Publication Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Journal of Tropical Crop Science encourage the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible measures against publication malpractices. The journal is committed to maintaining the highest level of integrity in the content published.

Conflict of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose potential conflicts of interest that could affect their objectivity and integrity. These conflicts may include financial interests, personal relationships, or professional affiliations that might introduce bias into their work or decision-making processes.

The editorial board follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org) and makes every endeavour to prevent any infringements of the norms. All of this is therefore expected of all parties involved: Editors, Editorial Staff, Reviewers and Authors.

 Editors

  • All submitted papers are subject to blind peer-review process by reviewers that are experts in the area/theme of the particular paper. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, originality, soundness of method and data analysis, significance, readability and language.
  • Articles will be returned to authors if they do not comply to the journal’s author guidelines
  • The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. The authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, but there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
  • Rejected articles can be re submitted after revisions.
  • The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
  • When a conflict of interests arising, all the participants of reviewing process should inform the editorial staff.
  • The accepted papers are allocated in open access on the journal site and the copyrights are reserved.
  • Editors must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
  • The editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Reviewers

  • Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
  • The reviewers evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political views of the authors.
  • The selected referee who feels unqualified to review the manuscript or should notify the editor and excuse him/herself from the review process.
  • 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 connected to the papers.
  • Reviews should be conducted objectively with supporting arguments.
  • Peer review assists the publisher in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the experts from the scientific staff and may assist the author in improving the paper.
  • Manuscripts received for review are treated as confidential documents and are reviewed by anonymous staff (double-blind peer review).
  • A reviewer should also call to the publisher's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Authors

  • Authors should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
  • A paper should contain sufficient details and references to permit others to replicate the work.
  • Review articles should be objective, comprehensive, and accurate.
  • The authors should ensure that they have written entirely review works, if the authors have used the work and/or words of others it is obligatory to appropriately cite or quote the source.
  • Submitting the same manuscript to more than one publication concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
  • Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All authors must have contributed significantly to the study and agree to be accountable for its content. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged appropriately. Any changes in authorship after submission must have the consent of all authors.
  • The corresponding author should ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication.
  • Sources of financial support for the study must be addressed in the Acknowledgement section.

Plagiarism

  • Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
  • Plagiarism screening will be conducted on each article using Crossref Similarity Check plagiarism screening service powered by iThenticate.  Every submitted article must not exceed 20% similarity score.
  • For more information of the Crossref Similarity Check service, please visit: https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/
  • If plagiarism is identified, the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct on plagiarism will be followed.
  • For more information on the ethics of scientific publications, please access the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website.

 

Intellectual Property

Authors are responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions and rights for any materials used in their articles, including text, images, and data. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are unacceptable and will result in appropriate actions being taken.

Allegation of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct, including but not limited to fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and other unethical practices, is strictly prohibited. All allegations of research misconduct will be thoroughly investigated following COPE guidelines, and appropriate actions will be taken, which may include article retractions.

Article Corrections & Retractions

The Journal of Tropical Crop Science will issue corrections, retraction statements and other post-publication updates on published content.  

An author correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the author(s) that might affect the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.  

A publisher correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the journal that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal.

Addendum: An addendum is generally published when significant additional information crucial to the reader’s understanding of the article has come to light after publication of the article.

Article Retraction: An article may be retracted when the integrity of the published work is undermined owing to errors in the conduct, analysis and/or reporting of the study. Violation of publication or research ethics may also result in a study’s retraction. When the original article is marked as retracted, a PDF version remains available to readers. The retraction statement is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper. When it is not possible to correct the original article in both HTML and PDF versions, the article will remain unchanged but will contain bi-directional links to and from the published amendment notice.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Authors may request the withdrawal of their article before or after publication, provided valid reasons exist. Withdrawn articles will be marked, and the reasons for withdrawal will be communicated transparently to readers.