The publication process of ARF
India journals is transparent and scholar friendly. ARF India provides a cordial
ambience to authors, editors and reviewers so that they work in tandem with
each other.
To publish his/her manuscript in
the Journals of ARF India, the author has to upload it on the website of the
particular journal to which the subject matter of that paper corresponds.
The author should submit the
paper in Microsoft word file format (.docx). The author should use the popular
fonts such as times new roman for composing his/her paper. Fancy or rare fonts
may not be read on every computer system of editors and reviewers. The author
should use the APA style for citation.
ARF India does not charge any fee
from the author for publishing the paper in its journals (COPE Council, 2019a).
Before submitting a paper to a
journal, the author should ensure that his/her paper matches the subject matter
of that journal. Submitting the paper without matching the subject matter puts
unnecessary work pressure on the editor.
The author should attach a
covering letter in a separate file and the paper in another separate file to
make it anonymous before the reviewer.
The covering letter includes the
title of the paper, the category of paper i.e., case study, research or review;
uniqueness of the paper, a brief Curriculum Vitae (CV) and acknowledgement.
The author should declare in the
cover letter that the uploaded manuscript was not published earlier in any
journal or book.
The paper file includes the
abstract, paper, references and bibliography.
ARF India accepts only original
papers for publication. The originality of a paper is decided by the journal
editor in consultation with the editorial board. The publisher never interferes
with the editor's decision regarding the originality of a paper. The editor
also checks the paper for plagiarism.
ARF India promotes articles that
are written for assessment and analysis of agreements, conferences and the
works of various governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental global
organizations.
Duplicate publications are not
accepted in ARF India journals. Duplicate publications mean publishing the same
paper without any novelty by rotating the content by the author in different
ways. Multiple similar-looking papers create confusion and damage knowledge
networks.
Text recycling is also not
accepted in ARF India journals. Text recycling means when the author inserts
some sections of the old paper, he/she wrote in his new paper without citing
it. By doing this, many copyright issues and conflicts of interest come to the
fore between different journals.
The editor checks whether the
journal, to which the author has sent his/her manuscript, matches the subject
matter of that. The decision of the editor in this regard is final and binding
on all. The publisher or editor cannot be sued in this regard.
When the editor assesses that the
script sent by the author is original, meets the subject matter of the journal
and can contribute to the academic field, then on the suggestion of the
editorial board he/she selects three reviewers.
The editor takes into account
that the reviewers should be the experts in the field related to the
manuscript. When selecting the reviewers, the editor matches the reviewers’
previous works with the content of the manuscript. If the fields of both works
are similar, then the editor sends that manuscript to the reviewers
The reviewers review any
manuscript within 4 to 8 weeks and send it to the editor. Authors should not
put unnecessary pressure on the editor to fasten this process. If any reviewer
is not able to review within this timeframe, then he/she has to inform the
editor who further sends it to another expert for review
The reviewer analyses the
manuscript and sends the report to the editor.
The editor acts as a coordinator
in the publication process and communicates with the author, reviewers,
editorial board and publisher. Apart from the editor, the stakeholders of a
double-blind peer review journal are not directly related to each other. They
communicate with each other only through the editor.
The advantage of double-blind
peer review is that it helps in securing scholarly content. ARF India advocates
double-blind peer review so that the knowledge network enriches without any
subjectivity and biases. In this review process, the author cannot influence
the reviewer or vice versa.
The editor reads the reviewer's
report carefully. He/she collects the comments of all the three reviewers in
one place. According to their comments, the editor decides whether to print the
manuscript or not. If the reviewers suggest minor corrections, the editor
passes the manuscript along with the corrections to the author. The author has
to make such corrections and send the manuscript within 10 days.
After getting the corrected
manuscript from the author, the editor checks the corrections at his/her level
and sends the corrected manuscript to the reviewers.
The reviewers check such
corrections as soon as possible and send the corrected manuscript back to the
editor.
