Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

International Journal of Pharmaceutics and Drug Analysis complies with the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors as well as the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.

Additionally, since this journal adheres to the ICMJE's recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, it is expected of authors, reviewers, and editors to uphold those recommendations' best-practice standards for moral conduct.

Duties and responsibilities of editors

The editors accept the duty to use their best judgement and skills to handle the following responsibilities, in addition to many general duties like continuously enhancing the quality and integrity of the journal, working to meet the needs of authors and readers, and encouraging academic debate, among others.

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board will be composed of acknowledged subject-matter specialists. On the journal's website, the editor will list the members' complete names, professional affiliations, and most recent addresses and phone numbers.

Publication decisions

The choice of which of the papers submitted to the journal should be published should be made by the editor. Such choices must always be based on the validity of the work in question and its significance to scholars and readers. The editorial board's policies as well as legal requirements, copyright violations, and plagiarism may serve as the editor's guidelines and restrictions. In order to get to a decision, the editor may consult with additional editors or reviewers.

Peer review process

A journal's whole material should go through peer review. Peer review is conducted on all articles submitted for consideration before publication. Editors first check out articles. It could be outright rejected by the editor if it does not address the journal's topic or if it is obviously of such poor quality that it cannot be taken into consideration at all. Articles that are deemed appropriate for evaluation are subsequently forwarded to two subject-matter experts. The paper's referees are unrelated to one another. Referees are expected to assign the work one of three categories: publishable with changes and improvements, publishable immediately, or not publishable. The evaluations of the referees typically contain a clear suggestion of what to do with the article. The author then sees the remarks from the referees.

Editors need to be prepared to defend any significant departure from the outlined approach. Editors shouldn't change their minds on publications unless there are grave issues.

Editors should make clear what is expected of authors and reviewers in their published instructions. This advice should be updated frequently and will make reference to or link to this code.

Fair play

The editor should assess manuscripts for their intellectual merit without taking into account the writers' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, ethnicity, citizenship, or political philosophies. A paper's significance, originality, and clarity, as well as the study's applicability to the journal's goals, should be the only criteria used by editors when deciding whether to accept or reject it for publication.

Digital Archiving

The editor will make sure that all the published content is Permanently Archived in PORTICO

Confidentiality

The corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher are the only people who should be informed about a submitted manuscript by the editor and any editorial staff. Editors will make sure that submitted material is kept private while being reviewed.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript may not be used by the editor for independent research projects without the author's express written approval. Peer review's privileged knowledge or ideas must be kept secret and not used for one's own benefit. Editors should abstain from reviewing and evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from cooperative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, businesses, or (possibly) institutions associated with the papers. Instead, they should ask a co-editor, associate editor, or another member of the editorial board to do so. All contributors should be required to disclose any pertinent competing interests, and editors should publish revisions if any are discovered after the article has been published.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

Anyone may at any time identify unethical activity and bring it to the editor and publisher's attention. Anyone reporting such behaviour to the editor or publisher should do so with enough details and supporting documentation to allow for an investigation to be opened. Until a satisfactory decision or conclusion is made, all allegations should be regarded carefully and equally. Even if it is discovered years after publication, every reported instance of unethical publishing activity needs to be investigated.

When ethical concerns are raised about a submitted manuscript or published paper, the editor should work with the publisher to take reasonable action. Depending on the severity of the misconduct, these measures will typically involve getting in touch with the author of the manuscript or paper and giving the complaint or claim made due consideration. However, they may also involve sending additional communications to the pertinent institutions and research bodies.

Without the necessity for more extensive consultation, minor wrongdoing might be handled. In any case, the writer should be given the chance to refute any accusations.

The use of one or more of the following sanctions may be necessary in cases of serious misconduct:

  • Informing or educating the author or reviewer when it appears that appropriate standards have been misunderstood or improperly applied.
  • The formal notification of the offence being published.
  • A official letter addressed to the director of the author's, reviewer's, or sponsoring organisation.
  • A publication's formal retraction or withdrawal from a journal along with notification of the department head for the author or reviewer
  • Placing a formal embargo on a contributor's contributions for a predetermined timeframe.

Authors' obligations and duties

Publication and Submission fee

The processing of manuscripts is free of charge to authors. Authors just pay the eventual conference registration price; neither a submission fee nor a publication fee are charged. Before authors start preparing the manuscript for submission, they must ensure that the journal's website makes all applicable costs transparent.

Open Access Policy

All the Published articles By the International Journal of Pharmaceutics and Drug Analysis (IJPDA) are available Worldwide under the Open Access Policy. As per the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Readers can Directly Access Published articles without paying any subscription or access fees. Readers are allowed to read, download, copy and distribute the full text of all published articles, and readers can utilize the published article for Non-Commercial Purposes.

International Journal of Pharmaceutics and Drug Analysis strongly recommends and supports Open access to every resource of knowledge. We also follow the open access policy of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), DOAJ, and Budapest Open Access Initiative

https://oaspa.org/information-resources/openaccessresources/

https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/

https://www.doaj.org/

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Main_Page

https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/

Reporting standards

Authors of articles should give a truthful summary of the work done and an unbiased analysis of its relevance. The paper should appropriately depict the underlying data. A paper should have enough information and citations to let someone else duplicate the work. False or deliberately inaccurate statements are inappropriate and represent unethical behaviour. Articles for reviews and professional publications should be truthful and unbiased as well, and editorial works should be explicitly labelled as such.

