ETHICAL GUIDELINES BY HEC
“These guidelines are retrieved from Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan manual for “Ethical Guidelines for Journals”, which has been prepared by Dr. Rukhsana Kausar, Director Institute of Applied and Clinical Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore”
For Editors
The Editor’s Responsibilities
• Establishing and maintaining quality of the journal by publishing quality papers.
• Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal framework
Good practices
• Encouraging new ideas and suggestions for improving quality of JIRS.
• Appling the process of blind peer review in its true letter and spirit,
• Promoting & implementing anti plagiarism & journal’s policy without institutional pressure.
Fair play and Impartiality
• Will ensure impartial evaluation of the content of research papers,
• Disregard the all discriminating factors during selection of articles, e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, etc. of author(s)
Confidentiality
• Confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the peer review process will be ensured
• Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured.
• Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript would be kept confidential
Editing and Formatting Guidelines
• Clear guidelines about preparing and formatting of a paper are available on JIRS webpage.
The Review Process
• Articles are initially scrutinized and then go through double-blind peer review process.
• Sufficient guidelines along with a Reviewer’s Proforma are provided to reviewers (see: Reviewer’s Proforma download section)
• Sharing the reviewer’s comments with author and incorporation of suggested corrections.
• Referring troublesome cases to Advisory Committee.
Dealing with Misconduct
• Will encourages reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible misconduct.
• Confirmation of plagiarism through Turnitin and/or searching for similar titles etc.
• Will publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article.
Transparency
• Only one paper as a PI (Principle Investigator) should be published in the same issue.
• Authorship & co-authorship policy will be strictly adopted.
Conflict of Interest
• The editors and reviewers will not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against which s/he has any conflicts of interest.
Disclosure
• Will not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research paper without the permission of the author(s)
Publication Decisions
• Only shortlisted research papers relevant to the scope of the journal will be published after completion of the review process
• Acceptation or rejection of a paper will be based on academic standards.
• The Editor will justifies the reason (s) of rejecting a research paper and will timely communicate the editorial decision to the author(s)
Procedure for Appeal
The Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
• The rejection of a research paper.
• Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
• Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner.