The
Agrobiological Records (ABRs) is quarterly Journal
(January-March; April-June; July-September;
October-December) published by the Unique
Scientific Publishers. This journal
publishes original research papers, reviews,
clinical articles/case reports and short
communications in the area of agriculture,
veterinary, animal sciences and allied disciplines.
The ABRs publishes the articles/manuscripts those
contribute significantly to the knowledge in the
field of agrobiological sciences. Preference is
given to the original articles that develop new
concepts or experimental approaches and are not
merely repositories of scientific data.
The formal part of the scholarly
communication system, the publication of an article
in a peer-reviewed learned journal, serves many
purposes outside of simple communication. It
is a building block in developing a rational and
respected knowledge network. It is prima facie
evidence for the quality and impact of the research
work of its authors and, by extension, the
institutions that support them. It supports
and is itself an example of the scientific method.
For all these reasons and more, it is important to
lay down standards of expected ethical behavior by
all parties involved in publishing: the author, the
journal editor, the peer reviewer, and the
publisher. This includes all parties treating
each other with respect and dignity and without
discrimination, harassment, bullying, or
retaliation.
These guidelines are designed specifically
for primary research journals but may also be
relevant for review and other professional
publications. Individual journals often have
more elaborate or distinct ethical procedures,
generally reflected in their Guide for Authors.
Many journals also accept and are, in many cases
founding participants concerning discipline-specific
standards or standard-setting bodies, such as the
International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and
Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT).
The ethical requirements for publishers, editors,
reviewers, and authors include but are not limited
to the following:
1.1. Publisher: We
require publishers to promote and comply with
industry best practices. The publisher shall
provide editors with technical, procedural, and
legal support and ensure their editorial decisions
are independent and not affected by any other
factors.
1.2. Editors: The
editors shall follow the industry best practice,
including but not limited to ensuring the editorial
decisions they make and the peer review process are
fair, unbiased, and timely.
1.3. Reviewers:
Reviewers shall assist the editors in making
editorial decisions and may also assist the author
in improving the paper. Reviews should be
conducted objectively, and reviewers are responsible
for ensuring the review process is fair, unbiased,
and timely. 1.4. Authors: The authors
should ensure that they have written entirely
original works and should not, in general, publish
manuscripts describing essentially the same research
in more than one journal.
Does
your research involve experimentation on animals?
Please provide the name of the ethical committee
approving these experiments and confirm the authors'
compliance with all relevant ethical regulations.
All authors
are requested to disclose any actual or potential
conflict of interest, including any financial,
personal, or other relationships with other people
or organizations, within three years of beginning
the submitted work that could inappropriately
influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.
1.1. Guardianship of the scholarly
record
These guidelines have been written with all
these requirements in mind but especially
recognizing that it is an important role of the
publisher to support the huge efforts made by
journal editors and the often unsung volunteer work
undertaken by peer reviewers in maintaining the
integrity of the scholarly record. Although
ethical codes inevitably concentrate on the
infractions that sometimes occur, it is a tribute to
scholarly practice that the system works so well and
that problems are comparatively rare. The
publisher has a supporting, investing, and nurturing
role in the scholarly communication process but is
ultimately responsible for ensuring that best
practice is followed in its publications (STM;COPE
Codes of Conduct).
The
Unique Scientific Publishers takes its duties of
guardianship over the scholarly record seriously.
Our journals record "the minutes of science," and we
recognize our responsibilities as the keeper of
those "minutes" in all our policies, not least the
ethical guidelines we have adopted here.
The
Unique Scientific Publishers is adopting these
policies and procedures to support editors,
reviewers, and authors in performing their ethical
duties under these guidelines. We work with
other publishers and industry associations to set
standards for best practices on ethical matters,
errors, and retractions.
1.2. Safeguard editorial independence
We are committed to ensuring that the
potential for advertising, reprint, or other
commercial revenue has no impact or influence on
editorial decisions.
1.3. Collaborate to set industry best
practice
We promote best practices by opting for the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
guidelines and providing editors with
Crossref/Turnitin Similarity Check reports for all
submissions to our editorial systems.
1.4. Provide editors with technical,
procedural & legal support
We support editors in communications with
other journals or publishers where this is useful to
editors and are prepared to provide specialized
legal review and counsel if necessary.
1.5. Educate researchers on publishing
ethics
We also provide extensive education and advice
on publishing ethics standards, particularly for
early career researchers, by conducting various
workshops in institutions.
1.1. Publication decisions
The editor of a learned journal is solely
and independently responsible for deciding which of
the articles submitted to the journal should be
published. The validation of the work in
question and its importance to researchers and
readers must always underwrite such decisions.
The editor may be guided by the policies of the
journal's editorial board and constrained by such
legal requirements as shall then be in force
regarding issues such as libel, copyright
infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may
confer with other editors or reviewers in making
these decisions.
1.2. Peer review
The editor shall ensure that the
peer-review process is fair, unbiased, and
timely. At least two external and independent
reviewers must typically review research articles;
where necessary, the editor should seek additional
opinions.
