POL Scientific requests all members involved in the journal editing and publishing process to adhere to the Core Practices on publication ethics and follow the guidelines on handling publishing ethics allegations stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The journal strictly adheres to the guidelines and best practices, which include Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
The journal editors take all possible misconducts seriously. The editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submission or a published article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the editor.
The editors do not approve of any plagiarism attempts. Duplication checker (iThenticate) will be utilized at the editor’s discretion to verify the originality of submissions. A submission will be desk-rejected (during submissions stage) or rejected (during peer review stage) if the paper contains apparent and significant amount of plagiarized content. Therefore, authors are advised to adhere to the contemporary rules in academic writing and publishing ethics.
POL Scientific adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submitting same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time, and breached intellectual property rights. In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, a panel will be formed to investigate the allegation. If the allegation is supported by evidence, the submitted manuscript in question will be declined for consideration in the journal and all authors will be informed in this regard. A retraction initiated by authors or by the journal is required to take place if the paper has already been published, and a retraction note will be published. Authors of the work in question will receive the Panel’s Decision via email and all appeals regarding the decision will have to be made to the editor within 28 days of the decision date.
Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Expressions of Concern
Corrections
POL's Editors encourage readers and authors to notify them of any errors, especially those that could affect the interpretation of data or information presented in an article. When an error is identified, the Editorial Office will collaborate with authors to correct errors in publications that are deemed to be significant. The Editorial Office will consider retraction if the errors invalidate the findings.
Typically, corrections will be reflected directly in the (latest) Version of Record, and a Correction Note will be issued to offer an explanation and/or justification for the corrections made and pinpoint the exact location in the text where changes have been made. For minor corrections made while the articles are still in the Online First stage, changes will be made directly into the Version of Record without issuing a Correction Note. All Correction Notes are open-access and linked to the online Version of Record.
Retractions
Articles may be retracted if:
- There is a major scientific error that would invalidate the conclusions of the article, for example, where there is clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either due to misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error).
- The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication).
- There are ethical issues such as plagiarism (appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit including those obtained through confidential review of others' manuscripts) or inappropriate authorship.
- Unethical research has been reported.
In order to ensure that retractions are handled according to industry best practices, and in accordance with COPE guidelines, POL’s journal adopt the following retraction process:
All journals follow the recommendations of the COPE guidelines for retraction. Potential retractions are thoroughly investigated by the Editorial Office with the support of the Editorial Board and final approval by the Editor-in-Chief. Other persons and institutions will be consulted as necessary, including university authorities or experts in the field.
Editorial Expressions of Concern
Editors of the journal may consider issuing an Expression of Concern if they have well-founded concerns and feel that readers should be made aware of potentially misleading information contained in an article. However, Expressions of Concern should only be issued if an investigation into the problems relating to the article has proved inconclusive, and if there are strong indicators that the concerns are valid. Under some rare circumstances, an Expression of Concern may be issued even if an investigation is underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time, provided that the Editorial Office has well-founded grounds to suggest that the concerns are valid.