The editor sends such corrected
manuscript to the publisher.
The publisher publishes this
manuscript in the next issue of the respective journal. Generally, the journals
of ARF India are biannual and Quarterly i.e., four issue of two issues of a
journal are published in one year.
If the reviewer finds any
allegation of misconduct in the manuscript, then he/she informs the editor
about it. The editor informs the author about this. ARF India follows the
guidelines of COPE regarding the allegations of misconduct. The publisher and
editor appoint a committee to investigate the allegation of misconduct. If the
allegation of misconduct is proved to be true, the manuscript is not considered
further. The retraction policy of ARF India is given below.
If any error is found after the
paper is published in the journal, its correction will be published in the
corrigenda or errata in the next issue of the journal. The author's consent
will be obtained before publishing these corrigenda or errata. If any author in
the group of authors put his/her dissent then his/her dissent will also be
published regarding this correction.
The editor accepts the
post-publication critique and if the critique is substantive, he conveys it to
the author, who responds to it. The editor conveys the critique and its
response to the reviewer. After this, the critique and the response of the
author publish in the next issue of the journal (COPE Council, 2021).
A journal serves the purpose of
advancing the existing knowledge of society. ARF India follows ethics
guidelines to provide accurate knowledge which is not repetitive, banal, base
or regressive.
ARF's journals are published
electronically so ARF India prevents their misuse by saving them on secure
servers. The publisher also takes care that the journals are updated in the
context of changing technology so that they can be accessed on every platform,
device and application. Apart from this, care is also taken that the format of
the paper, the appearance of the data (figure, chart) etc. do not change.
Retraction Policy of
ARF India Journals
ARF India follows the COPE's
guidelines in determining the policy of retraction (COPE Council, 2019b). The
main purpose of the retraction of any paper is to correct the available
knowledge domain (COPE Council, 2019b).
If the journal editor finds any
major error in calculation or experiments in the finding of any paper, then
he/she will retract it. Data falsification or fabrication will also be taken
into account to determine the retraction of the paper (COPE Council, 2019b).
Although editors and reviewers
check for plagiarism before the paper is published, editors, reviewers and
technical software have their limitations in examining any paper for
plagiarism. Therefore, if after the publication of a paper, the editor finds
that a paper has plagiarism more than the prescribed limit, then he/she will
retract that paper (COPE, 2019b).
If the author(s) have not taken
proper authorization to use the data of any other scholar then the paper will
be retracted (COPE Council, 2019b).
If the author (s) have infringed
the copyright of any other author/ photographer/ peer, then the paper will be
retracted by the journal editor (COPE Council, 2019b).
If the paper documents any
unethical research, then it will be retracted by the journal editor (COPE,
2019b).
The retracted articles will be
removed from the online journals of ARF India and will be indexed in the list
of retracted articles of ARF India journals (COPE Council, 2019). The title of
the paper will be indexed in the original content list of the journal issue but
it will be flagged as retracted (An explanation of retraction will be given
below this flag) (COPE Council, 2019b).
Anyone, who feels that the data
of his/her paper has been used in the Journal of ARF India, can contact the
author directly and settle his/her dispute with him/her. In this case, no suit
can be made against the editor, editorial board and publisher.
How to access ARF
India journals
ARF India provides online open
access to all its journals. For accessing ARF India journals, log on to www.arfjournals.com
Copyright of the
Paper
The copyright of the paper,
published in the Journals of ARF India, belongs to ARF India. If any author
wants to publish his/her paper published in the journal of ARF India elsewhere,
he/she will have to take permission from ARF India for the same.
Funding Process of
ARF India
ARF India collects its funds by
making library subscribers of its printed journals. It also provides lifetime
membership against payment. ARF India does not charge any fee from the authors
for manuscript processing and publishing their papers.
References
COPE Council. (2019a). COPE
Discussion Document: Predatory Publishing. DOI: ttps://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.6
COPE Council. (2019b). COPE
Retraction guidelines—English. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4
COPE Council. (2021). COPE
Flowcharts and infographics —Handling of post-publication critiques — English.
