Publication Ethics

  • In order to strengthen science and technology ethics, promote research integrity, maintain the seriousness and reputation of academic activities, Science Research Management, Print ISSN 1000-2995 & CN 11-1567/G3, published monthly, is now making following statements on the subject of ethical behavior standards, which all editors, editorial staff, authors, reviewers and publishers who involved in publishing process must follow to. 

    1. Editorial Responsibility

    Confidentiality agreement: Submission involving confidential matters, the author takes on the liability. Requirement on avoiding certain peer reviewers can be brought forward in online submission, and editors at the time of submission will consider as appropriate. Editors and editorial staff have obligations to keep the information of peer reviewers and the manuscript of author strictly confidential.
     
    Preliminary review of the manuscript: After the author registered in the journal’s online submission system and uploaded the manuscript in accordance with the process, editors would send the author acknowledgement letter for receiving the submission within two weeks. If the author has not received any notification from editors in 6 months, the manuscript would be handled by the author itself. And the author need to inform the editorial office. Please avoid duplicating manuscript submission.
     
    Manuscript peer review: Science Research Management adopts double-blind peer review.The manuscript will be reviewed by at least two parallel experts. On the premise the manuscript has no interest contradiction and conflict with editors, the decision will be made by at least two valid reviews, and the final result must ensure objectivity and impartiality.
     
    Article copyright: Author’s signed copyright agreement must be completed before manuscript publication.  Editors and editorial staff have the right to amend manuscripts and possess the copyright of published manuscript.
     
    Proofreading before printing: Page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. The proofs must be corrected and returned within one week of receipt otherwise publication may be delayed. Alteration to proofs other than correction of typesetting errors may be in the charge of the authors.
     
    Academic ethics regulation: All members of the editorial board and the editorial staff are required to supervise the academic ethics of the journal, to ensure the manuscript is non-commercial and non-profit, the argument is true and reliable, the evidence is highly scientific etc., to maintain the high-standard and strict-requirement academic ethics regulation.

    Whenever the editors receive a complaint about the publication's ethical issues, he should immediately take response measures to actively investigate, obtain evidence, and implement. If necessary, corrections, cancellations and other work need to be carried out.

    For the main content or conclusion of the published article, if there is solid evidence to prove that there is a problem, the editor needs to carry out appropriate errata work.

     
    Archiving: Editorial office is responsible for maintaining online access from journal website. Even if the journal were no longer published, archives of all published articles would be provided.


    2. Reviewer Responsibility
     
    Objective standard of review: Comments and criticisms shall not against author itself. Review’s evidence must be sufficient and argument must be clear. The review should be objective and impartial.
     
    Manuscript confidentiality: Without authorization from the editor-in-chief, manuscript information shall not be disclosed or discussed with others to ensure the confidentiality of review result.
     
    The efficiency of review: Reviewers shall maintain the high efficiency of review and submit reports in given time. If the reviewer considers itself not competence to review the manuscript or cannot provide the report in time, he will notify handling editor immediately.
     
    Reference confirmation: Peer reviewers shall note the references that the manuscript should be cited and failed to, to ensure the correctness and originality of the argument. A large number of similarities or overlaps with other publications are found in the manuscript, reviewers shall promptly communicate with editors.
     
    Avoid conflict or relationship with the manuscript: There shall be no conflicts or relationships between reviewers and manuscript’s research area; authors and their organization and fund projects, etc. Any competition or cooperation relationship, any kind of connections between author and his organization are found during reviewing, the editorial department will be informed and the review process will be terminated. If above situations are hidden and are exposed by others, the review will be given a warning, or a lifetime ban from reviewing or public disclosure and other sanctions according to the circumstances.
     
    3. Author Responsibility

    Submission agreement: Author contributing to the Journal will be considered as voluntary compliance with all regulations of the manuscript. Author can appeal to editorial department for the disagreement in review results, but cannot obtain any personal information of peer reviewers in any approaches.
     
    Academic standardization: Articles must be innovative; argument shall be clear, scientific and logical; word using accurately and concisely, reliable data; illustration with high clarity and readability; content is informative; to comply with national legal units of measurement, numbers, punctuation and other criteria. 
     
    Originality: Only articles never published before will be accepted. Following situations are strictly forbidden: duplicate manuscript submission; repeat submission (including submit in the different category); plagiarism. Manuscript with any above situations will be rejected, the author will be blacklisted and will inform his organization. Other relevant professional journals will be informed as well. Any confidential matters involved in the manuscript will be author’s liability.
     
    Reviewer recommendation: The corresponding author is invited to recommend no more than five reviewers for reference. Suggested reviewers cannot be in the same organization with any author of submission and the title of reviewer has to be associate professor or above. Suggested reviewers cannot be familiar with each other, and cannot have cooperative relationship.
     
    Revising or withdrawing manuscript: Before publishing, author has the right to modify the final draft. Mistakes found by the author during any periods should be informed of editor. After editor’s review, manuscript needs to be revised should be revised and sent back to editor in no longer than 2 months. If there is difficulty in returning the manuscript on time, the situation can be explained to editor. Without proper explanation, the manuscript will be withdrawn without returning in 6 months.
     
    Copyright transfer agreement: Article’s copyright belongs to the author and the author takes full responsibility for his own writings. In order to guarantee authorship and intellectual property, all authors should sign on the "Copyright Transfer Agreement" according to article’s publishing order. Editor and editorial staff have the right to amend the text of submitted articles and possess the copyright of published manuscript. After publishing, the author agreed to automatically transfer copyrights to the journal, including electronic publishing, multimedia publishing, web publishing and other rights in the form of publishing.
     Fees: The journal does not charge review fee for manuscript processing.For articles that have been accepted, this publication will charge a publishing service fee.For published articles, the journal will pay a certain amount of remuneration according to the appropriate method.
    References: The author should list all the references and financial supports of the manuscript to avoid confliction.
     
    Sanctions:
     
    Once a violation act mentioned above is found, even when the violations occurred in other publications’ submission, the journal will implement the following measures: The manuscript involving in violation will be immediately rejected; all manuscripts written by authors of violating articles will be immediately rejected; authors involve in violating manuscript will be abandoned from submission in any identity, including the first author, the corresponding author or the identity of other authors, in at least 5 years.
     
    Above commitments and measures are effective from the date of release. Newsroom editorial staff, all members of the editorial board, authors, reviewers, publishers and the public have the right to supervise the implementation of above commitments and measures.

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