Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement
The Association for Industry, Engineering, and Management Systems (AIEMS) is committed to providing high-quality and ethical publication outlets for its members. Papers submitted for publication must be presented at the IEMS Annual Conference to be considered for publication in either the Journal for Management and Engineering Integration (JMEI) or the Conference Proceedings. It is critical that the editorial operations be guided by rigorous ethical standards. Editors, reviewers, and authors should have a shared understanding and acceptance of the AIEMS’s policy on publication ethics. Our publication ethics statement is based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For more information on these guidelines, please visit http://publicationethics.org
Editors' Responsibilities
Publication decisions The editor-in-chief (editor) is responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. He or she will ensure that the manuscripts will be evaluated without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.
Confidentiality
The editor and the editorial team must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used by the reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial team for their research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.
Reviewer responsibilities
Contribution to editorial decisions
The peer-reviewing process assists the editor and the editorial team in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the manuscript.
Promptness
Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to evaluate the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and withdraw from the review process.
Confidentiality
All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively following the paper evaluation criteria. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source. Reviewers will notify the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and conflict of interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. 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 associated with the papers.
Authors' duties
Reporting standards
Authors of original research reports should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Data access and retention
Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least ten years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.
Originality, plagiarism, & acknowledgment of sources
Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. Also, manuscripts under review by one journal should not be submitted to other publications while the manuscript is under review.
Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have read and signed the copyright assignment form.
Disclosure & conflicts of interest
All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her published work, the author must promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.
Principles of Transparency
Peer review process
The JMEI is published bi-annually. All submissions are subject to double-blind reviews. Conference Proceedings and JMEI submissions are subject to the same ethical guidelines and requirements.
Governing Body
AIEMS has a strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within its publications’ scope. The full names and affiliations of the members are provided on the journal’s Website https://www.journalmei.com/editorial-board
Contact information
AIEMS provides the contact information for members of the editorial board on its website https://www.journalmei.com/editorial-board
Author fees & Access
Both the JMEI and the Conference Proceedings are available for everyone who can get access to the AIEMS website free of cost. The authors do not pay any charges for submission, article processing, and publication.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of the manuscript, authors are asked to sign and submit a copyright assignment form.
Identification of & dealing with allegations of research misconduct
Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.
Submission schedule
The deadline for manuscript submission is indicated on the Journal website https://www.journalmei.com/submission-guidelines
Archiving
Archived copies of the JMEI and Conference Proceedings are available on the AIEMS website https://www.iemsconference.com/copy-of-conference-site
Also, ProQuest https://www.proquest.com maintains archival copies of the JMEI per a signed agreement. The JMEI is listed in Cabell’s Directory and cataloged by the Library of Congress, ISSN number 1939-7984.
Violation of Publication Ethics
Plagiarism
is intentionally using someone else’s ideas or other original material as if they are one's own. Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation, is considered by the AIEMS as plagiarism. All manuscripts under review or published with AIEMS are subject to screening using plagiarism prevention software. Thus, plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics.
Data Fabrication and Falsification
Data fabrication and falsification mean the researcher did not carry out the study, but made up data or results and had recorded or reported the fabricated information. Data falsification means the researcher did the experiment, but manipulated, changed, or omitted data or results from the research findings.
Simultaneous Submission
Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript (or substantial sections from a manuscript) is submitted to a journal when it is already under consideration by another journal.
Duplicate Publication
Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross-referencing, share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, and conclusions.
Redundant Publication
Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles, most often consequent to the desire to plump academic vitae.
Improper Author Contribution or Attribution
All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Don’t forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.
Citation Manipulation
Citation Manipulation is including excessive citations, in the submitted manuscript, that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely to increase citations to a given author’s work, or articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.
Sanctions
If there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies, the following sanctions will be applied: (i) Immediate rejection of the infringing manuscript, (ii) Immediate rejection of every other manuscript submitted to any journal published by any of the authors of the infringing manuscript, (iii) Prohibition will be imposed for a minimum of 36 months against all of the authors for any new submissions to any journal, either individually or in combination with other authors of the infringing manuscript, and (iv) Prohibition against all of the authors from serving on the Editorial Board of any journal.
Handling Cases of Misconduct
Once AIEMS confirms a violation against AIEMS’s publication ethics, AIEMS addresses ethical concerns diligently following an issue-specific standard practice as summarized below.
• The first action of the journal Editor is to inform the Editorial Board of AIEMS by supplying copies of the relevant material and a draft letter to the corresponding author asking for an explanation in a nonjudgmental manner.
• If the author’s explanation is unacceptable and it seems that serious unethical conduct has taken place, the matter is referred to the Editorial Board. After deliberation, the Editorial Board will decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions.
• If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Editorial Board, sends the author a letter of reprimand and reminds the author of AIEMS publication policies; if the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
• Notification will be sent to the corresponding author and any work by the author responsible for the violation or any work these persons coauthored that is under review by AIEMS will be rejected immediately.
• The authors are prohibited from serving on AIEMS editorial board and serving as a reviewer for the JMEI. AIEMS reserves the right to take more action.
• In extreme cases, notifications will be sent to the affiliations of the authors and the authors are prohibited from submitting their work to AIEMS for 5 years.
• In serious cases of fraud that result in retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and will be linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked as “retracted” with the retraction date.
References
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2011). Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Retrieved from: http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf
Johns Hopkins University Press, Policies on Publication Ethics and Malpractice. Retrieved from https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/author-resources/ethics-and-malpractice-statement
Journal of Computational Engineering and Physical Modeling, The ethical policy. Retrieved from http://www.jcepm.com/journal/process?ethics