Publication Ethics

World Journal of Experimental Biosciences requires all submissions to adhere to the highest ethical standards and best practices in publishing. All manuscripts submitted to World J Exp Biosci are expected to present accurate information and to properly cite all content referenced from other materials. Submitted articles should not have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). In addition, by submitting material to World J Exp Biosci, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at World J Exp Biosci.

Duties of Editors

  • The Editors of the journal should have the full authority to reject/accept a manuscript.
  • The Editors of the journal should maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts under review until they are published.
  • The Editor-in-Chief should decide on submitted manuscripts, whether to be published or not with other editors and reviewers.
  • The editors of the journal should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
  • The editors of the journal should disclose and try to avoid any conflict of interests.
  • The Editors should comment on ethical questions and possible misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, and inappropriate data manipulation), and be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Editors' comments should be sent to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks.
  • The Editors of the journal must not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
  • Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
  • Editors strive to ensure that peer review at (World J Exp Biosci) is fair, unbiased, and timely. The journal has established policies for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review.
  • Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that different sections have different aims and standards.
  • Editors should seek assurances that the research they publish has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to handle potential breaches of laws and conventions. Errors, inaccurate, or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

Duties of Reviewers

  • Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them to improve the paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
  • 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, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
  • Reporting possible research misconduct.
  • Suggest alternative reviewers in case they cannot review the manuscript for any reason.
  • Treating the manuscript as a confidential document.
  • Not making any use of the work described in the manuscript.
  • Not communicating directly with authors, if somehow they identify the authors.
  • Ensuring that the manuscript is of high quality and original research.
  • Informing the editor if he/she finds the assigned manuscript is under consideration in any other publication to his/her knowledge.
  • Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
  • Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. References to the ideas of others should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
  • A reviewer should call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
  • The reviewer should not enforce Authors to cite the reviewer's published articles.

Duties of Authors

  • The submitted manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
  • The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid concerns about text-recycling (self-plagiarism).
  • Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation (including image-based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting, and processing data.
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgments to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized, and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.
  • The submitting corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript article's publication has been approved by all the other coauthors.
  • All authors have agreed to allow the corresponding author to serve as the correspondent with the editorial office, to review the edited manuscript and proof.
  • All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims.
  • Acknowledge the sources of data used in the development of the manuscript.

Contribution Details

Contributors should describe contributions made by each of them toward the manuscript. Authors must have:

  • made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work,; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
  • contributed to drafting the paper, or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
  • provided final approval of the version to be published;
  • agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved;
  • agreed to be named on the author list; and approved the full author list.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors qualify for authorship and have agreed to be listed on the submission. He is also responsible for informing all co-authors of relevant editorial information during the review process.

Studies in Humans, Animals, and Plants

All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections, or sites, must include a written statement under an Ethics Approval section including the following:

  • The name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved.
  • The number or ID of the ethics approval(s).
  • A statement that human participants have provided informed consent before taking part in the research.
  • Research involving animals must adhere to ethical standards concerning animal welfare. All original research papers involving animals must:
    • Follow international, national, and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals.
    • Receive approval by the ethics review committee at the institution or practice at which the research was conducted and provide details on the approval process, names of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved, and the number or ID of the ethics approval(s) in the Ethics Approval section.
    • Provide justification for the use of animals and the species selected.
    • Provide information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment, and steps taken to minimize suffering.
    • Provide mode of anesthesia and euthanasia.

Research that does not meet the above-listed requirements regarding ethical approval and animal welfare will be rejected.

  • Research involving humans

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out by The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/) (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/) and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender (https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1) should be used correctly.

Approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the authors’ institutional or other relevant ethics committee (Institutional Review Board, IRB) to ensure that they meet national and international guidelines. Details of this approval must be provided when submitting an article, including the institution, review board name, and permit number(s). Ethics approval must be obtained before the research is conducted; retrospective approval can usually not be obtained and it may not be possible to publish the study.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

  • Research involving animals

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines) and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf) and the authors should indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Experiments involving vertebrates or regulated invertebrates must be carried out within the ethical guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of ethics permission granted or animal licenses should be included. In all cases, a statement should be made to confirm that all efforts were made to ameliorate any suffering of animals, and details of how this was achieved should be provided.

  • Research involving plants

Studies on plants must be carried out within the guidelines provided by the authors’ institution and national or international regulations. Where applicable, a statement of permissions granted or licenses should be included. Authors should comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity (https://www.cbd.int/convention/the) and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (https://cites.org/eng/disc/text.php) .

Consent for Publication

For all manuscripts that include details or images relating to an individual person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) (such that they will be freely available on the internet). If the person has died, consent for publication must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was obtained.

Authors can use the consent form (https://resource-cms.springernature.com/springer-cms/rest/v1/content/17074538/data/v1) to obtain consent for publication, or a consent form from their own institution or region if appropriate. The consent form states that the details/images will be freely available on the internet and may be seen by the general public. The consent form must be made available to the Editor if requested and will be treated confidentially.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Plagiarism (Using Turnitin software)

Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious violation of publication ethics and is not acceptable. The journal has a strict policy against plagiarism and misconduct. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using professional plagiarism-checking software. Submitted manuscripts with an unacceptable similarity index resulting from plagiarism or misconduct research behavior are rejected immediately. Examples of plagiarism and misconduct include:

  • Word-for-word copying of portions of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and acknowledging the source in the appropriate scholarly convention.
  • The paraphrasing or abbreviated restatement of someone else's ideas without acknowledging that another person's text has been the basis for the paraphrasing.
  • False citation: material should not be attributed to a source from which it has not been obtained.
  • False data: data that has been fabricated or altered in a laboratory or experiment; although not factually plagiarism, this is a form of academic fraud.
  • Self-plagiarism or double submission: the submission of the same or a very similar paper to two or more publications.

Complaints/Appeals

All complaints, concerns, or appeals regarding authorship issues or the peer-review process, including concerns raised post-publication, should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief, who shall investigate the claims by first, requesting information from all parties involved and second, proposing a course of action in line with academic ethical principles as outlined by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE; https://publicationethics.org/). Submissions can be halted in the review or publication process until the issues are resolved. In situations, when Editor-in-Chief is involved in the complaint, the Editorial Board members, led by the most senior member, investigate the claims and propose a course of action.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

All authors of articles must disclose any conflicts of interest they may have with the publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflicts of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.

Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is confidential material. The journal will not disclose submitted manuscripts to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, reviewers, and editors. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of the journal ethics committees and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.

Misconduct

Misconduct constitutes a violation of this editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, or any applicable guidelines/policies specified by COPE, WAME (World Association of Medical Editors), and ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). Any other activities that threaten/compromise the integrity of the research/publication process are potential misconduct. Suspected cases of misconduct will be investigated according to COPE guidelines.

Correction and Retraction of Articles

Corrections may be made to a published article with the authorization of the editor of the journal. Editors will decide the magnitude of the corrections. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. However, in cases of major corrections, the original article will remain unchanged, while the corrected version will also be published. Both the original and corrected versions will be linked to each other. A statement indicating the reason for the major change to the article will also be published. When necessary, the retraction of articles will be done according to COPE retraction guidelines.

Acknowledgment

Individuals who participated in the development of a manuscript but do not qualify as an author should be acknowledged. Organizations that provide support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged. Information concerning funding organizations (including the grant numbers) for the reported research should be provided. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.