Plagiarism Policy

This journal strongly opposes the practice of duplicate publication or any type of plagiarism.

This journal aims to publish original high-quality research work. Submission of a manuscript to this journal indicates that the study has not been published anywhere or not been submitted elsewhere for publication. Suppose the author(s) are using any part of a published paper (in English or any other language). In that case, they should give a proper reference, or in any case, if required, they should get permission from the previous publisher or copyright holder (Acta Biology Forum).

Plagiarized manuscripts would not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is found in any published paper after an internal investigation, a letter would be immediately sent to all the authors, their affiliated institutes and funding agency, if applied and subsequently, the paper will be retracted.
The plagiarism policy of The Nature mainly inspires the plagiarism policy of this journal.

The plagiarism policy of this journal is described below:

  1. Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else’s work as his or her own. This journal also adopted the IEEE definition of plagiarism to deal with such cases. It defines plagiarism as “the reuse of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source.”
  2. Plagiarism can be said to have occurred when large chunks of text have been cut-and-pasted. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication in this journal. Papers with confirmed plagiarisms are rejected immediately.
  3. But minor plagiarism without dishonest intent is relatively frequent, for example, when an author reuses parts of an introduction from an earlier paper.
  4. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals to ‘salami-slicing’, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper. Self-plagiarism, also referred to as ‘text recycling’, is a topical issue and is currently generating much discussion among editors. Opinions are divided on how much text overlap with an author’s previous publications is acceptable. We normally follow the guidelines given on the COPE website. Editors, reviewers, and authors are also requested to strictly follow this excellent guideline (Reference: Text Recycling Guidelines: http://publicationethics.org/text-recycling-guidelines).
  5. In case of ‘suspected minor plagiarism’, authors are contacted for clarification. Depending on all these reports, reviewers and editors decide the final fate of the manuscript. If the manuscript is finally accepted and published, then to maintain transparency, all these reports are published in the ‘publication history’ of the paper by following the Advanced OPEN peer review system. The journal editors judge any case they become aware of its own merits (either by their knowledge of and reading about the literature or when alerted by referees).
  6. The automated software is helpful to detect the ‘copy-paste’ problem. All submitted manuscripts are Acta Biology Forumhelp of different databases, eTBLAST, Plagiarism Detection tools, etc. At the same time scientific implication of the case (‘suspected minor plagiarism’), also judged by reviewers and editors. Plagiarism Detection tools are useful, but they should be used with human judgment and discretion for the conclusion. Therefore, editors judge suspected plagiarism cases on a ‘case-to-case basis’.
  7. Editors have the final decision power for these cases.

Some useful information is available at the following links:
A. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/library/plagiarismdetection
B. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/plagiarism.html
C. http://www.artjohnson.umd.edu/bioe/Threshold-for-Plagiarism.pdf
D. http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/download/editorpapers/SCIMsurvey.pdf
E. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism_detection
F. The Complete Guide to Referencing & Avoiding Plagiarism
G. Plagiarism Screening: What’s the Magic Number?

This journal is determined to promote integrity in research publication. We have great respect, and we generally follow the guidelines given by COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION ETHICS (COPE) for any publication disputes, authorship disputes, etc. We generally visit and follow the COPE website for these kinds of disputes, and author(s) are also requested to do so. Excellent guidelines related to COPE’s Code of Conduct and its advice to tackle cases of suspected misconduct are available in this link (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). All the materials available in the COPE website are the copyright of COPE.

Portability of Peer-review

To support efficient and thorough peer review, this journal aims to reduce the number of times a manuscript is reviewed after rejection from any journal, thereby speeding up the publication process and reducing the burden on peer reviewers. Request from the author for ‘transfer of manuscript’ from one journal to another may also be accommodated under this policy. Under the cases mentioned above, by following the ‘portability of peer-review policy, the publisher will pass the review comments of a particular manuscript to the editor of another journal at the authors’ request. We will reveal the reviewers’ names to the handling editor for editorial purposes unless reviewers let us know when they return their report that they do not wish us to share their report with another published journal and/or that they do not wish to participate further in the peer review of this manuscript.

Special note for authors:

As a part of restructuring all journals, we are closing all the manuscripts, pending dormant for more than 4 weeks after the final acceptance mail. Due to restructuring our editorial policy and regulations, we have closed all the files of these types of manuscripts. Files of these manuscripts can be kept alive if authors agree to a fresh round of peer review by at least two peer reviewers or re-approved by the present editorial board.

Open Access Policy

Open access is an advantage to all scientific communities. But with advantages, there are more responsibilities. We follow ethical publishing guidelines defined by DOAJ, OASPA, WAME and ICMJE.

Copyright and Licensing Policy

Copyright Policy

Copyright of any article published in Acta Biology Forumis retained by the author(s). As per our licensing policy, the authors grant any third party the right to use the article, maintaining its integrity and identifying its authors, citation details, and publisher.

Publishing Rights

Acta Biology Forumallows its author(s) to retain publishing rights without restrictions. Authors grant Acta Biology Foruma license to publish the article and identify it as the original publisher.

Licensing Policy

As an open-access Acta Biology Forumfollows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which states that:

You are free to:
• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution— You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  •  No additional restrictions— You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Self-Archiving Policy

Authors are allowed to archive their articles in open access repositories as “pre-prints.”

Publication and Ethics

Acta Biology ForumPublication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement is largely based on the guidelines and standards developed. The relevant duties and expectations of authors, reviewers, and journal editors are set out below.

It includes:

1. Allegations of misconduct Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations; however they are brought to the journal’s or publisher’s attention. Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication. Policies should include how to handle allegations from whistleblowers. Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

2. Authorship and contributorship Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for managing potential disputes Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

3. Complaints and appeals Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal, its staff, editorial board or publisher Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

4. Conflicts of interest / Competing interests There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

5. Data and reproducibility Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

6. Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

7. Intellectual property All policies on intellectual property, including copyright and publishing licenses, should be clearly described. In addition, any costs associated with publishing should be obvious to authors and readers.

8. Journal management A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential, including the business model, policies, processes and software for the efficient running of an editorially independent journal, as well as the efficient management and training of editorial boards and editorial and publishing staff Source: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices

9. Peer review processes: All processes must be transparently described and well managed. Journals should provide training for editors and reviewers and have policies on diverse aspects of peer review

10. Post-publication discussions and corrections Journals must allow debate post-publication either on their site, through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer.

Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation: Established standards and procedures should be followed to protect Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, whereby research participants should be fully aware of the research and the impact and risk of such research on the research participant and others. Articles conducting any animal or clinical studies should contain a statement following the animal and human ethics committee.
Statement of Informed Consent All individuals have individual rights that are not infringed. Individual participants in studies have to be informed priory such as their data gathered, what they have said during a study or an interview, and any photograph taken following the research.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism

  • By submitting articles to Acta Biology Forum, the author, attests the following:
    None of the parts of manuscript is plagiarized from other sources
  • Proper reference is provided for all contents extracted from other sources
  • Strong action will be taken against cases of plagiarism

All the papers submitted have to pass through an initial screening and will be Acta Biology Forumthrough the Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (iThenticate) or by Turnitin

Acta Biology Forum is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is following the BOAI definition of open access. Open access is an advantage to all scientific communities. But with advantages, there are more responsibilities. We follow ethical publishing guidelines defined by DOAJ, OASPA, WAME and ICMJE.

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