Data access and retention

Authors may be required to submit the raw data associated with an article for editorial review. They should be ready to make the data accessible to the public and, in any case, to retain the data for a reasonable amount of time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, which this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Plagiarism detection: All Received Manuscripts are initially screened with Turnitin. A definite process is followed to handle a case of plagiarism. IJPDA follows the guidelines included in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts https://publicationethics.org/files/plagiarism%20A.pdf

Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism: 

  1. Report to the journal editor where a plagiarized article is published.
  2. Send original and plagiarized articles with plagiarized parts to be underlined.
  3. If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, the editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
  4. If the authors are found guilty of plagiarism
  5. The plagiarist should be asked to explain.
  6. In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the article should be permanently retracted.
  7. The author should be blocklisted and debarred for submitting an article to a particular journal for at least six months.
  8. The concerned head of the organization has to be notified.

For more information about Plagiarism, contact [email protected]

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications

In general, an author shouldn't submit submissions explaining essentially the same research to many journals or primary publications. It is unethical publishing practice to send the same manuscript to multiple journals at once. A previously published manuscript shouldn't typically be submitted to another publication for consideration.

The writers' copyright is still theirs (CC-BY-NC), therefore they have the final say about any potential republication of their work. In the secondary publication, the initial reference must be cited.

Acknowledgment of sources

Always give due credit when credit is due for the work of others. Citations for works that helped define the nature of the reported work are required from authors. Without the source's express, written consent, information collected informally through correspondence, conversation, or discussions with third parties cannot be utilized or reported. Without the specific written consent of the author of the workers engaged in these services, information gained during confidential services, such as reviewing grant applications or manuscripts, shall not be used.

Authorship of the paper

Only individuals who significantly contributed to the conception, design, implementation, or interpretation of the reported study should be given the privilege of authorship. Co-authors should be named for everyone who contributed significantly. Other people who have contributed to the research endeavor in meaningful ways should be recognized or identified as contributors when applicable. The corresponding author is responsible for making sure that the manuscript has all necessary co-authors, none of whom should be, and that all co-authors have seen, approved, and agreed to the paper's submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any material conflict of interest, whether financial or otherwise, that could be taken to have an impact on the findings or interpretation of work should be disclosed by all authors. The project's funding should come from all known sources. Employment, consulting work, stock ownership, honoraria, expert witness fees, patent applications and registrations, grants, and other financial support are a few examples of potential conflicts of interest that need to be reported. Potential conflicts of interest should be declared as soon as is practical. The identities of the research's donors and their contributions to the study should be disclosed to readers.

Fundamental errors in published works

It is the responsibility of the author to contact the publisher or journal editor as soon as a serious error or inaccuracy in the author's own published work is found, and to work with the editor to retract or fix the manuscript. The author must promptly retract or revise the paper or give the editor proof that the original paper was accurate if the editor or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a serious error.

Reviewers' obligations and responsibilities

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review aids the editor in editorial judgments, and through editorial discussions with the author, the author may also receive assistance from the editor in refining the article. The process of peer review is crucial to formal scholarly communication. A substantial amount of reviewing must be done by authors who want to contribute to periodicals.

Promptness

Any chosen referee who believes they are ill-equipped to evaluate the research presented in a manuscript or who is aware that doing so in a timely manner will be impossible should inform the editor and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

All manuscripts submitted for review must be handled with confidentiality. Except with the editor's permission, they cannot be displayed to or discussed with others.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be carried out with objectivity. It is inappropriate to make personal remarks about the author. Referees should clearly and persuasively state their positions.

Acknowledgment of sources

The authors should have cited any pertinent published work that reviewers can find. Any reference to observation, deduction, or argument that has already been published should be supported with the appropriate citation. A reviewer should also draw the editor's attention to any significant overlap or similarity between the article under consideration and any other published paper they are aware of personally.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Without the author's permission in writing, a reviewer may not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript in their own work. Peer review's privileged knowledge or ideas must be kept secret and not used for one's own benefit. Reviewers shouldn't take into account submissions when they have relationships or links with any of the authors, organizations, or businesses associated with the papers that are competitive, cooperative, or involve other relationships or connections.

Human Rights and Animal Rights

Experimental research involving humans or animals should have been approved by the author's institutional review board or ethics committee. This information should be mentioned in the manuscript including the name of the board/committee that gave the approval. Investigations involving humans will have been performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Link for Declaration of Helsinki

https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/

For Research Involving Human Subjects

Informed consent from each patient or participant should be obtained. Patient or participant's identities and privacy must be fully protected in the manuscript. Please follow the guidelines from ICMJE on the Protection of Research Participants. The information on whether informed consent has been obtained should be written in the manuscript, either in the Methods section, Acknowledgement, or in a separate section. If informed consent was obtained orally only or not obtained, the authors must clearly explain the reasons with a statement in the manuscript and this should have been approved by the author's institutional review board or ethics committee.

Link for Protection of Research Participants

https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/protection-of-research-participants.html