Puplication Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Iraqi Bulletin of Geology and Mining (IBGM) fully adheres to the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (2011), available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf, recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The IBGM editorial board adheres to enforcing strict policies to ensure publication of original, quality papers”. In cases where we become aware of ethical issues, we are committed to investigating and taking necessary action to maintain the integrity of the publication and ensure the safety of research participants.

Plagiarism

IGMB will not accept plagiarism in its journal. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from the own authors’ publications, without giving credit to the original source. The text that is copied from another source must be between quotation marks and must be cited. The authors should minimize and properly cite the sentences from other papers. Papers with high similarity indices will be rejected. This also applies to former papers by the same and to research papers or theses of students that the author(s) had supervised.

Publication decisions

Editor should perform a thorough check and report any concerns on any aspect to the Editorial Board. Checks include plagiarism, duplicate publication, and obtaining necessary permission from the copyright holder to include already-published figures, data, images, and other materials.

Editor is responsible for deciding which of the submitted paper(s) should be published in the journal. Editor will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the papers’ overall quality, significance, originality, clarity, and its validity and relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should be given due consideration.

Confidentiality

All information about a submitted manuscript must be kept confidential. Editor and any editorial staff must not reveal any information related to a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial consultants, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper will not be used by the Editor or the members of the editorial board for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent.

REVIEWERS' RESPONSIBILITIES

The role of the reviewer is essential who bears a significant responsibility in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly work. Every reviewer is expected to perform manuscript evaluation in a timely, transparent, and ethical manner, following the COPE guidelines https://publicationethics.org/files/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers-v2_0.pdf.

The peer-reviewing process assists the Editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions and may also serve the author in improving the paper.

Promptness

Any nominated reviewer who feels unqualified to review the manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be not be possible should notify the Editor and withdraw from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts, including the abstract, received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor. Reviewers must be careful not to disclose their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports. From the other side, IBGM will not disclose the reviewers' names only with their explicit agreement and after the publication.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify cases in which relevant published work referred to in the paper has not been cited in the reference section. They should point out whether observations or arguments derived from other publications are accompanied by the respective source(s). Reviewers will notify the Editor(s) of any substantial plagiarism or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the papers.

AUTHORS' DUTIES

Author rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work.

Reporting standards

Authors of original research reports should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Authors could be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the paper for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. Where ethical, legal or privacy issues are present, data should not be shared. The authors should make any limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement upon submission. Authors should ensure that data shared are in accordance with consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least ten years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Citation Policies

Authors should confirm that when material is taken from other sources, the source is clearly cited and that appropriate permission is obtained. They will submit their entire original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or works of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited. Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work. Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications. They should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal. It must not be previously published, including previous publication in another language. Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not permitted. Manuscripts which have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere cannot be submitted. In addition, manuscripts under review by the journal should not be resubmitted to copyrighted publications. However, by submitting a manuscript, the author(s) retain the rights to the published material. In case of publication, they permit the use of their work under a CC-BY license [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/], which allows others to copy, distribute and transmit the work as well as to adapt the work and to make commercial use of it.

Authorship of the paper

IBGM follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html, which state that in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the author (s) have satisfied the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The corresponding author ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved persons are included in the author list. The corresponding author will also verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Changes to Authorship

After submitting the manuscript to the journal, any change to the authors' list must be made before manuscript acceptance and during the editorial process. Any change (i.e., adding, removing, or rearranging) of author names will require submitting a request approved by all authors, including any author that will be removed (in case of removal). If there is any change in the authors' list, the authors must send a completed authorship change request to the journal. This request must include the signatures of all authors and provide a reason for the change.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author finds a significant error or inaccuracies after publication, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the Editorial Office and to cooperate with Editor to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum.