Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics

This journal follows the ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their work and ideas. Pakistan Journal of Engineering and Technology (PakJET) is dedicated to ensuring the quality of each paper that it publishes. In the interest of maintaining the highest standards in academic publishing,  the committee insists that all authors, editors, reviewers, and editorial staff abide by the Core Practices and guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Researchers may contact this journal at dr.ir.mnkhan@gmail.com regarding any ethical concerns. The potential conflicts of interest for all authors must be disclosed in their papers at the time of submission. It is required that authors are presenting their research findings accurately and discussing the significance of their work objectively. The PakJET follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and aims to adhere to its guidelines and core practices. Further to the publication ethics, journal consider all the components including the article assessment, misconduct, plagiarism, duplicate submission and redundant publication, citation manipulation, fabrication and falsification, authorship and acknowledgement, and conflict of interest. All these parameters are mentioned in detail in the following Sections.

Article assessment: All manuscripts are subject to 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. 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. Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is harmful for knowledge. It could mislead other researchers.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has prepared Publication Ethics guidelines for all its approved Journals. This journal follows these guidelines which are available here

The PakJET follow the COPE guidelines for authorship and recommends that authorship should be based on the following four criteria given below. Further to these criteria’s, only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content:

  1. Made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study.
  2. Drafted or written the manuscript or substantially revised it critically for important intellectual content or critically reviewed the article.
  3. Have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication.
  4. Responsible and be accountable for the contents of the published article.

All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Your affiliation in the manuscript should be the institution where you conducted the research. You should also include details of any funding received from that institution. If you have changed affiliation since completing the research, your new affiliation can be acknowledged in a note. The journal did not normally make changes to the affiliation after the journal accepts your article.

Changes

  1. After the journal has accepted your article, if you need to change the co-authors for any reason you should write to the editor of the journal, with a clear reason for the change. This letter must come from all the authors, including the person you are adding or removing. The editor will need to agree to the change.
  2. If the corresponding author changes before the article is published (i.e., if a co-author becomes the corresponding author), please write to the editor of the journal and the production editor, confirming that both authors have agreed the change.
  3. Requested changes to the co-authors or corresponding authors after publication of the article will also be considered, following the authorship guidelines issued by COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Misconduct: PakJET expects all authors, editors and reviewers to be aware of the best practice in publication ethics. Any form of misconduct is strictly prohibited. Authors should avoid ghost, guest, gift and other authorship issues. Authors should retain their original data and source files after submitting their articles, as the editor might request this material in the publication evaluation process, which otherwise will be suspended until any issue is resolved. Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare any competing interests. We will vigorously investigate allegations of research or publication misconduct.
Any suspicion that authors, reviewers or editors have engaged in misconduct will result in action either before or after publication. When ethical questions are raised regarding a paper that has already been published—even years after publication—a preliminary investigation will be carried out, following COPE guidelines, in the course of which the party or parties involved will be called upon to present their case. The editor reserves the right to question a manuscript’s originality and integrity and to raise these concerns with the authors’ sponsoring institutions and other relevant bodies.

CONTRIBUTION OF EACH AUTHOR WITH DETAILS

Acknowledgment Criteria

Contributors who do not meet all the four criteria for authorship, but helped in the study, may be listed in the acknowledgement Section as mentioned in authorship. Examples of those, but is not limited by, the following:

  • Individuals who helped in acquisition of funding
  • Individuals who generally supervised the research group
  • Individuals who provided general administrative support
  • Colleagues who helped in designing the study
  • Individuals who helped in reviewing the manuscript, including writing assistance, technical and language editing, and proofreading
  • Statisticians for statistical tests and analysis
  • Secretarial help
  • organizations which may have helped

Corresponding Author: The corresponding author is the individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Authors should - at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript) - disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Conflict of interest can be defined “exists when a participant in the publication process (author, peer reviewer, or editor) has a competing interest that could unduly influence (or be reasonably seen to do so) his or her responsibilities in the publication process."

Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).

Authors should state the conflict of interest clearly in the online submission form. This statement should also appear at the end of the text before the references. If there are no conflicts of interests, the authors should state, “none to declare.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES

Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

HAZARDS AND HUMAN OR ANIMAL SUBJECTS

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.

FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS IN PUBLISHED WORKS

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper. 

INVESTIGATIONS AND SANCTIONS

Suspected breaches of the publication ethics policies, either before and after publication, as well as concerns about unethical research behavior, should be reported to publisher’s ethics committee and undergo a thorough investigation. During the investigation process, the authors may be requested to provide the underlying data and images, and answer all editors’ queries.

Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

  • If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

  • If the article has already been published online, an erratum/correction may be published and linked with the article, or in severe cases, a retraction of the article may occur.

  • If publisher becomes aware of breaches of the publication ethics policies, the following sanctions may be applied across the publishers' journals:

  • 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.