The editor shall select reviewers with
suitable expertise in the relevant field,
considering the need for appropriate, inclusive, and
diverse representation. The editor shall
follow best practices to avoid the selection of
fraudulent peer reviewers (WAME
Best Practice). The editor shall
review all disclosures of potential conflicts of
interest and suggestions for self-citation made by
reviewers to determine whether there is any
potential for bias.
1.3. Fair play
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for
their intellectual content without regard to the
authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious
belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political
philosophy. When nominating potential
editorial board members, the editor shall consider
the need for appropriate, inclusive, and diverse
representation.
The journal's editorial policies should
encourage transparency and complete, honest
reporting, and the editor should ensure that peer
reviewers and authors clearly understand what is
expected of them. The editor shall use the
journal's standard electronic submission system for
all communications. The editor shall
establish, along with the publisher, a transparent
mechanism for appeal against editorial decisions.
1.4. Journal metrics
The editor must not attempt to influence
the journal's ranking by artificially increasing any
journal metric. In particular, the editor
shall not require that references to that (or any
other) journal's articles be included except for
genuine scholarly reasons, and authors should not be
required to include references to the editor's
articles or products and services in which the
editor has an interest.
1.5. Confidentiality
The editor must protect the confidentiality
of all material submitted to the journal and all
communications with reviewers unless otherwise
agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers.
In exceptional circumstances and in consultation
with the publisher, the editor may share limited
information with editors of other journals where
necessary to investigate suspected research
misconduct (COPE
Guidelines).
Unless the journal operates an open
peer-review system and/or reviewers have agreed to
disclose their names, the editor must protect
reviewers' identities.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a
submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's
own research without the author's express written
consent. Privileged information or ideas
obtained through peer review must be confidential
and not used for personal advantage.
1.6. Declaration of Competing
Interests
Any potential editorial conflicts of
interest should be declared to the publisher before
the editor's appointment and updated if and when new
conflicts arise. The publisher may publish
such declarations in the journal.
The editor must not be involved in
decisions about papers which s/he has written
him/herself or have been written by family members
or colleagues or related to products or services in
which the editor has an interest. Further, any
such submission must be subject to all of the
journal's usual procedures, peer review must be
handled independently of the relevant author/editor
and their research groups, and there must be a clear
statement to this effect on any such paper that is
published.
The editor should work to safeguard the
integrity of the published record by reviewing and
assessing reported or suspected misconduct
(research, publication, reviewer, and editorial) in
conjunction with the publisher.
Such measures will generally include
contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and
giving due consideration to the respective complaint
or claims made but may also include further
communications to the relevant institutions and
research bodies. The editor shall make proper
use of the publisher's systems to detect misconduct,
such as plagiarism.
An editor presented with convincing evidence
of misconduct should coordinate with the publisher
to arrange the prompt publication of a correction,
retraction, expression of concern, or other
correction to the record, as may be relevant.
1.1. Contribution to Editorial
Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making
editorial decisions, and the editorial
communications with the author may also assist the
author in improving the paper. Peer review is
essential to formal scholarly communication and lies
at the heart of the scientific method. In
addition to the specific ethics-related duties
described below, reviewers are asked to treat
authors and their work as they would like to be
treated and observe good reviewing etiquette.
Any selected referee who feels unqualified
to review the research reported in a manuscript or
knows its prompt review will be impossible should
notify the editor and decline to participate in the
review process.
1.2. Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be
treated as confidential documents. Reviewers
must not share the review or information about the
paper with anyone or contact the authors directly
without permission from the editor.
Some editors encourage discussion with
colleagues or co-reviewing exercises. Still,
reviewers should discuss this with the editor to
ensure that confidentiality is observed and that
participants receive suitable credit.
Unpublished materials disclosed in a
submitted manuscript must not be used in a
reviewer's own research without the author's express
written consent. Privileged information or
ideas obtained through peer review must be
confidential and not used for personal advantage.
1.3. Alertness to Ethical Issues
A reviewer should be alert to potential
ethical issues in the paper and bring these to the
editor's attention, including any substantial
similarity or overlap between the manuscript under
consideration and any other published paper of which
the reviewer has personal knowledge. The
relevant citation should accompany any statement
that had previously reported observation,
derivation, or argument.
1.4. Standards of Objectivity &
Competing Interests
Reviewers should conduct reviews
objectively. Reviewers should be aware of
personal bias and consider this when reviewing a
paper. Personal criticism of the author is
inappropriate. Referees should express their
views clearly with supporting arguments.
Reviewers should consult the editor before
agreeing to review a paper where they have potential
conflicts of interest resulting from competitive,
collaborative, or other relationships or connections
with any of the authors, companies, or institutions
connected to the papers.
Suppose a reviewer suggests that an author
includes citations to the reviewer's (or their
associates') work. In that case, this must be for
genuine scientific reasons and not to increase the
reviewer's citation count or enhance the visibility
of their work (or that of their associates).
1.1. Reporting Standards
Authors of reports of original research
should present an accurate account of the work
performed and an objective discussion of its
significance. Underlying data should represent
accurately in the paper. A paper should
contain sufficient detail and references to permit
others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or
knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical
behavior and are unacceptable.
