Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

 

Our publication adheres to the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding malpractice, as well as the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). 

-COPE’s purpose is to support editors of scholarly journals in their work by providing guidelines for handling ethical issues that arise in the course of their work. It is also actively involved in the creation of discussion and position papers. COPE gives suggestions to editors and publishers on research and publication misconduct. You can find an example of a recognized publication ethics and malpractice statement in the Code of Conduct of the COPE (click here). You can find the rules and guidelines on the COPE’s website.

All editors, authors, and reviewers of the BJ-BABS agree on standards of proper ethical behaviour and accept the responsibility for fulfilling the following duties and responsibilities as outlined in the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).

Authors’ Duties:

A warrant refers to an assurance the authors give about their manuscript. They assure that the manuscript is their original work. It has not been published before. Further, it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. If you submit the same paper to a different journal at the same time, this is misconduct, and the Baghdad Journal of Biochemistry and Applied Biological Sciences manuscript will not be considered.

If a submitted manuscript is due to a research project or its earlier version has been presented at a conference as a presentation (under the same or similar title), details of the project, the conference, etc., must be provided in a footnote/Acknowledgements. Our Journal does not reprint any paper that has been published in any other journal. It is each author’s responsibility to ensure the manuscripts submitted to BJ-BABS are written ethically.

The authors declare that the manuscript does not contain any baseless and unlawful statements and does not violate third parties' rights. The Publisher shall not be legally liable in case of any claim for compensation.

Reporting standards:

Every manuscript submitted should have enough details and references to allow the reviewers and, thereby, subsequent readers to check the claims made in it. Making false representations on purpose is against the ethical standards. Writers only own the information included in their works and must ensure that they have consent from all parties concerned to allow the data to be made public. If authors want to use any figures, tables or materials that have been published elsewhere, they need to gain permission from the copyright holder(s). If we get anything without proof, we’ll assume it’s from the authors.

Reviewers’ Duties:

Reviewers must provide written, competent, unbiased feedback on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript in a prompt manner. The reviewers will assess the manuscript in terms of its compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of the information presented in the manuscript. In addition, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus. If the reviewer suspects or knows for certain that the author is violating the ethical standards, they must inform the Handling Editor. Reviewers should acknowledge relevant published works not cited by the authors. They should also inform the Editor of any significant similarities between a reviewed manuscript. This includes any manuscript that has been published. Similarly, it should include any manuscript which is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere, if they are aware of it. Reviewers should also inform the Editor of a simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to another journal if they are aware of that. Reviewers should not have a conflict of interest concerning the research, the authors, or the research’s funding sources. Should such conflicts arise, the reviewers must notify the Editor without delay. A selected referee must, without delay, inform the Editor if he/she feel unqualified to review the research reported in the manuscript or will be unable to review it promptly.

Reviews must be conducted objectively.

Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

Reviewers should be clear about their views with logic.

Manuscripts submitted for review are confidential documents. Reviewers should not use unpublished material contained in a submitted manuscript without the author’s explicit written consent. Submitted manuscripts shall not be exploited for personal use or divulged to a third party by the editor.

Editors’ Duties:

 The decision to publish submitted articles to the Baghdad Journal of Biochemistry and Applied Biological Sciences lies with the Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial Policy is a guide for the Editor-in-Chief while legal constraints about defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism are in force. The Editorial Board may choose to reject submitted manuscripts in case it finds them unsuitable due to content and formal aspect issues. The Editorial Staff shall inform the authors of the acceptance or otherwise of their manuscript for publication within 2 weeks from the date of submission. Editors must have no conflict of interest to any article that they consider for publication. If an editor feels that it may look like there is a conflict of interest because of their handling of a submission, then the editor will make all decisions on the manuscript and the selection of reviewers. The Editorial Board will assess the submitted manuscripts in respect to their intellectual content and not on the grounds of racial, sexual, gender, religious, ethnic or political prejudice. (must not use) Unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts must not be used by the Editor and/or the Editorial Staff without written permission from the authors. According to the Publisher, a Reader’s inquiry based on data/information and ideas in the submitted manuscript will be confidential, not to use it for his/her personal use.

Handling Misconduct:

- Claims of unethical behaviour will be investigated according to COPE’s guidelines.

- If misconduct is proven (e.g., Plagiarism, Duplicate Publications, Fabricated Results), the journal will either refuse the submission or withdraw the article. Inform involved institutions or funding agencies.