rather than simply not responding.

Alertness to misconduct. Reviewers should notify the editor of any substantial overlap with published work, uncited sources, ethical concerns, or suspected fabrication.

Timeliness and AI. Reviewers who cannot complete a review within the agreed period should tell the editor at once. Uploading a manuscript, or any part of it, into a public AI tool breaches confidentiality and is not permitted; any AI assistance in preparing a review must be disclosed to the editor.

4. Responsibilities of Editors

Editorial independence. Decisions to accept or reject rest solely on the manuscript's importance, originality, clarity, validity, and relevance to the journal's scope. Editorial decisions are never influenced by the payment of an Article Processing Charge, by the authors' nationality, institution, gender, ethnicity, or seniority, or by commercial or political considerations. The publisher plays no part in editorial decisions on individual manuscripts.

Confidentiality. Editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the authors, reviewers, and potential reviewers, and must not use unpublished material for their own research.

Editor conflicts of interest. An editor with a competing interest in a submission — including any manuscript authored by the editor, a close colleague, or someone at the editor's own institution — must recuse themselves entirely. Such manuscripts are handled by another editor with no connection to the work, and the recusal is recorded. Submissions by editorial board members receive no preferential treatment and are subject to the same review process.

Handling misconduct. Editors take reasonable steps to investigate any credible allegation of misconduct, whether the article is published or not, following the appropriate COPE flowchart. Authors are always given an opportunity to respond before any action is taken.

5. Peer Review Process

IJSRM operates double-blind peer review: reviewers do not know the identity of the authors and authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

1. Initial editorial screening. Every submission is checked for scope, completeness, ethical declarations, adherence to the Author Guidelines, language quality, and similarity index. Manuscripts that fall outside the scope or fail these checks are returned or rejected without review, normally within one week.
2. Reviewer assignment. Manuscripts passing screening are assigned to at least two independent reviewers with demonstrable expertise in the subject, selected from outside the authors' institutions.
3. Review. Reviewers evaluate originality, soundness of methodology, adequacy of the analysis, support for the conclusions, ethical compliance, quality of presentation, and appropriateness of references, and recommend acceptance, minor revision, major revision, or rejection.
4. Editorial decision. The handling editor considers the reviews and decides. Where reviewers disagree substantially, an additional reviewer is invited. The Editor-in-Chief holds final authority.
5. Revision. Authors receive the anonymised reviewer comments and are asked to respond point by point. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers.
6. Final checks and publication. Accepted manuscripts undergo copy-editing, proofing by the authors, DOI assignment, and metadata registration with Crossref before online publication.

The journal aims to complete first review within four to six weeks of submission, but will not sacrifice the rigour of review to meet a target date.

6. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

IJSRM follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines. All post-publication notices are linked bidirectionally to the original article, are freely accessible, and carry their own DOI.

• Correction (corrigendum/erratum) — issued where a discrete error affects part of an article but the findings remain reliable. A corrigendum corrects an author error; an erratum corrects a publisher error.
• Expression of concern — issued where there is well-founded but as yet unresolved concern about an article, typically while an investigation is under way.
• Retraction — issued where the findings are unreliable through error or misconduct, where the work has been published elsewhere, where it reports unethical research, or where it infringes copyright.

Retracted articles are never deleted. The original article remains available, with a clear retraction watermark on every page and a prominent notice explaining the reason for retraction and who requested it. Indexing services and Crossref are notified so that the retraction status propagates to databases.

Article removal is applied only in the rare case where an article is defamatory, infringes legal rights, or presents a serious health risk; the metadata and a notice remain in place.

7. Allegations of Misconduct

Concerns may be raised at any time by writing to editor@ijsrm.net. All allegations are treated seriously and confidentially. The editorial office acknowledges receipt, evaluates the concern, requests an explanation from the corresponding author where appropriate, and may consult the authors' institution or an independent expert. The person raising the concern is informed of the outcome. Whistle-blowers acting in good faith are protected, and the journal does not act on anonymous allegations unless the supporting evidence is itself verifiable.

8. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who believe a decision was reached in error may appeal by writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days, setting out the specific scientific grounds for the appeal and responding to the reviewers' points. Appeals are considered by an editor not involved in the original decision. The outcome of an appeal is final. Complaints about editorial process, staff conduct, or publication ethics should also be sent to the Editor-in-Chief and receive an acknowledgement within one week and a substantive response within four weeks.

9. Conflict of Interest Policy

A competing interest exists where professional judgement about the work could be influenced by a secondary interest. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents and patent applications, stock ownership, research funding, and close personal or professional relationships. Authors declare competing interests in the manuscript, reviewers to the editor, and editors to the Editor-in-Chief. Disclosure does not by itself disqualify anyone; non-disclosure is the breach.

10. Advertising, Sponsorship, and Direct Marketing

IJSRM does not carry advertising. Editorial content is never influenced by, and is kept entirely separate from, any commercial or sponsorship arrangement. Any direct marketing by the journal is targeted, unobtrusive, and truthful about the journal's metrics, scope, and indexing status.

11. Data Sharing and Reproducibility

Authors are encouraged to deposit the data underlying their findings in a recognised public repository and to cite the dataset with its persistent identifier. Every article must carry a data availability statement. Where data cannot be shared — for reasons of participant confidentiality or legal restriction — the statement must explain why and describe the conditions of any restricted access.

12. Open Access, Copyright, and Fees

All articles are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license, with authors retaining copyright, and are freely available without embargo. The journal charges no submission or review fee; an Article Processing Charge falls due only after acceptance and is published transparently on the Publication Fee page, together with the waiver policy. Fee status never influences peer review or editorial decisions. Full details appear on the Rights and License and Publication Fee pages.

13. Archiving

Published content is preserved for the long term as set out in the journal's Digital Archiving Policy, and every article carries a Crossref DOI to guarantee persistent access to the version of record.

14. Contact

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