2021.
The Code of Ethics
for Publisher
ARF India works as protector,
preserver, facilitator and conservator of the scholarly record through its
journals and archive.
ARF India follows the Committee
of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and core practices (COPE Council,
2017).
ARF India has set an ethical code
based on COPE core practices and guidelines for all the stakeholders in the publication
of journals, i.e., publisher, editor, author, reviewer and critic (COPE
Council, 2017). ARF India’s ethical code coordinates between them so that they
can work smoothly without encroaching on each other's domain.
ARF India’s entire process of
journal publication is transparent so that all scholars can publish the
scholarly content in ARF India Journals without any fear, insecurity or
prejudice.
ARF India does not invade the
domains of its journal editors. All the financial and revenue-related issues
directly pertain to the publisher’s domain. These issues don’t impact the
creativity and ingenuity of the journal editors. They (journal editors) always
work in their creative bubbles.
ARF India does not pressurize its
editors in choosing the reviewers. The editor takes decisions independently
with the help of the editorial board. ARF India does not communicate with the
reviewers directly.
ARF India ensures the technical
soundness of the publication process by providing all the necessary software
and equipment to its editors and peer reviewers.
ARF India collects funds to run
the journal office from subscriptions to the printed journal and lifetime
membership of the journal.
ARF India strives hard to
maintain the integrity of scholarly records. It archives all the journal papers
on dedicated servers.
We do not misuse the information
found in the manuscript. Do not misuse the data and surveys found in the
Manuscript. We apply the highest ethical standards. Don't even implement
extremist thoughts.
ARF India runs a training
programme for editors to make them aware of COPE Guidelines.
ARF India delineates the aims and
scope of every journal on the journal’s website. It helps the author to choose
the right journal for publishing his/her paper. The author is advised to scroll
through the previously published papers of the journal to get a fair idea of
the aims and scope of the journal.
ARF India believes in
conversation and is open to critique, comments and suggestions for improving
the knowledge networks.
The editorial office of the
journal receives complaints and grievances of the author, editor or reviewer.
The publisher and the editorial office will make a committee to resolve the
serious issues of misconduct, allegation and misuse.
References
COPE Council. (2017). Core
Practices. Accessed on 12 May 2022, 1.35 PM, URL- https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
COPE Council. (2019). COPE
Discussion Document: Predatory Publishing. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.6
The Code of Ethics
for Editor
The editor must be fully aware of
the submission system and timelines of ARF India (COPE Council, 2019b). As ARF
India follows the ethical code and guidelines of the Committee on Publication
Ethics (COPE), the editor should be up to date with core practices and
publication guidelines of COPE (https://publicationethics.org/).
The editor should respect the
past actions and decisions of the editorial office. They should not be changed
arbitrarily (COPE Council, 2019b).
The editor is free to decide
which manuscript to print in ARF India Journals. Author, ARF India and reviewer
cannot put pressure on him/her regarding this (COPE Council, 2017).
It will be the responsibility of
the editor to send the manuscript to the reviewer after checking the
originality, citation and other preliminary aspects of it. The editor will
finish his/her work in a time-bound manner. The editor should not retain any
manuscript after the stipulated time. He/she will either send the paper to the
reviewer, reject the paper, or send it to the author with suggestions.
If the content of a paper does
not conform to the publisher's policies, the editor will notify the author in
consultation with the publisher and the editorial board.
The editor or editorial team will
not impose their ideology or faith on the author. While checking the quality of
a paper, the editor or editorial board will not look through the lens of their
ideology or faith. While looking at the quality of the paper, they will only
see whether the paper will contribute to the knowledge network or not.
The editorial team checks the
quality of the paper at its level. Several readings of the manuscript and
comparing it with the previous knowledge network ensure that it is not
plagiarised, cliched or repetitive.
The editor will not take any
decision arbitrarily. The decision of the editorial board has to be taken into
account in every decision taken by the editor.
The editor will accept the
post-publication critique. If the critique is substantive; it will be conveyed
to the author. The editor will send the critique and its response to the
reviewer. (COPE Council, 2022).
10. The editor shall not favour or discriminate
against anyone while deciding the plagiarism in any paper. If a paper has a
similarity index of 15-20%, then that paper will be considered eligible for
publication. If the value exceeds this in the similarity index, the paper will
not be published. Similarity should be less than 1% from any one source. If
there is more similarity than this, the paper will not be published.
The editor will follow all
protocols related to the retraction policy of ARF India before retracting any
paper. The editor will not retract a paper without substantial evidence (COPE
Council, 2019a).
The editor will not take any
decision based only on the caste, race, religion, ethnicity or nationality of
the author (COPE, 2022).
The editor should not reject any
manuscript without evaluating it. He/she must follow the evaluation process for
every manuscript uploaded on the journal website.
Before sending any manuscript to
the reviewer, the editor has to follow each step of the double-blind
peer-review process. The editor should send the manuscript in such a way that
the reviewer does not know the identity of the author.
In the double-blind peer review
process, the editor acts as a coordinator between the reviewer and the author,
so he has to perform his work with utmost care so that a quality review of the
author's manuscript can be done.
References
COPE Council. (2017). Core Practices.
Accessed on 12 May 2022, 01.30 PM, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/news/core-practices
COPE Council. (2019a). COPE
Retraction guidelines—English. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4
COPE Council. (2019b). COPE
Guidelines: A Short Guide to Ethical Editing for New Editors.
COPE Council. (2021). COPE
Flowcharts and infographics —Handling of post-publication critiques — English.
2021.
COPE. 2022. COPE advice to
editors on Geopolitical intrusions on editorial decisions, Accessed on 11 May 2022,
10.30 PM.
URL- https://publicationethics.org/news/cope-advice-editors-geopolitical-intrusions-editorial-decisions
The Code of Ethics
for Author
ARF India fully respects any
scholarly idea or scholarly product. The author should cite any scholarly idea
or concept with complete clarity. If the editorial team or peer reviewers do
not find full citations, the paper is sent to the author for updating. The
author must update the citation within twenty days of receiving such a paper
(COPE, 2019).
ARF India follows the guidelines
of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding authorship claims.
The author should not suppress
the claim of another author in any way. Anyone who has made a significant
contribution to the paper should be accepted as the author. One should settle
the authorship claim by directly contacting the author (COPE, 2019).
The author should not use any
kind of power relation hierarchy negatively while showing authorship
contribution (COPE, 2019).
The corresponding author should
also be in touch with the Journal and answer the queries of the journal editor
(COPE, 2019).
The principal author should not
act as a barrier between the editor and the corresponding author.
The author should not falsify or
fabricate the data in his/her paper.
The author has to take care that
he/she is not indulged in communalism and racism in his/her paper. There should
not be anything in his/her paper that would encourage violence and extremism.
Unbiased, progressive and liberal ideas are always welcome in ARF India
journals
The author should not make any
assertion without substantiating it with evidence. The authors' conclusions
should be based on data. The author is advised not to use his/her paper for
propaganda. The author should increase the global knowledge network through
their papers.
The author should not use
selective literature in writing his/her paper. The author should use all the
available literature based on that subject without bias or exclusion.
If an author uses an image on
which there is a copyright issue or that image is provocative, then such an
image will have to be changed before publication. In any dispute regarding the
image, the decision of the committee constituted by the editor and the
publisher shall be binding on all the parties.
As far as possible, the author
must disclose his identity, but if the author feels that disclosing his name
would endanger his life or cause him or her to face problems that would be
dangerous for him or his immediate relatives. can be fatal, then only in consultation
with the publisher and the editor, will be considered to keep his name
anonymous (COPE, 2012).
