Publication Ethics and Malpractice

Al-imad Journal of Humanities and Applied Sciences (AJHAS) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all cases of publication misconduct seriously. Our policy is based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Duties of Editors

  • Fair Play: Editors evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the author's race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

  • Confidentiality: Editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and potential reviewers.

  • Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Editors will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the express written consent of the authors.

  • Publication Decisions: The editor-in-chief is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Duties of Reviewers

  • Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and may also assist the author in improving the paper.

  • Promptness: Any selected reviewer 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 themselves from the review process.

  • Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.

  • Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

  • Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.

Duties of Authors

  • Reporting Standards: Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. The paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.

  • Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

  • Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior.

  • Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.

  • Fundamental Errors in Published Works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.