PUBLICATION ETHICS
Journal of Physical Activity and Hormones encourages the practice of publishing of original manuscripts that make a substantive contribution to scientific research community. The submitted manuscript should cover key research objectives as per journals specification. Journal of Physical Activity and Hormones has skilled team of editors and reviewers to commit the quality of manuscript published in our archives.
It is necessary to stick upon principles of expected ethical behavior for all parties concerned in the act of publishing: Author, Editor, Reviewer and Publisher. The publication ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
PUBLICATION AND AUTHORSHIP
Peer Review Process
All submitted manuscripts should be subjected to strict double blind peer-review process by international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular submitted manuscript.
Quality of manuscript
The factors that are taken into account to ensure the quality of manuscript in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language.
Judgment
The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
Copyright
The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
Submission
No research can be included in more than one publication.
Financial Support
Any financial support that contribute the findings or research in the manuscript, along with the details of financial support and its sources, should be acknowledged.
AUTHORS
An author should ensure to present the research work in an authentic manner along with the significance. The authors should ensure to present their original works, and a proper citation should be made on citing the works of others. Imitation or intentionally inaccurate statements constitute unethical activities and are unacceptable. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing activities and is unacceptable. The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal simultaneously at the same time as constitutes unethical publishing activities and is unacceptable. 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.
Responsibilities of Authors
Raw data and experimental proof
Authors may ask to make available the experimental data in link with manuscript for editorial review, and should be organized to provide public access to such data.
Originality and Plagiarism
An author should make sure that the submitted manuscript presents the research work in an authentic manner along with the significance.
Acknowledgement
Corresponding author should make sure that all persons, society or group have helped in any aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged.
Author and co-authors
The corresponding author should make sure that all suitable co-authors and no unsuitable coauthors have incorporated in the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Hazards
The author should clarify in manuscript, if the experimental work involves chemicals, procedures or equipments that have any unusual hazards.
Research work involving animals or humans
Author must insist on following ethical practices in both human and animal experimentation. Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand.
Conflicts of Interest statement
All authors should reveal in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to manipulate the interpretation of results of their manuscript.
Errors in published Manuscript
Authors must inform to editor if they find out any errors in their published paper.
REVIEWER
Reviewer is responsible to both the author and the editor in regard to the manuscript. Peer review process is the method by which the quality of research is judged. Peer-Reviewed publications help to judge the funding decisions in science and the academic advancement of scientists.
Responsibilities of Reviewer
Reviewers Contribution
Reviewer’s comments help to both, the editor to take the editorial decision and the author to improve the quality of manuscript and finally the readers to come across with a good quality research work.
Rapidity and timeliness
Reviewer should make sure complete the review within the relevant time. If any reviewer feels unqualified to review the manuscript by any cause, he/she should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
Secrecy
Any manuscript received for review must be treated as confidential document. Reviewer’s comments should be held confidentially. It should not be shared with others except as official and the editor.
References
Reviewers must make sure that every relevant published work that has been cited by the authors. Every previously published work should be accompanied by the relevant citation. If reviewer found any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published work, he/she should immediately inform the editor.
Conflict of Interest statement
Reviewers must make sure that they should not consider manuscript in which they have conflicts of interest ensuing from competitive, mutual, or other associations with any of the author(s) or group linked with the manuscript.
EDITORS
Editor is the main communicator between the reviewers, authors and publisher. Editor is key factor deals with any received information, complained or misconduct by the author or reviewer. The editor’s decision is final in acceptance or decline of a manuscript for publication.
Editor’s responsibilities and duties
Manuscript decision
Editor is responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication, which he can ensure with the help of reviewer. Editor adopts processes that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research work. Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article according to journal policies.
Fairness and Reliability
Editor’s decision should solely depend on scientific merit, relevance to the subject, scope of the journal rather on financial, racial, ethnic origin etc… of the authors
Secrecy
Any manuscript received for review must be treated as confidential document. The 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, as appropriate.
Confession and conflicts of interest
Submitted work in form of manuscript must not be used in any form by editor's own work. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members. Editor must be guided by the COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected misconduct or disputed authorship.
Errata/Retraction of manuscript
When authentic errors in published work are pointed out by any person, which do not make the work invalid, Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections as soon as possible. If the error provides the work or substantial parts of it invalid, the paper should be retracted with the reason of retraction.