The principal author and the
corresponding author will resolve their disputes by themselves. Publisher,
editor and reviewer have no role in this dispute. No suit can be brought
against the publisher, editor or reviewer in this dispute. If such a dispute
arises in the publishing process, the publisher and editors will resolve this
dispute by forming a committee. The decision of the committee will be accepted
by all parties.
The author should not submit the
same manuscript to multiple journals at the same time. Many journals are
simultaneously engaged in editing and peer-reviewing the same manuscript. When
a paper is published in one journal, the hard work of the editors and reviewers
of all other journals is wasted.
The author should not submit
his/her paper to other journals while it is being in the publication process in
the ARF India journal. The author can go ahead to publish it in another journal
after its rejection by the ARF India journal editor.
The author is advised to read the
COPE guidelines for research misconduct and other core practices (COPE, 2017).
If the editor decides that the
paper is not worth sending for peer-reviewing then the author should not
pressurize the editor to send it for the same. The author should first work on
the suggestions by the editor before resubmitting his/her paper.
The author should attach a
covering letter with the paper which includes the title of the paper, the category
of the paper i.e., case study, research or review; uniqueness of the paper, a
brief Curriculum Vitae (CV) and acknowledgement.
The author should express his/her
ideas in his/her paper and should express these ideas in his/her own words,
images, charts and other data. Expressing someone else's thoughts in one's own
words is plagiarism and using someone else's words, images, charts and other
data in one's paper is also plagiarism.
The author should declare in the
cover letter that the uploaded manuscript was not earlier published anywhere.
If any questions will be raised
on the integrity of the paper, then the author will have to answer them
References
COPE. (2012). Anonymity versus
author transparency, Case number: 12-17. Accessed on 11 May 2022, 10.35 PM.
URL- https://publicationethics.org/case/anonymity-versus-author-transparency%20?utm_source=website&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=handling-post-publication-rebuttals
COPE Council. (2019). COPE
Discussion Document: Authorship. September 2019Version 1: Published 9 June 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.3
The Code of Ethics
for Reviewer
ARF India follows the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for Peer Reviewers. The reviewer should
be up to date with these guidelines.
It is the responsibility of the
reviewer to review the paper sent by the journal editor in a time-bound manner.
He/she will not, intentionally or for any other reason, delay the review of the
manuscript. If there is such a delay, it will be informed to the editor so that
the editor can take a decision.
The reviewer will not be
motivated by any kind of prejudice and bias while reviewing any paper. The
reviewer should not view the content written in the paper through the lens of
nationality, ethnicity, religion etc.
The reviewer should review any
manuscript in person. Any other person should not review the manuscript in
his/her name.
If the reviewer has direct
competition with the author, he/she will inform the editorial office about it
and the editor will decide whether he/she will review further or not.
ARF India generally uses a
double-blind review process so the reviewer may not be able to know about the
conflicts of interest or reviewer’s collaboration with the author but if the
reviewer thinks that there is something like that then he/ she will contact the
editorial office.
The reviewer will not reveal
his/her identity to the author under any circumstances. He/she will not send a
review report directly or indirectly to the author.
The reviewer will not use the
ideas and information obtained from the review of any manuscript for any
commercial or competitive interest.
Until a paper is published, the
reviewer will not share any information or idea about its content with his/her
colleagues.
The reviewer will confine his
critiques and comments to the content of the paper. He/she will not make any
personal comment on the author. He/she will fully explain his/her comments and
critiques so that the author can understand them properly and respond.
The reviewer should be fully
aware of the core practices of COPE
(https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). If an author has violated these
core guidelines, the reviewer should inform the editor. The editor will take
cognizance of it and send it to the author. The author will make necessary
corrections to it by following the core practices of COPE.
References
COPE Council. (2017). COPE
Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers — English. https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.9.
