Publication Ethics

The Plant Health Archives is an electronic double-blind peer reviewed journal upholding the highest standards. Articles not in accordance with publication ethics and malpractices will be removed from publication if detected at any time. Plagiarism and research fabrication such as making up of data, manipulation of existing data, tables etc. and ethical clearance on the use of humans or animals for the study will also be checked. The journal reserves the right to use plagiarism detecting software to screen submitted papers at any time and suspected plagiarism or duplicate publishing will be reported immediately. Articles should be submitted using online procedures. Simultaneous publication in more than one publication is a breach of publication ethics. Manuscripts submitted to these journals are evaluated entirely on the basis of their scientific content. All possible measures are taken to uphold the highest standards of publication ethics and to prevent malpractices.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) during the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010 has developed the below mentioned guidelines. Informatics Journals, as a publisher follows COPE, WAME and has adopted COPE’s best practice guidelines for dealing with ethical issues in a journal. The Journal Members (Advisory Board, editors and the journal manager) have consented to adopt the COPE as it meets the purpose and objective of the Journal.

Responsibility of Authors

They must ensure that:

  • Their work is original.
  • Must not have been published or not under consideration for publication
  • Other authors, contributors or sources should be appropriately credited.
  • They are responsible for language editing before submission.
  • Their work has not been copied or plagiarized in whole or part from any other work.
  • If the authors have used the works of others the same has been appropriately cited or quoted.
  • The financial support and conflict of interest for the project/ research work if any should be disclosed.
  • Applicable copyright laws and conventions are required to be followed. Copyright materials should be reproduced only with permission and due acknowledgement.
  • Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the paper which is submitted for publication. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects in the development of the paper should also be acknowledged.
  • The corresponding author is required to ensure that all co-authors are included in the paper, and that the co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
  • They are obliged to notify the editor if any error or inaccuracy is discovered and co-operate with the editor to correct the same.

Responsibility of Editors

They must ensure that:

  • The submitted manuscript undergoes Double-blind peer review before publishing.
  • They will strive to prevent any conflict of interest between the author and editorial and review personnel.
  • The Editorial Team may confer/ deliberate with other reviewers/ editors in arriving at its decisions.
  • The evaluation of manuscripts is made on the basis of the scholarly and intellectual content without any biasness on the nature of the authors or the institution including gender, race, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
  • The journal follows a policy of fair play in its editorial evaluation.
  • The editors are expected to exercise caution and ensure that they have found no conflict of interest in respect to the articles they accept/ reject.
  • The editors and the editorial staff should follow strict confidentiality and should not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers and the publisher. Authors are encouraged to comply with the comments made while preserving the anonymity of the reviewers.

Responsibility of Reviewers

They must ensure that:

  • Reviews of the manuscript and provides suitable comments for improvement.
  • Promptness in notifying the editor about his inability to review the manuscript.
  • Maintains confidentiality about the manuscript obtained for review, by not discussing with others.
  • Standards of Objectivity preserved by reviewing the manuscripts objectively with clear views and supporting arguments and without any personal criticism.
  • Acknowledgement of Sources.
  • All References not cited by author should be removed. All citations should be accompanied with any previously reported observation, derivation or argument.
  • The editors should be intimated for any overlap of the reviewed manuscript with any other published paper.
  • Disclosures and Conflict of Interest - manuscripts having conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or any other relationships or connections with institutions connected to the paper will not be considered.

In case, plagiarism is detected during review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately and we can also consider other steps depending upon the seriousness of the case. If the plagiarism is proven after publication, such manuscript(s) will be removed from our website and appropriate announcement will be placed in this regards.

Further, Plant Health Archives can bring such instants in notice of author's funding agencies, author's institutes (where they works) and to the original authors whose work has been plagiarized. Please report the plagiarism to editorplanthealth@gmail.com.