Misconduct Policy

Academic misconduct affects the fairness of academic research and may mislead future research. Therefore, authors, editors, and reviewers are required to adhere to best practices in publishing ethics and avoid any forms of academic misconduct.

Plagiarism

Academic Publishing Pte. Ltd. uses Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) for detecting plagiarism. All submissions are screened before being sent for further processing. Any plagiarism is strictly unacceptable, including self-plagiarism and duplicate publication without proper citations. If plagiarism is detected, we will follow the flowcharts of COPE for handling cases of potential plagiarism in a submitted manuscript or a published article.

Duplicate submission

Articles published in this journal should be completely original. We do not accept articles that are simultaneously submitted to or have already been published in other journals. Partial but substantial duplication and duplication through paraphrasing are common forms of duplication submission. Detection of duplicate submissions will lead to rejection of the submission or withdrawal of the published article.

Fabrication and falsification

Fabrication and falsification are acts of misconduct that seriously affect the reputation of scholars and their institutions or funders, compromise the rigor of scientific research, and impede or misguide future related research. Fabrication refers to the fabrication of research data and results; falsification refers to the deliberate manipulation or alteration of data, research materials, processes, and equipment to achieve a desired experimental result. Academic Publishing has zero tolerance for such behaviors.

Peer review manipulation and citation manipulation

Any form of peer review manipulation should be prevented. The publisher will follow the material, How to recognize potential manipulation of the peer review process, supplied by COPE to check for such cases, and to monitor the peer review process. The identity and qualifications of reviewers will be verified and the validity of the review report will be checked to minimize peer review manipulation.

As for citation manipulation, it usually refers to excessive citations only to increase the number of citations:

  • Excessively citing articles of the author;
  • Excessively citing articles published in the target journal;
  • Honorarily citing articles of the Editor-in-Chief of the target journal or a well-known scholar.

Citation manipulation will be detected by the publisher, and self-citation thresholds for authors and reviewers will be set. While editors and reviewers are experts in the field and may recommend literature, they should not advise authors to cite their articles that are not relevant to or do not contribute to the author’s research.

Handling misconduct

Academic Publishing Pte. Ltd. treats potential misconduct seriously and will organize an investigation immediately upon receipt of allegations, where the guidelines for handling allegations of misconduct set by COPE will be followed. The investigation group will be led by the Editor-in-Chief, who will make the final decision based on clear evidence. Authors are responsible for providing necessary information and responding to queries during the investigation. Where misconduct is verified, the authors and their institutions will be informed. Authors’ institutions may also be requested to cooperate with the publisher in this process.

Some possible responses to misconduct include:

  • Rejecting the submission directly;
  • Issuing an erratum/correction;
  • Retracting a published article;
  • Not accepting submissions from the author(s) for a period of time;
  • Not allowed to serve as an editor or reviewer.

Any appeal or complaint could be made to the Editorioal Office with appropriate response. Please refer to the Appeals and Complaints in the Publishing Ethics policy.