The Code of Ethics
for Critique
A critic should not critique the
paper with the sole purpose of defaming the publisher or author (COPE, 2021). Anyone,
who feels that the data from his/her paper has been used in any paper of the
Journals of the ARF India, should contact the author directly and settle
his/her dispute with the author. In this case, no suit can be made against the
editor, editorial board and publisher.
References
COPE. (2021). https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/handling-post-publication-critiques
Conflict of Interest
(COI) Policy of ARF India
Conflict of Interest (COI)
ARF India follows Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for disclosure of Conflict of Interest
(COI) (COPE Council, 2021). COPE follows the International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors (ICMJE) definition which says “when professional judgment
concerning a primary interest…may be influenced by a secondary interest"
(ICMJE, 2021). ARF India believes that conflict of interest is a situation when
stakeholders of a journal publication get undue advantages or undue
disadvantages. Such advantages/disadvantages are not ethically correct and
would not put the published paper in a proper perspective. Such a situation
when one is unable to take an objective decision due to undue
advantage/disadvantage is called a conflict of interest and if the publisher,
editor, reviewer and author have any such conflicts of interest, then it will
lead to damage to the knowledge network. The research process and knowledge
network suffer because they do not receive objective knowledge due to conflicts
of interest. Due to conflicts of interest, stakeholders’ bias comes into the
publication process and damages it.
A human being is a social animal and he/she has very close relations with many people in society. These close relationships can sometimes influence the decisions they make while working among themselves professionally. Therefore, it is very important to recognize the conflicts of interest to avoid such a compromised decision. By identifying the conflict of interest, ARF India avoids poor decisions taken during the publication of any paper.
Types of Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest can be of
many types. They can be financial or non-financial, can be individual or
organizational, and may arise due to academic or financial competition. ARF
India expects the editor, author and reviewer to highlight any conflict of
interest.
Stakeholders should declare
their Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest can be
perceived by the stakeholders of the publication process, i.e., publisher,
editor, author and reviewer. All the stakeholders are expected to declare their
conflicts of interest before performing their respective tasks regarding the
publication of a paper.
Whistle-blowers and Conflicts of
Interest
At the behest of the
whistle-blower regarding conflict of interest, ARF India and the editor will
form a committee together and investigate the whistle-blower’s charges. If the
whistle-blower’s charges regarding conflicts of interest are found to be
correct, the paper will be retracted.
References
COPE Council. (2021).
Post-publication conflicts of interest, Accessed on 25 May 2022, 9.20 am, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/news/post-publication-conflicts-interest#:~:text=The%20COPE%20Core%20Practice%20on,identified%20before%20or%20after%20publication%E2%80%9D
COPE Council. (2022). Editorial
conflicts of interest, Accessed on 27 May 2022, 10.20 IST, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/resources/forum-discussion-topics/editorial-conflicts-interest#ICMJE
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). (2021). Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. December 2021, URL- https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
Conflict of Interest
(COI) Guidelines for Author
The author and co-authors must
declare all their potential conflicts of interest such as employment,
consulting fees, etc., before submitting their paper. If that paper becomes
valid for publication, then all these conflicts of interest (COIs) will be
published in the last part of the paper (Master, Z., Wener, K., Smith, E,
Resnik, D.B. and Williams-Jones, B., 2018).
The author and co-authors have to
declare the names of the sponsors and funders of the process of making their
manuscript.
The author should write the paper
without any commercial interest because commercial interests can also bring
bias in paper writing (Master, Z., Wener, K., Smith, E, Resnik, D.B. and
Williams-Jones, B., 2018).
If the author is taking any undue
advantage of someone in lieu of writing the paper, then that too is a conflict
of interest.
As far as possible the author
should get the paper published in his/her name. If the author uses a pseudo
name to write somewhere else on the same topic, then he/she should give this
information along with the paper (COPE Council, 2006).
References
COPE Council. (2006). Conflict of
interest, Case number: 06-30, Accessed on 26 May 2022, 10.40 pm, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/conflict-interest#:~:text=COPE%20recommended%20that%20readers%20should,an%20undeclared%20conflict%20of%20interest.
