Publication ethics

Publication Ethics

eCurater is committed to conforming to a high standard of morality and ethics to ensure the highest quality scientific publications. eCurater is pledged to perpetuate an accurate and transparent academic record including error corrections and retractions when necessary. We are a member of COPE and ascribe to its publication policies, ethics and core practices. The following guidelines provide a general overview of the publication ethics.

Ethical Aspects of Article Evaluation:

• All the manuscripts are peer-reviewed and the identity of the reviewers is kept anonymous to the author(s)
• Our Research Integrity Team will come into action if there is a suspected serious ethical breach and also reacts to the submissions that hold serious societal insinuation
• Plagiarized manuscripts will be rejected and the authors may be subjected to necessary action. Any misconduct identified after the publication of the article also will be considered for a corrective action
• eCurater publishes only previously unpublished authentic content. Authors must not make simultaneous submissions of the same article on multiple journals. The manuscript under review at eCurater should not be submitted elsewhere unless withdrawn from us and the same applies vice versa. Reuse of previously published work as a basis for the current manuscript should be clearly declared by the author. It is the responsibility of the author to attain prior permission from the copyright holder to reuse words and figures. As extended versions of conference papers and previously published papers are accepted for publication, authors must obtain necessary permissions and clearly cite the previous work in the cover letter. Redundant submissions will lead to the retraction of the latter paper and the author might be subjected to sanction
• Authors should not include citations with an intention to increase the number of citations for a specific author’s work. Editors and reviewers at eCurater should not recommend the authors to include citations that link their personal texts of interest. Any such identified case is considered as a breach in ethics and the breacher will incur sanction
• All the authors who have made significant contributions to the scientific research must be acknowledged and listed in the paper

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of Interest also known as Competing Interests arise when an author, reviewer or editor holds personal, political, regional, religious, gender-based, financial relationships that influence their roles directly or indirectly. To maintain utmost transparency in communicating authentic scientific knowledge, authors, reviewers and editors must declare the competing interests. If any competing interest is not declared by the author and is later perceived during the publication process, it leads to rejection of the manuscript and the author must suffer disciplinary action. The coauthors of a manuscript also must declare their competing interests. Authors must include a Funding Statement. Reviewers and editors must declare competing interests that involve any close affiliation with the author or any financial, personal interest that could possibly intervene with the process well before beginning to assess the manuscript and can feel free to suggest another member from the board to further the review process failing which subjects them to serious action. If conflicts of interest are found post publication, the manuscript will be considered to be reassessed and might also get retracted in case of serious ethical concerns.

Punitive Action

In case of identified breaches in the Publication Ethics policies, eCurater first consults experts outside the review team that includes reviewers with specific expertise and additional editors to decide on a submission. Upon confirmation of violation in the ethics, eCurater may reject the author’s manuscript and might not encourage further submissions for a stipulated period of time. Any violation of policies observed from the editors’ or reviewers’ end will lead to termination of their services.