Publication Ethics


Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas.

Authors can submit articles based on the rules of this journal and their acceptance.

Plagiarism

All articles published by JOE are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere nor is under review elsewhere. JOE uses some software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts.


Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.


Citation Manipulation

Submitted manuscripts that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.


Data Fabrication and Falsification

Submitted manuscripts that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.


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. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.


Redundant Publications

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.


Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Potential conflicts of interest must be declared.

Conflicts include:

- Financial – funding and other payments, goods, and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work.

- Affiliations – being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work.

- Intellectual property – patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization.

- Personal – friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections.

- Ideology – beliefs or activism, e.g. political or religious, relevant to the work.

- Academic – competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.


Authors

Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of interest’ section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. Submitting authors are responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.

Authors must declare current or recent funding (including for article processing charges) and other payments, goods, or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the ‘Acknowledgments’.

The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated with an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript or the decision to publish must be declared.

Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.

It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain any necessary permission to publish the content. Also, the corresponding author who submits the article is obliged to inform all the authors of the article about the submitted content, and submitting it is the approval of other authors, and the journal is only in contact with the corresponding author and will not contact other authors.


Editors and Reviewers

Editors and reviewers should not be involved with a submission when they:

- Have a recent publication or current submission with any author.

- Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author.

- Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author.

- Have a close personal connection to any author.

- Have a financial interest in the subject of the work.

- Feel unable to be objective.

JOE aims to avoid assigning submissions to editors, and inviting reviewers, who have a conflict; they should decline in any of the above situations and declare any conflicts to the journal.

Reviewers must declare their interests in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form, which will be considered by the editor. Close competitors should consider declining.

Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.


Sanctions

In the event that there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies in the journal, regardless of whether or not the violations occurred in the journal, sanctions will be imposed.