Master, Z., Wener, K., Smith, E,
Resnik, D.B. and Williams-Jones, B. (2018). Conflicts of Interest Policies for
Authors, Peer Reviewers and Editors of Bioethics Journals, AJOB Empir Bioeth.
2018; 9(3): 194–205. doi:10.1080/23294515.2018.1510859.
Conflict of Interest
Guidelines for the Editor
If the editor has any conflict of
interest with any author of the paper, he must inform the publisher (COPE
Council, 2022).
If the editor has any conflict of interest
with the manuscript sent by an author, then he will not edit that manuscript.
In such cases, the editor may
appoint a guest editor to edit the paper on the advice of the publisher.
The editor has to ensure that the
reviewer does not have a conflict of interest with the author.
If the editor has submitted
his/her manuscript to the same journal of which he is the editor, then some
other person will manage such manuscript in the editorial office. The editor
will not evaluate it himself/herself. The other person should not be from the
same institution as the editor.
The editor has to take cognisance
that the publisher, author, reviewer or any member of the editorial board is
not influencing him/her or asking him/her to do any work that goes against
his/her publication ethics.
The editor will have to give
information about his/her previous institutions while joining the journal’s
office. The editor must also state the sources of his/her finances for the last
three years. Information about current financial sources will also have to be
given. The editor should ensure that the information provided by him/her is not
superfluous.
References
COPE Council. (2022). Editorial
conflicts of interest, Accessed on 25 May 2022, 2.20 pm, URL- https://publicationethics.org/resources/forum-discussion-topics/editorial-conflicts-interest
Conflict of Interest
Guidelines for Reviewer
The reviewer should not review
the paper if he/she has written any paper or book with any of the paper's
authors within the last 3 years.
The reviewer should not review an
author's paper if he/she has worked with the author in any institution,
department, unit, or project within the last 3 years.
If the reviewer has supervised
the author's doctoral work or the reviewer is doing doctoral work under the
author, the reviewer should not review that author's paper.
If the reviewer has any undue
professional or personal benefit from doing such a review, he/she should not
review this paper.
The reviewer should not review
the papers of his friends or family members.
If there is a direct or indirect
financial benefit to the reviewer, the reviewer should not review the author's
paper.
Conflict of Interest
Guidelines for ARF India
If the manuscript submitted is of
the same department or institution that the editor is attached to, then to
avoid the conflict of interest of the editor, ARF India has to formulate a
separate policy for such a case.
Since the nature, types and scope
of conflict of interest vary from time to time, ARF India keeps on renewing its
conflict of interest (COI) guidelines from time to time.
ARF India does not endorse gifts
or other direct/ indirect financial inducements to any stakeholder of the
journal publishing.
ARF India will highlight any
major conflict of interest like, sponsorship and funding at the end of the
paper (COPE Council, 2022).
ARF India never appoints family
relatives, close friends and business partners of the members of its management
board as editors or reviewers of the journal.
References
COPE Council. (2022). Editorial
conflicts of interest, Accessed on 25 May 2022, 2.20 pm, URL- https://publicationethics.org/resources/forum-discussion-topics/editorial-conflicts-interest
Ethical Code for
Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
Informed Consent
If any experiment is being done
on a human subject, then before that experiment, all the information about that
experiment should be given to that person and his/her written permission should
be taken that he/she will cooperate in all these experiments and his/her
personal information will be used in the research. This type of permission
before the experiment is called informed consent.
Any person is considered a human
subject when that person's personal information is used as data in the
experiment. This personal information may be related to his/her illness,
his/her biometric information, DNA sample, images and his/her experiences of various
events.
When taking this information, and
using it in research and publishing, it is important to look for written
evidence of informed consent given by human subjects. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of the institution where the experiment is taking place and the
researcher, author, publisher, editor, and reviewer of the paper related to
that experiment.
