Publication Ethics

Journal of Kufa for Mathematics and Computer (JoKMC), owned and administered by the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Kufa, is committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity in the content of all publications. The ethical policy of JoKMC is in accord with the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as detailed below.

Responsibilities of Editors

  1. JoKMC is committed to evaluating all manuscripts without regard for authors' gender, race, citizenship, political opinions, etc. The only criteria for the journal decision are the scientific content, clarity of presentation, and originality of the received manuscript.
  2. The Editors are completely empowered to reject or accept a manuscript based on its scientific contribution.
  3. The Editors of the journal are advised to maintain the confidentiality of all submitted manuscripts that are under review.
  4. The Editor-in-Chief, along with the other Editors and Reviewers, would decide whether submitted manuscripts are suitable for publication or not.
  5. The journal adopts the policy of anonymous peer-reviewing.
  6. All Editors of the journal are advised to disclose any possible conflict of interest before the review process starts.
  7. The journal aims to maintain academic integrity and ensure readers' and authors' needs are met.
  8. Journal Editors are responsible to disclose any kind of plagiarism, erroneous results, or fraudulent data issues. If such cases are found after publication, JoKMC is committed to publish corrections, apologies, or clarifications; otherwise, in case of serious errors, the paper would be retracted.
  9. The journal Editors should not disclose any information regarding submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding Author, Editorial Board, or Editorial Advisers.
  10. The Editors should not use any unpublished materials that are disclosed during the review process for their own research without the Author's consent.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

  1. Reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts during the review process.
  2. Reviewers should provide insightful and timely comments to assist the Editor in making the correct decision: either to publish the manuscript or not.
  3. Reviewers should be objective, technical, and professional in their comments.
  4. Reviewers must treat the manuscripts they receive for peer-review as confidential, and should not use any information disclosed during peer-review process for their own personal use.
  5. Reviewers should disclose to the Journal any possible conflict of interest with the Authors or their institutions before the start of the review process.

 

Responsibilities of Authors

  1. All manuscripts must be written in standard English and should adhere to proper terminology and language usage. We strongly advise the Authors to double-check their manuscript with a professional language editor before submission. It is well known that a paper with proper language usage and good presentation would attract more readers and have higher impact.
  2. Submitted manuscripts must not have been previously published and are not being under processing at another journal or conference. Partial publication of some results at a conference should be indicated on the front page of the manuscript.
  3. Approval from all co-authors must be obtained before the manuscript can be published. The corresponding author is responsible for this agreement.
  4. In order to sustain the peer-review system, the Authors are encouraged to participate in the review process via registering with JoKMC as reviewers so that they might evaluate manuscripts submitted by other authors.
  5. The authors are responsible to obtain the necessary approvals from their institutions before submitting their manuscript.
  6. To submit a manuscript, the authors must permit JoKMC to edit their manuscript for improved readability.
  7. If the research was funded or sponsored by institutions, the authors are requested to clearly acknowledge the support of these institutions.
  8. All manuscripts submitted for review and publication at JoKMC must be screened for plagiarism using some standard anti-plagiarism checker. Plagiarism violates the publication ethics.
  9. Before submitting the manuscript to JoKMC, Authors must ensure that they have read the submission final checklist.

 

Violation of Publication Ethics

  1. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is defined as the intentional use of someone else’s ideas, artworks (e.g., figures), or words as if they are one's own. Copying any sequence of words from someone else’s work, or even copying some words of your own published works, is considered as plagiarism at JoKMC, unless proper citation is made. All manuscripts under review or published at JoKMC should be screened using a standard anti-plagiarism checker. Plagiarized artworks and ideas are subject to post-publication screening and may result into paper withdrawal and sanctions. Thus, JoKMC considers any kind of plagiarism as a serious violation of publication and scientific ethics.
  2. Data Fabrication and Falsification: Data fabrication means that the Authors have not carried out the studies reported in their submitted manuscript by themselves, but instead they made up either data or results then reported the fabricated information as results of scientific research. Data falsification means that the Authors might have done the experiment but later they manipulated data or results to be different from the actual research findings. JoKMC advises the Authors that good research results should always be re-producible.
  3. Simultaneous Submission: Simultaneous submission means that a manuscript (or substantial material extracted from it) is submitted to another journal or a conference while it is still under review by JoKMC.
  4. Duplicate Publication: Duplicate publication means that two or more papers share substantial amount of material including hypotheses, data, and results.
  5. Redundant Publications: Redundant publications means the unjustifiable division of research outcomes into two or more separate pieces, probably to boost the number of publications in the academic CV.
  6. Improper Author Contribution or Attribution: JoKMC requests that all authors of a submitted manuscript must have made a clear contribution to the research outcomes in that manuscript. Everyone who made a significant contribution should be listed as an author, including students and laboratory technicians, while non-scientific support (e.g., financial or editorial) should be acknowledged at the end of the paper.
  7. Citation Manipulation: Citation manipulation means the use of unnecessary citations in the submitted manuscript that are added just to increase citations record of an author or the citations of articles published in a particular journal. This manipulation can give misleading information about the impact of the improperly-cited author or journal, hence JoKMC considers it as a kind of scientific misconduct. Any redundant citation that does not contribute clearly to the scholarly content of the submitted manuscript would violate JoKMC policy and should be removed.
  8. Sanctions: If there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies against an Author, regardless whether the violations occurred at JoKMC or at any other journal, the following sanctions will be applied: (i) Immediate rejection of any citation to the infringing paper, (ii) Immediate rejection of any submitted manuscript which bears the name of the infringing author, and this sanction will continue for a minimum of 5 years, (iii) Permanent prohibition against the infringing author from serving on the Editorial Board of JoKMC.

Handling Cases of Misconduct

In case of a violating any of JoKMC publication ethical guidelines, JoKMC addresses ethical concerns in accordance with the standard practice as summarized below.

  1. The handling Editor should inform the Editorial Office of JoKMC with relevant explanation so that JoKMC would issue a nonjudgmental letter to the corresponding author asking to clarify the infringement concerns.
  2. If the author’s reply does not sufficiently address the ethical concerns, the matter should be referred to the Editorial Board.  The Editorial Board will decide whether serious violation of the journal ethics has occurred, a fact that entails the application of sanctions. 
  3. If the misconduct is minor, the Editorial Board will advise JoKMC to send the author a reminder to amend the submitted manuscript in accordance with the publication policies. However, if the manuscript has already been published, JoKMC will request the author to publish an apology in the journal regarding this violation.
  4. In serious cases of misconduct, JoKMC will notify the authors' affiliations, and the authors will be prohibited from submitting new manuscripts to JoKMC for a period decided by the Editorial Board.
  5. Post-publication ethics and procedures: If,  after publishing a paper, KJMC discovers any violation of publication ethics committed by Authors in that paper (e.g., if a clear similarity of content with another paper is found), the journal will issue a permanent retraction statement on the webpage dedicated to the violating paper, clarifying that the paper has been retracted and advising researchers to avoid any reference to that paper. The retracted paper will not be removed or modified after publication, while the Corresponding Author of the retracted paper has the right to appeal this decision by contacting the journal administration if clear evidence is provided.