Ethics & Policies

Journal Publication Ethics and Policies

The  Journal of Modern Sciences (JMS) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and follows the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All members of the editorial board adhere strictly to COPE’s core principles and best practices. Consequently, every article published by JMS reflects our dedication to ethical handling of all matters, including errors and restrictions.

Submission Requirements

To be considered for publication, all submissions must meet the following criteria:

Originality and Integrity: Manuscripts must present accurate information and properly cite all referenced content. Submissions must be original and should not have been previously published, nor be under consideration for publication, in any other journal or book (in print or electronic form). By submitting to JMS, authors confirm that their manuscript is not currently under review elsewhere and will remain exclusively with JMS until an editorial decision is made.
Frequency: The Journal publishes four issues per year.

Roles and Responsibilities

Duties of Editors

Editors hold primary authority and responsibility for a manuscript's content and publication status. Their duties include:

Decision-Making: The Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with editors and reviewers, has full authority to accept or reject a manuscript.
Confidentiality: Editors must maintain the confidentiality of all submitted manuscripts and not disclose any information to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. Unpublished materials from a submitted paper cannot be used by an editor or board member for their own research without the author's explicit written consent.
Review Integrity: Editors are responsible for preserving reviewer anonymity, ensuring the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Specific policies are in place to ensure unbiased review of submissions from editorial board members.
Conflict of Interest: Editors must disclose and strive to avoid any conflicts of interest related to manuscripts under consideration.
Ethical Oversight: Editors will comment on and investigate any ethical concerns raised by a submission, such as unethical research design, data manipulation, redundant publication, or plagiarism. Their comments to authors should be provided in full, excluding any offensive or libelous remarks.
Quality Assurance: Editors must take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of published material and seek assurances that research involving humans or animals has received approval from the appropriate ethical body. They must also be alert to intellectual property issues.
Correction: Errors, inaccurate, or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

Duties of Reviewers

Peer reviewers are essential in assisting the editorial board to make decisions and helping authors improve their work. Their duties include:

Objectivity and Confidentiality: Reviews should be conducted objectively, with clear, well-argued observations. Reviewers must treat the manuscript as a confidential document and not communicate directly with authors.
Competence and Conflicts: Reviewers should only agree to review manuscripts that are within their expertise. They must decline to review and notify the editor if they have any conflicts of interest (competitive, collaborative, or other) with the authors, their institutions, or the research funders. If unable to review, they should suggest alternative reviewers.
Ethical Vigilance: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited and alert the editor to any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and any other published paper. They should not force authors to cite their own work.
Professional Conduct: Reviewers must not use any part of the work described in the manuscript for their own research.

Duties of Authors

Authors bear the primary responsibility for the originality, accuracy, and integrity of their work.

Originality and Submission: The submitted work must be original and not published elsewhere in any form. It should not be submitted to more than one journal simultaneously. Proper acknowledgement of others' work must always be given, with direct quotations marked as such. Permissions must be secured for any copyrighted material.
Authorship and Accountability: The submitting corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have approved the manuscript's publication and agree to serve as guarantors for the work. All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution, approved all claims, and be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Data Integrity and Ethics: Results must be presented honestly, without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation. Authors must adhere to discipline-specific rules for data processing.
Acknowledgment: All sources of data and the contributions of individuals or organizations that do not qualify for authorship must be acknowledged. Funding sources, including grant numbers, must be clearly stated. JMS encourages authors to provide their ORCID ID during submission.
Correction: If an author discovers a significant error in a published work, they must promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate in issuing a correction or retraction.

Specific Ethical Policies

Studies Involving Humans, Animals, and Plants

All manuscripts must include an "Ethics Approval" section with specific details:

For Humans: Provide the name of the ethics committee(s), the approval ID, and a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants.
For Animals: State that international, national, and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals were followed. Include details of the ethics committee approval, justification for animal use, information on housing and care, and the mode of anesthesia and euthanasia used.
General: Research that does not meet these requirements will be rejected.

Consent for Publication

For any manuscript containing details or images that could identify an individual, written informed consent for publication under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 must be obtained from the person (or their parent/guardian if under 18, or next of kin if deceased). A statement confirming this must be included in the manuscript, and the consent form must be made available to the editor upon request.

Plagiarism and Misconduct

JMS has a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism and research misconduct. All submissions are checked with professional plagiarism-detection software. Submissions with an unacceptable similarity index are immediately rejected. Examples of such violations include:

Verbatim copying without quotation marks and proper citation.
Paraphrasing someone else's ideas without attribution.
False citation (attributing material to an incorrect source).
False data (fabrication or manipulation of data).
Self-plagiarism (reusing substantial parts of one's own previously published work without citation) or duplicate submission.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships with individuals or organizations that could inappropriately influence their work. This includes any conflicts related to products or institutions mentioned in, or competing with those in, the manuscript.

Citation Policy

Transparent Attribution: All sources must be properly cited, including the author's own previous work. Direct quotations require quotation marks.
Responsible Self-Citation: Self-citation should be relevant and moderate, not intended to artificially boost citation metrics.
Firsthand Use of Sources: Authors must only cite works they have read and understood.
Avoiding Preferential Citation: Citations should be based on scholarly merit, not on favoritism toward collaborators or institutional affiliations.
Exclusion of Non-Scholarly Sources: Advertisements and commercial promotions are not acceptable sources.
Compliance with COPE: Manipulative practices like citation stacking or coercive citation are strictly prohibited.

Editorial Processes and Handling of Issues

Complaints and Appeals

All complaints or appeals regarding authorship or the peer-review process should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. The claim will be investigated by gathering information from all parties, and a course of action in line with COPE principles will be proposed. If the complaint involves the Editor-in-Chief, the most senior editorial board member will lead the investigation.

Confidentiality in Special Cases

A manuscript is considered confidential. It will not be disclosed to anyone beyond those involved in its processing. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, it may be shared with journal ethics committees or relevant institutions as necessary, following COPE flowcharts.

Correction and Retraction

Corrections: Minor corrections may be made directly to the original article. For major corrections, the corrected version is published alongside the original, with both versions linked and a statement explaining the change.
Retraction: Articles will be retracted in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines when necessary (e.g., in cases of major error or misconduct).