Institutions’
Guidelines for the Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
The research institution
researching human subjects should constitute a human subjects committee or
ethics committee so that they look into the issue of ethics related to human
subjects seriously and check whether ethics related to the informed consent of
human subjects are not violated (COPE Council, 2013).
Even to highlight the problem of
a particularly vulnerable group, the study done on that group should not
violate their privacy and other rights.
Identifiable personal data
(image, biometric identity, date of birth, phone no., email id) will not be
used in the publication without the consent of the participants (COPE Council,
1997b).
If any information is on the
public record, then informed consent is not needed before publication of that
particular information (COPE Council, 1997a).
For taking the informed consent
of the vulnerable, disable and persons with severe learning disabilities, the
process consent technique will be applied (COPE Council, 2004). In this process
the next kin of the subject will provide informed consent on behalf of the
subject.
Author’s Guidelines
for Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
The author should not publish the
data related to the human participants without their consent.
The author should publish the
data related to human participants only when it fulfils his academic pursuit.
To get any kind of sensation or fame, data related to human participants should
not be published.
The Author should be aware of the
relevant laws and protocols regarding the informed consent of human
participants. COPE Council suggests that any anomaly regarding written consent
not only leads to rejection of the paper but also to further inquiry.
Editor’s Guidelines
for Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
The editor must first check
whether the human participants had participated in the research related to the
manuscript sent by the author. If the human participants have participated,
then whether the documents related to his consent are attached to the
manuscripts or not?
If there has been human
participation in the experiments related to the manuscript and the document
relating to the consent of the human participants is not attached to the
manuscript, then the editor will demand these documents from the author.
Without these documents, the editor will not send the manuscript to the
reviewer.
On raising any dispute regarding
human participants by human participants or whistle-blowers, the publisher and
editor will constitute a committee and will investigate this dispute. If the
allegations of human participants or whistle-blowers are found to be true, then
accordingly the publisher and editor will decide on the paper.
In any matter relating to
informed consent, the decision of the editor is final. If the editor believes
that the human subjects committee or ethics committee of the experimenting
institution related to a paper has not acted properly in terms of informed
consent, he/she may inform them and direct them to do so (COPE Council, 1999).
The editor will prepare a form
which should contain columns of all the information to ensure that informed
consent was obtained by human participants. In the case of children
participants, permission was taken from their parents (COPE Council, 2015).
Reviewer’s
Guidelines for Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
The reviewer will follow the
instructions given by the editor in the matter of informed consent.
If the reviewer observes any
anomaly in the matter of informed consent, he/she shall notify the editor of
the same.
Publisher’s
Guidelines for Studies Involving the Participation of Human Subjects
ARF India attaches great
importance to the privacy of any human participant in research.
ARF India will constitute a
committee in consultation with the editor of the Journal to resolve the dispute
regarding informed consent. The decisions of the committee will be binding on
all. No suit can be brought against ARF India for this.
References
COPE Council. (1997a). Patient
Consent and non-consent, Case No. 97-05, Accessed on 22 May 2022, 14.30 IST,
URL- https://publicationethics.org/case/patient-consent-and-non-consent
COPE Council. (1997b). Informed
Consent: Case No. 97-100, Accessed on 25 May 2022, 12.30 IST, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/informed-consent
COPE Council. (1999). Invasive
intervention without consent: Case number-99-24, Accessed on 21 May 2022, 12.30
IST, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/invasive-intervention-without-consent
COPE Council. (2004). Obtaining
consent for a study of people with severe learning disabilities, Case No. 04-17
Accessed on 21 May 2022, 10.30 IST. URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/obtaining-consent-study-people-severe-learning-disabilities)
COPE Council. (2013). Ethical
concerns about a study involving human subjects, Accessed on 22 May 2022, 10.30
IST, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/ethical-concerns-about-study-involving-human-subjects
COPE Council. (2015). Revoked
parental consent, Case number- 15-09, Accessed on 22 May 2022, 3.50 IST, URL-
https://publicationethics.org/case/revoked-parental-consent
