Publication Ethics

STATEMENT ON PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE

The International Journal of GEOMATE is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. All parties involved in the act of publishing an article for this journal, i.e.: the editors, the author, the peer-reviewers, and the publisher must follow the ethical behavior indicated in the COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. In order to warrant high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas, the ethical standards for publication are followed.

DUTIES OF EDITORS

Decision on the Publication of Article: Based on the double-blind peer review of a paper, the Chief Editor and the Associate Editor are responsible for deciding which of the articles are accepted for publication. Neither the Chief Editor nor the Associate Editor has the authority to influence the reviewers who are conducting the blind review of the articles submitted for peer review. The Chief Editor and the Associate Editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's Editorial Board and subjected to such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Honest Play: Manuscripts submitted to GEOMATE shall be exclusively evaluated based mainly on their intellectual quality and significance.  GEOMATE will not give any consideration to authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality: The Chief Editor, the Associate Editor, and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution of Double-Blind Peer Review: Any identifying information will be stripped out from the submitted paper so that the reviewers do not know any information about the authors and vice versa i.e.: reviewers' comments to the editors are confidential and before passing on to the authors, it will be made anonymous. The Double-Blind Peer review assists the reviewers in making editorial decisions, while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the manuscript. The names of the reviewers are known only to the Chief Editor and the Associate Editor and it remains strictly confidential to authors.

Punctuality: Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or unable to provide a prompt review should notify the Chief Editor and the Associate Editor and excuse himself/herself from the review process.

Confidentiality: Private information or ideas obtained through double-blind peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Without any authorization by the Chief Editor and the Associate Editor, the information of the submitted manuscript must not be shown to or discussed with, others.

Standards of Objectivity: There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and reviews should be conducted objectively.

Acknowledgment of Sources: Authors should cite relevant references and corresponding citations if any statement in the submitted paper had been previously published or reported elsewhere. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. If a reviewer finds any substantial similarity or overlap between the submitted manuscript and any other published works, s/he should inform the Chief Editor/Associate Editors.

Conflict of Interest: If any reviewers find that the submitted manuscript has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions, s/he should not review that manuscripts and notify the Chief Editor/Associate Editors promptly.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Reporting Standards: Authors of papers of original research 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 manuscript 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 may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such, if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this must be appropriately cited or quoted. All papers published by the International Journal of GEOMATE are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere nor is under review elsewhere. Paper that is found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.

Acknowledgment of Sources: Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Manipulation of Citations: Submitted papers 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 sanctions for manipulation of citations.

Falsification and Fabrication: Submitted papers that are found to have either falsified or fabricated numerical/experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Authorship: The authorship of a paper should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Scientific Contribution: 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.

Corresponding Author: Corresponding Author is the author responsible for communicating with the journal for publication. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Acknowledgment of Funding Sources: Funding sources for the research reported in the manuscript should be duly acknowledged after the conclusion and before the list of references.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:  All sources of financial support for the project or any substantive conflict of interest that might be interpreted to influence the results of the paper should be disclosed.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works: It is the author's responsibility to promptly notify the Chief Editor/Associate Editor if s/he discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work to retract or correct the paper.

Redundant, Concurrent, or Multiple Publications: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. 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. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.

SANCTIONS

In the event that there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies in any journal, regardless of whether or not the violations occurred in a journal published by GEOMATE, the following sanctions will be applied:

• Immediate rejection of the infringing manuscript.
• Immediate rejection of every other manuscript submitted to GEOMATE by any of the authors of the infringing manuscript.
• Prohibition against all of the authors for any new submissions to GEOMATE, either individually or in combination with other authors of the infringing manuscript, as well as in combination with any other authors. This prohibition will be imposed for a minimum of five years.
• Prohibition against all of the authors from serving on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of GEOMATE

 In cases where the violations of the above policies are found to be particularly outrageous, the publisher reserves the right to impose additional sanctions beyond those described above.