Professional and Ethical Standards for Publishing in the Journals of “Applied Science Innovations”.

1. Ethics : As implicit conditions for publishing in “Carbon – Science and Technology” Journal of Applied Science Innovations Pvt. Ltd., India, authors and Researchers are expected to adhere to basic standards of professional ethics and conduct that are common across all areas of scholarly publishing. In the publication agreement authors warrant that their work is original and has not been published elsewhere, nor under consideration for publication. All parties are also expected to conform to common standards of professional respect and civility.

Fortunately, in Scientific Community these standards are upheld in the overwhelming majority of instances. However, misunderstandings and lapses in professional conduct do occur, including instances (or accusations) of plagiarism, inadequate attribution, conflicts of interest, or personally abusive behavior toward referees, authors, editors, or journal staff members. This document summarizes the expected standards of professional and ethical conduct, with specific application to publication in the journals published by “Applied Science Innovations”.

2. Research Results : Authors must not fabricate, falsify or misrepresent data or results. They should strive to be objective, unbiased and truthful in all aspects of their work. Authors must be honest in making claims for the results and conclusions of their research. Making inflated claims for a project interferes with the objective evaluation of its results and applications, and can lead to an unfair and wasteful distribution of resources.

Authors should strive to avoid mistakes in research and exercise due diligence in presenting high quality work for publication. They should critically assess the likelihood of experimental, methodological and human errors and avoid self-deception and bias. Where possible, they should conduct an internal review to assess the validity of their work before publication.

It is recognized that errors may occur from time to time. When an error is discovered in published or submitted work, the mistake should be admitted and a correction, erratum or retraction should be published. Corrections should be approved by all authors of the original article unless there is a particular reason for not doing this. In these cases the dissent among the authors should be noted in the published correction.

Source material of experiments and research results should be recorded (and retained) in an auditable manner that allows for scrutiny and verification by other scientists. Exceptions may be appropriate to preserve privacy or patent protection.

All investigations involving humans must be conducted in accordance with the principles embodied in accordance with local statutory requirements. Articles relying on clinical trials should quote the trial registration number at the end of the abstract / article. We also encourage the registration of such studies in a public trials registry prior to publication of the results in the journal. All investigations involving animal experimentation must be conducted in accordance with the Guiding Principles for Research Involving Animals and Human Beings as adopted by The American Physiological Society , and with local statutory requirements.

3. Authorship : When determining the credit for a piece of work, authors should ensure that all those who have made a significant contribution are given the opportunity to be cited as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should also be acknowledged, but not cited as authors. Corresponding author is supposed to have this responsibility. Some co-authors may be accountable for the entire article, for example those who provide critical data, write the manuscript, present the findings at conferences or provide leadership for junior colleagues. Other co-authors may be responsible for specific contributions to a paper. Authors may wish to include a statement in the acknowledgments to describe the actual contribution of each co-author.

In General, It will be assumed that the First author is the person who has done the majority of the experiment / work and the corresponding author is the leader of that work. All co-authors should be given in decreasing order of their contribution in the work (i.e. Last co-author will mean that that individual has the least contribution in that work).

All authors should receive the final version of the submitted manuscript, agree to its submission and take appropriate responsibility for it. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a manuscript should not be a co-author.

All authors should be consulted about changes to authorship (e.g. the list of authors) during the publication process, and it should be clear to the journal that they have given their consent.

It is unethical to publish articles describing essentially the same studies or results in more than one primary research journal. Submitting the same article to more than one journal concurrently is unethical and unacceptable. Exceptions to this rule may be made for review articles or conference papers, in which case authors should consult with journal Editor before submission.

4. Plagiarism and Republication : “Plagiarism” is the act of reproducing text or other materials from other papers / published sources without properly crediting the source. Such material is regarded as being plagiarized regardless of whether it is cited literally or has been modified or paraphrased. Plagiarism represents a serious ethical breach, and may constitute legal breach of copyright if the reproduced material has been previously published. Plagiarism constitutes unethical scientific behavior and is never acceptable. Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ ideas to submission of a complete paper under ‘new’ authorship. ‘Self-plagiarism’ is the production of many papers with almost the same content by the same authors. Therefore all sources for the work should be disclosed and permission sought for using large amounts of other people’s material.

Authors who wish to quote directly from other published work must fully cite the original reference, and include any cited text in quotation marks. They should also take the necessary permission. Authors are discouraged from including such direct quotations in papers, apart from rare instances. Figures and Tables may only be reproduced with permission and must be fully cited in the figure caption. Necessary permission for reproduction should be taken by authors from respective authorities / copyright owners. This will be normally apply to Review articles and Book Chapters. However, we do not expect authors to reproduce / re-use Figures and Tables previously published by other authors / researchers in “Research Articles” and for “Letters”.

