IPS Publication Ethics

 

 

IPS is committed to the highest ethical and transparent publishing principles and guarantees full integrity in all its editorial processes. The relevant duties and expectations of authors, reviewers, and editors of the journal are set out below.

Editors' responsibilities

Publication decisions

The editors are responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be sent to peer-review and published. The editors will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s originality, clarity and and relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

Confidentiality

The editors and the editorial staff members must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author(s), possible and actual reviewers, editorial advisers. They should preserve the anonymity of authors and reviewers throughout the peer-review process. The editors and the editorial staff also agree not to use any part of the content of submitted manuscripts on behalf of the authors.

Identification and prevention of research misconduct

The editors retain the right to revise manuscripts through machine-based tools of research quality evaluation and validation as well as anti-plagiarism monitoring (e.g., Turnitin). The editors are responsible for checking against instances of research misconduct. In that case the editors will opt for desk-rejection or retraction. In cases of proven misconduct, the editors will take all appropriate measures to amend the situation and are always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

 

Reviewers' responsibilities

Confidentiality

All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editors.

Standards of objectivity

Reviewers are responsible for evaluating manuscripts, assisting the editors in making editorial decisions and improving the quality of the articles published in the journal. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers shall conduct their assessment in a timely and objective manner, they should express their views clearly with supporting arguments avoiding any personal or unsupported criticisms.

Conflict of interest

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, research funders, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

 

Authors' duties

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgement of authorship and sources

Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Authors will guarantee that all those who have made significant contributions to the work are listed as co-authors. Non-copyrighted publicly available material must be attributed properly; third party material can be used as long as the author(s) obtains a written permission by the respective owner(s). IPS will not accept manuscripts which have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere as well as instances of multiple, redundant or concurrent publication.

Reporting standards and other malpractices

Likewise, IPS will not accept manuscripts containing fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements, libels and instances of defamation, as well as falsified, manipulated or fabricated data.

Copyright

By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should include a statement disclosing any conflict of interest that may influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be openly disclosed. IPS will be responsible for the publication of such disclaimers in a clear, verifiable way.

Fundamental errors in published works

The editors are committed to publish corrections whenever needed. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and to cooperate with the editorial staff to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.