Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality publications, public trust in research findings, and that people receive credit for their work and ideas.

  • Article Assessment
  • Plagiarism
  • Duplicate Submission and Redundant Publication
  • Citation Manipulation
  • Fabrication and Falsification
  • Authorship and Acknowledgements
  • Sanctions
  • Corrections and Retractions

Article Assessment

All manuscripts are subject to double blind peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors. Information about reviewers will be not be forwarded to the Authors due to editorial requirements of peer review.

Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.

Plagiarism

Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without attribution. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text.

UWJSS uses its own software to detect submissions that overlap with published and submitted manuscripts. Editors / Authors can see Similarity Check page for more information on how to interpret these reports.

Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will be rejected and the authors may incur sanctions. Any published articles may need to be corrected or retracted. Similarity index should be 19% maximum, as per Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC).

Duplicate Submission and Redundant Publication

UWJSS considers only original content, i.e. articles that have not been previously published, only in English Language. Articles based on content previously made public only on a preprint server, institutional repository, or in a thesis will be considered.

Manuscripts submitted to UWJSS must not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration and must be withdrawn before being submitted elsewhere. Authors whose articles are found to have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere may incur sanctions.

If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they must cite the previous articles and indicate how their submitted manuscript differs from their previous work. Reuse of the authors’ own words outside the Methods should be attributed or quoted in the text. Reuse of the authors’ own figures or substantial amounts of wording may require permission from the copyright holder and the authors are responsible for obtaining this.

UWJSS will consider extended versions of articles published at conferences provided this is declared in the cover letter, the previous version is clearly cited and discussed, there is significant new content, and any necessary permissions are obtained.

Redundant publication, the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), may result in rejection or a request to merge submitted manuscripts, and the correction of published articles. Duplicate publication of the same, or a very similar, article may result in the retraction of the later article and the authors may incur sanctions.

Citation Manipulation

Authors whose submitted manuscripts are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions.

Reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

Fabrication and Falsification

The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified the results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.

Authorship and Acknowledgements

All listed authors must have made a significant contribution to the research in the manuscript, approved its claims, and agreed to be an author. It is important to list everyone who made a significant contribution. Author contributions may be described at the end of the submission, optionally using roles. Changes in authorship must be declared to the journal and agreed to by all authors.

Anyone who contributed to the research or manuscript preparation, but is not an author, should be acknowledged with their permission.

Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be considered.

Authors

Authors must declare: “The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Submitting authors are responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.

Authors must declare current or recent funding (including article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the ‘Acknowledgments’.

The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.

Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor.

Reviewers

Reviewers should decline to be involved with a submission when they:

  • Have a recent publication or current submission with any author
  • Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author
  • Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author
  • Have a close personal connection to any author
  • Have a financial interest in the subject of the work
  • Feel unable to be objective

Reviewers must declare any remaining interests in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form, which will be considered by the editor.

Reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.

Sanctions

If UWJSS, becomes aware of breaches of our publication ethics policies, whether or not the breach occurred in a journal published by UWJSS, the following sanctions may be applied:

  • Rejection of the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s).
  • Not allowing submission for 1–3 years.
  • Prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.

UWJSS may apply additional sanctions for severe ethical violations.

Suspected breaches of our publication ethics policies, either before and after publication, as well as concerns about research ethics, should be reported to Editors.

Corrections and Retractions

When errors are identified in published articles, the editor will consider what action is required and may consult the authors.

If there are errors that significantly affect the conclusions or there is evidence of misconduct, this may require retraction or an expression of concern.

Retraction Guidelines.

All authors will be asked to agree to the content of the notice.