Ethics policy and good editorial practices

The editorial best practice guidelines listed below are based on the principles set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

General Duties and Responsibilities of Editors

• Receive feedback from authors, readers, reviewers, and members of the editorial boards to improve editorial processes.

• Stay up to date with innovations in journal review and editing processes to reassess internal dynamics.

• Seek appropriate resources and relevant training to perform their role professionally and improve the quality of the journal.

• Adhere to initiatives aimed at eradicating academic misconduct.

• Support initiatives that educate researchers on publication ethics.

• Evaluate journal policies and modify them as needed to promote responsible conduct and discourage poor practices.

Relationship with Readers

• Ensure that all research articles are reviewed by qualified professionals.

• Adopt processes that foster accuracy, integrity, and clarity in research articles.

• Uphold an authorship system that promotes good practices and discourages unethical behavior.

Relationship with Authors

• Provide clear and detailed instructions regarding manuscript submissions and what is expected of authors during the review and editing process.

• Offer guidance on authorship criteria.

• Regularly review author guidelines to align with changes in editorial policy or new innovations.

• Require all contributors to disclose any relevant conflicts of interest and indicate necessary corrections if conflicts arise after publication.

• Select appropriate reviewers capable of evaluating each manuscript competently and impartially, and who are free of disqualifying conflicts of interest.

• Respect authors’ reasonable requests to exclude specific reviewers.

• Preserve the confidentiality of manuscripts and not disclose titles or authorship before acceptance.

• Refrain from using unpublished content (data, methods, arguments, results) from submitted manuscripts without written permission from the author(s).

• Follow COPE flowcharts in case of suspected misconduct or authorship disputes.

• Publish detailed information on how suspected misconduct is handled.

• Provide submission and acceptance dates for all articles.

Relationship with Reviewers

• Provide clear and updated guidelines for reviewers in line with editorial policy changes and innovations.

• Require reviewers to disclose any potential conflicts of interest before accepting a review assignment.

• Encourage reviewers to report ethical concerns or potential misconduct (e.g., unethical study design, lack of informed consent, or failure to protect subject anonymity).

• Urge reviewers to ensure manuscript originality, remain alert to plagiarism and redundant publication.

• Acknowledge the reviewers’ contribution to the journal.

• Guarantee confidentiality during the review process; reviewers' identities must not be disclosed to authors.

• Clearly communicate any decision to publish a list of reviewers' names post-issue, as recognition for their contribution, and respect their request not to be included.

• Monitor reviewer performance and ensure high-quality evaluations. The Editorial Board must review all evaluation reports before sending them to the authors; any reports deemed unprofessional or of low quality must be discarded and a new review requested.

• Develop and maintain a database of highly qualified reviewers, updated based on performance. Remove reviewers who consistently submit disrespectful, low-quality, or late reviews.

• Ensure that the reviewer database reflects the journal’s academic community.

• Use diverse sources to identify potential new reviewers (e.g., author suggestions, bibliographic databases, institutional directories).

• Follow COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct.

Process for Identifying and Addressing Research Misconduct

REMUS does not tolerate any form of scientific misconduct. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism or similarity using iThenticate software.

Reviewers must strictly adhere to the journal’s publication ethics policy to prevent any improper practices that might compromise the integrity of the evaluation process. They must notify the editorial committee in cases of suspected redundant or duplicate publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, authorship manipulation, the presence of anonymous or guest authors, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or any other ethical concern.

If there is suspicion of dishonest conduct in a submitted or already published article, the Editorial Committee will follow the appropriate COPE flowcharts to handle the situation.
In cases of verified fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other ethical violations in a manuscript under review, the author will be notified, and the manuscript will be rejected for publication.
If such issues are discovered after publication, the author will be informed and will be permanently barred from publishing in REMUS.