The Editorial Board is responsible for, among the other, for deciding which of the research papers submitted to the conference proceedings should be published and preventing publication malpractice. Unethical behavior is unacceptable and neither IFSA Publishing no Organizing Committee does tolerate plagiarism and double submission in any form.
1. Editors' Responsibilities
Publication Decisions: Editor should be accountable for everything published in the conference proceedings and strive to meet the needs of readers and authors. Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication in the conference proceedings should be based on the editorial board’s reviews, paper’s importance and relevance to conference's scope and topics.
Review of Manuscripts: The editor ensures that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the international reviewers, who may make use of appropriate means, to examine the originality of the contents of the manuscript and ensure the quality of the material they reviewed.
Fair Review: Editor should strive to ensure that peer review at the proceedings is fair, unbiased and timely. The editor ensures that each manuscript received is evaluated on its intellectual content without regard to authors’ sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc.
Confidentiality: The editor and any Organizing Committee 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 must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Editors should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.
2. Authors’ Responsibilities
Reporting Standards: Authors should precisely present their original research, as well as objectively discuss its significance. Manuscripts are to be edited in accordance to the submission guidelines and conference's template.
Originality: Authors must certify that their work is entirely unique and original.
Redundancy: Authors should not concurrently submit papers describing essentially the same research. Submitting the same paper to more than one conference constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Author(s) should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have influenced their research.
Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited only to those who have made a significant contribution to conceiving, designing, executing and/or interpreting the submitted study. All those who have significantly contributed to the study should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author should also ensure that all the authors and co-authors have seen and approved the final submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion as co-authors.
Data Access and Retention: Authors should retain raw data related to their submitted paper, and must provide it for editorial review, upon request of the editor.
Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her submitted manuscript, the author must immediately notify the editor.
3. Reviewers’ Responsibilities
Confidentiality: Manuscript reviewers, the editor and the editorial staff must not disclose any information regarding submitted manuscripts. All submitted manuscripts are to be treated as privileged information. Editors should provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Standards of Objectivity: Review of submitted manuscripts will be conducted objectively. The reviewers shall express their views clearly, with supporting arguments. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
Promptness: If a reviewer believes it is not possible for him/her to review the research reported in a manuscript within the designated guidelines, or within stipulated time, he/she should notify the editor, so that the accurate and timely review can be ensured.
Conflict of Interest: All reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding bodies.
4. Change or Modification of Published Paper
Withdrawal: The published papers will be withdrawn if the author(s) noticed significant errors. Before accepting the withdrawal request, the Editor- should discuss with the author(s) sufficiently. If the paper is agreed to be withdrawn, the following should follow:
- The paper in conference's database should be removed
- The link in online publication site should be removed
- Next phrase or similar phrase to announce the reason should be shown below the paper title in online publication paper list: (This paper was withdrawn because of some technical errors).
Replacement: The papers published can be replaced if the author(s) send an updated paper. Before accepting the replacement request, the Editor should discuss with author(s) sufficiently, and at least two reviewers should check the changes. If the paper were replaced, the following should follow:
- The paper in conference database should be replaced
- Link in online publication site should be replaced
- Next phrase or similar phrase to announce the reason should be shown below the paper title in online publication paper list: (This paper was replaced because author(s) sent an updated version. Contact editor if you want to check the old version)
- Old version should be kept separately, and if someone wants to check the old version, the editor can send the PDF to him/her
- Note that the replacement is acceptable only one time, and only for technical advances.
Removal: The published papers will be removed if reviewers, readers, librarians, publishers or other subjects noticed a significant errors or plagiarism. Before removing a paper, Editor should discuss with authors sufficiently, and should provide enough time to have authors’ explanation. If the paper is removed, then it follows that:
- The paper in conference database should be removed
- The link in online publication site should be removed
- Next phrase or similar phrase to announce the reason should be shown below the paper title in online publication paper list: (This paper was removed because of plagiarism).
5. Penalties
Double Submission: If double submission was found or noticed from other sources, the editorial board should check the status. If the double submission was confirmed as intentional thing, then the following actions must be imposed:
- Review process will be terminated
- The reason should be sent to reviewers, editorial board and authors
- All authors’ name will be marked as black list, and these authors cannot submit any paper to all IFSA conferences for two years.
Double Publication: If double publication was found or noticed from other sources, editorial board should check the status. If the double publication was confirmed as intentional thing, then the following actions will be carried out:
- This should be reported to Organizing Committee and author(s)
- This should be sent to the publisher who published same (or very similar) paper
- Paper will be removed according to the “Removal” part in section 4
- All authors’ name will be marked as black list, and these authors cannot submit any paper to all IFSA conference for two years.
Plagiarism: If plagiarism (including significant amount of self-plagiarism) was found or noticed from the other sources, editorial board should check the status. If the plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) was confirmed as intentional thing, then the following actions will be carried out:
- This should be reported to editorial board and authors
- This should be sent to publisher who published same or similar paper
- Paper will be removed according to the “Removal” part in section 4
- All authors’ name will be marked as black list, and this author(s) cannot submit any paper to all IFSA conferences for three years.
All the Editors, authors, and reviewers, within the IFSA conferences agree upon standards of proper ethical behavior and accept the responsibility for fulfilling the following duties and responsibilities.
