Ethical Guidelines for Editors

Editor of a research journal plays an important role in establishing and maintaining professional standards. Publication of a paper in an HEC recognized journal is expected to be a reflection of the quality work of the author (s) and the affiliating institution (if any). The editor is expected to perform the responsibility towards the journal on its all aspects and at varied stages i.e. from receiving an article to publishing it. Keeping this in view, it becomes the prime responsibility of an editor to adopt the following guidelines while publishing papers in his/her research journal.

1. Editor’s Responsibilities

Editor of a research journal should be responsible for:

To establish and maintain the quality of the journal by publishing quality papers in his/her journal,
Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework,
Providing integrity and credibility of the research contributions,
Meeting the needs of authors and readers,
Maintaining ethical standards of their journal,
Providing a corrigendum for any correction, clarification, and apologies where required.

1.1 Good practices for their job would include to:

encourage new ideas and suggestions of authors, peer reviewers, members of the editorial board, and readers for improving the quality of his/her journal,
apply the process of blind peer review in true letter and spirit,
promote innovative findings in the respective field and publishing them on priority,
promote anti-plagiarism policy,
educate contributors (authors) about ethical practices in research, and
implement the journal’s policy without institutional pressure and revise the policy from time to time.

1.2 Formation of Editorial Board

The editor must ensure that the editorial board comprises of prominent scholars of the field who can adequately promote the journal,
The editorial board shall be comprised of:
Editorial Committee, who will be responsible for providing logistics, and
Advisory Committee, who will be responsible for reviewing the submitted research papers. This committee should have at least 50% representation of scholars from abroad.
- May appoint editorial board members for a prescribed duration and add or revise the board if required,
- The editor should inform new board members about ethical guidelines and their expected role and update editorial board members about development, challenges, and any changes made in the journal policy,
- The editorial board should maintain the quality of the journal because an assigned category by the HEC (e.g. X, Y, and Z categories) will depend on the quality of published papers in it. It is the professional duty of the board members to select credible research work, and
- To ensure the smooth functioning of the journal, editors are responsible to conduct the editorial board meetings on regular basis (at least twice a year).

2. Fair play and Impartiality

The criteria for the selection of research papers must be impartial and the editor should select academically and scientifically sound papers,
Editor should:
Promptly respond to the author (s) of the papers submitted for publication, and
Assign a specific number to an article submitted for processing, and pay impartial consideration to all research papers submitted for publication
- ensure to evaluate (get evaluated) the content of research papers impartially and on merit, and
- disregard the discriminating factors, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority, and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication, and
- ensure impartiality of the review process by informing reviewer (s) that s/he needs to disclose any conflicts of interest regarding the submitted research paper.

3. Confidentiality

The editor must ensure confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the process of double-blind peer review,
Information pertaining to a research paper should not be disclosed by the editor to anyone except the author(s), reviewer(s), and editorial board members,
Upon reaching a decision about a research paper, the editor may only disclose or announce the title of the study and the name of the author(s) that has been accepted for publication. Any other information may only be disclosed with the prior approval of the author(s), and
Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured by protecting personal information (e.g. identifiable personal details, images, and/or individual results), editor should declare clear guidelines to the contributors (authors) regarding the confidentiality of the individual participant.
Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript should be kept confidential, both the editor and reviewer(s) will not share or use any part of the work.

4. Editing and Formatting Guidelines

The editors should prepare clear guidelines about preparing and formatting a paper and print these guidelines in each issue of the journal,
The guidelines should cover information related to ‘content’ and ‘format’ of a research paper,
Any preferred manual of style (e.g. APA, Chicago Manual, MLA Style, etc) should be declared as a policy decision.

5. Review Process

Details about the review process should be declared,
The editor should ensure that all published papers have gone through a double-blind peer review, and at least one of the reviewers is from outside the country,
The editor should ensure that peer-review is masked in both directions and as such the identity of the author is removed from the manuscript prior to its review in order to protect the confidentially and privacy,
The editor should provide sufficient guidelines to reviewers, including necessary information about the review process, and provide them a reviewer comment form for recording his/her comments,
The editor must ensure that the peer-review process is prompt, nondiscriminatory, and highly professional,
The editor should develop a system of confidentiality of research papers undergoing the review process,
The editor is required to send reviewers’ comments to the author(s) promptly,
The editor should ensure that the corrections suggested by the reviewers are incorporated by the author(s) in letter and spirit,
Editor to critically evaluate peer review practices regularly and make an improvement, if, required,
The editor should maintain a database of competent and qualified reviewers. For this purpose, s/he may use various sources other than personal contacts to identify new reviewers (e.g. referring by author (s), citations and references section in a book/journal), and
The editor should refer trouble cases (e.g. in case of one acceptance and one rejection or any conflict arisen after review) to the advisory committee in order to resolve the matter amicably.

6. Dealing with Misconduct

The editor should encourage reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct in case the submitted research paper has indulged in (e.g. inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participant’s consent, data manipulation, presentation,
The editor should encourage reviewers to comment on the validity of the submitted research paper and identify ‘subtle (simply copy-paste)’ and/or ‘blatant (paraphrasing)’ type of plagiarism, if, practiced by the author(s),
The editor should confirm plagiarism (carry out the objective check through Turnitin) and/or searching for similar titles to the submitted research paper, and
The editor should be prepared to publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article if it comes to his/her knowledge subsequent to its publication.

7. Transparency

The editor must ensure that multiple papers as a principal investigator submitted by an author should not be published in the same issue,
Only ONE co-authorship will be allowed for that author who will also contribute a research paper as a principal investigator in the same issue,
For the members of the editorial board (including the editor), it will only be limited to ONE paper per issue either to submit a research paper as a principal investigator or co-author, and
The editor should adopt an authorship or co-authorship policy that will lead to set an example in the scientific community and strictly discourage any misconduct (e.g. forcible inclusion of a name in the author list). Authorship should only be given to those individuals who have substantially contributed to the said article

8. Conflict of Interest

The editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative, and/or professional standing),
The editor should also apply this guideline to their reviewers and editorial board members.
To ensure unbiased review, the editor should declare a clear cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an editorial board member, and
The editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g. financial, academic, and/or any other type) for all editorial board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated from time to time.
To ensure unbiased review, the editor should declare a clear-cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an editorial board member.
Suggested that "decision pertaining to the editor's submitted article/s, one of the associate editors must decide and the information about reviewers should be kept confidential from the editor

9. Disclosure

The editor must not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s), and
Any information received after the peer review process must be kept confidential and not used for personal gains.

10. Publication Decisions

editor to only shortlist research papers that have relevancy with the scope of the journal based on his/her judgment but without any prejudice,
After completion of the reviewing process, submission of a revised manuscript, and assessing the quality and validity, the editor has a right to accept or reject a research paper,
Editor’s decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be purely based on merit, academic standards, and professional demands of the journal,
The editor must justify the reasons for rejecting a research paper to author(s). This may include:

Failure to fit in the scope of the journal (can be communicated after preliminary review)
Insufficient depth of content
Major errors related to design, analysis, write up and format
any misconduct or conflicting factors (e.g. plagiarism, copyright infringement, legal issues, fake data, authorship issues)
- Editors are required to timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s),? Editors should not reverse decisions in favor or against the author(s) at his/her own.

11. Establishing a Procedure for Appeal

The editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
the rejection of a research paper
objections to publications causing harm to any party
infringing ethical boundaries in any manner