5. Attribution and Citation Practice : Papers published in “Carbon – Science and Technology” Journal should include citations to previously published papers which are directly relevant to the results being presented. This requirement is especially important when new ideas or results are being presented. Deliberate refusal to credit or cite prior or corroborating results, while not regarded technically as constituting plagiarism, represents a comparable breach of professional ethics, and can result in summary rejection of a manuscript. However, an unintentional failure to cite a relevant paper, while regrettable, does not necessarily imply misconduct. The rapid growth in the literature in the area of “Advanced Materials and their applications” in recent years makes it difficult for an author to be aware of every relevant paper, and the inclusion of exhaustive compendia of references is not possible. However, authors are expected to devote the same care to the correctness and appropriateness of literature citations as to the other components of the manuscript, and to heed the recommendations of referees and editors to correct and augment the citations when appropriate. Responsibility for updating references after acceptance (but before publication) of a paper rests fully with the authors, but the same principles should apply. Strictly speaking, authors are not formally required / advised to cite unpublished or unrefereed materials, especially in cases where the veracity of the unpublished work may be in question. However, when principles of common professional courtesy dictate that such attribution is appropriate, authors are expected to honor these conventions.

6. Conflicts of Interest : The “Carbon – Science and Technology” Journals peer review systems are based on a single reviewer model, in which a single referee assumes the responsibility for evaluating the scientific veracity, clarity, significance, novelty and importance of the results presented. For such a system to function effectively it is essential that the referee be free of any conflicts of interest that might influence the content or the promptness of the review. When a paper is submitted, authors may identify individuals who they believe are conflicted and should not serve as referees. Likewise, individuals who are asked to review a paper should identify any potential conflicts of interest, so the editor can determine whether these are substantive enough to disqualify that reviewer. In most instances an individual working at the same institution as one of the co-authors and the individuals who are former collaborators of the authors are ineligible to referee the paper. Editors must also guard against conflicts of interest, and by journal policy they are required to disqualify themselves whenever a real or perceived conflict is present.

7. Confidentiality Guidelines : Except in cases where referees waive their anonymity with the concurrence of the editor, all “Carbon – Science and Technology” Journal’s peer reviews are conducted under conditions of strict confidentiality.

Unless and until needed by the law, the journal and its Editors / International Editorial Advisory Board Members will not reveal the identity of referees or the contents of peer review correspondence to individuals outside of the respective peer review process. Referees are also bound by strict confidentiality; neither the manuscripts nor the contents of referee correspondence may be shared with other parties without written permission from the editor. Strictly speaking, authors are not bound by similar confidentiality requirements (for example they may choose to consult with co-authors and colleagues when revising a paper in response to a referee report), but public dissemination of the contents of referee reports and Editorial correspondence is inappropriate. Any author who does so forfeits their rights to confidentiality protection by the journals.

8. Professional Conduct and Civility : All participants in the publication process, including Editors, Authors, Referees, and Journal staff members, are expected to conform to basic standards of professional courtesy, and respect the basic rules and guidelines that govern the peer review and publication process. Criticism and debate, even energetic debate, are normal parts of the intellectual process, but only when conducted with civility and professional respect for all parties. Personal attacks or verbal abuse, whether oral or written, are unacceptable under any circumstances, and the journal reserve the right to refuse submissions from individuals who repeatedly violate these guidelines or refuse to cooperate with Editors and Referees in the normal peer review and publication processes.

9. Investigation of Misconduct Allegations : The integrity of our journals rests on the professionalism of its authors, referees, and editors.

We are not able to actively police the policies and conditions of publication, and believe that all the stake holders have the prime responsibility for ensuring their researchers’ conduct and for ethical training and leadership.

However, if a possible breach of policy or misconduct is brought to our attention we will ask the authors to respond. Whilst journals do not have the resources or legal legitimacy fully to investigate scientific misconduct, we will seek advice from an article’s referees or the journal’s Editorial Board. If there is then evidence that trust has been significantly compromised by an author’s or referee’s actions, we will attempt to redress the matter by :

1. Appropriate corrections in the printed and online journal;
2. Refusing to consider an author’s future work, for a given period;
3. Retracting the authors work as a punishment;
4. Communications to employers or funding agencies or Government Authorities (Rarely);

In all cases we will also contact affected authors and editors of other journals.