Review and professional publication
articles should be accurate and objective and
clearly identify editorial 'opinion' works.
1.2. Data Access and Retention
Authors may be asked to provide the
research data supporting their paper for editorial
review and/or to comply with the open data
requirements of the journal. Authors should be
prepared to provide public access to such data, if
practicable, and should be prepared to retain such
data for a reasonable number of years after
publication. Authors may refer to their
journal's Guide for Authors for further details.
1.3. Originality and Acknowledgement
of Sources
The authors should ensure that they have
written entirely original works, and if the authors
have used the work and/or words of others, that this
has been appropriately cited or quoted, and
permission has been obtained where necessary.
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others
must always be given. Authors should cite
publications that have influenced the reported work
and give the work appropriate context within the
larger scholarly record. Information obtained
privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or
discussion with third parties, must not be used or
reported without explicit, written permission from
the source.
Plagiarism takes many forms, from 'passing
off' another's paper as the author's own paper to
copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of
another's paper (without attribution) to claiming
results from research conducted by others.
Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical
behavior and is unacceptable.
1.4. Multiple, Redundant, or
Concurrent Publication
An author should not generally publish
manuscripts describing the same research in more
than one journal or primary publication.
Submitting the same manuscript to more than one
journal concurrently constitutes unethical behavior
and is unacceptable.
In general, an author should not submit for
consideration in another journal a paper that has
been published previously, except in the form of an
abstract, as part of a published lecture or academic
thesis, or as an electronic preprint.
Publication of some kinds of articles
(e.g., clinical guidelines, translations) in more
than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided
certain conditions are met. The authors and
editors of the journals concerned must agree to the
secondary publication, which must reflect the same
data and interpretation of the primary document.
The primary reference must be cited in the secondary
publication. Further detail on acceptable
forms of secondary publication can be found in the
ICMJE.
1.5. Confidentiality
Information obtained in the course of
confidential services, such as refereeing
manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used
without the explicit written permission of the
author of the work involved in these services.
1.6. Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who
have contributed significantly to the conception,
design, execution, or interpretation of the reported
study. All those who have made substantial
contributions should be listed as co-authors.
The acknowledgments section should
recognize others who have participated in certain
substantive aspects of the paper (e.g., language
editing or medical writing).
The corresponding author should ensure that
all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate
co-authors are included in the paper and that all
co-authors have seen and approved the final version
of the paper and have agreed to its submission for
publication.
Authors are expected to consider the list
and order of authors carefully before submitting
their manuscript and provide the definitive list of
authors at the time of the original submission.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the editor
consider (at their discretion) the addition,
deletion, or rearrangement of authors after the
manuscript has been submitted, and the author must
flag any such request to the editor. All
authors must agree with any such addition, removal,
or rearrangement.
Authors take collective responsibility for
the work. Each individual author is accountable for
ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or
integrity of any part of the work are appropriately
investigated and resolved.
Individual journals may have particular
definitions of authorship, e.g., medical journals
may follow the
ICMJE definition of authorship, and authors
should ensure that they comply with the policies of
the relevant journal.
1.7. Hazards and Animal Subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures,
or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent
in their use, the author must identify these in the
manuscript.
Suppose the work involves the use of animal
or human subjects. In that case, the author
should ensure that the manuscript contains a
statement that all procedures comply with relevant
laws and institutional guidelines and that the
appropriate institutional committee(s) have approved
them. Authors should include a statement in
the manuscript that informed consent was obtained
for experimentation with human subjects. The
privacy rights of human subjects must always be
observed.
All animal experiments should comply with
the
ARRIVE guidelinesand should be carried out in accordance
with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986
and associated guidelines (UK
Animal Act 1986) or EU Directive
2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for
scientific purposes (EU
Directive 2010), or the US Public Health
Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory
Animals and, as applicable, the
Animal Welfare Act.
1.8. Declaration of Competing
Interests
WAME defines conflict of interest as
"a
divergence between an individual's private interests
(competing interests) and his or her
responsibilities to scientific and publishing
activities, such that a reasonable observer might
wonder if the individual's behavior or judgment was
motivated by considerations of his or her competing
interests" (WAME
Editorial statement on COI). All
authors should disclose in their manuscript any
financial and personal relationships with other
people or organizations that could be viewed as
inappropriately influencing (bias) their work.
All sources of financial support for the
conduct of the research and/or preparation of the
article should be disclosed, as should the role of
the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the
collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in
the writing of the report; and in the decision to
submit the article for publication. This
should be stated if the funding source(s) had no
such involvement.
Examples of potential conflicts of interest
which should disclose include employment,
consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid
expert testimony, patent applications/registrations,
and grants or other funding. Potential
conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the
earliest possible stage (WAME
Editorial statement on COI).
1.9.
Notification of Fundamental
Errors
When an author discovers
a significant error or inaccuracy in their own
published work, it is the author's obligation to
promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and
cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the
paper if deemed necessary by the editor.
Suppose the editor or the publisher learns from a
third party that a published work contains an error.
In that case, it is the obligation of the author to
cooperate with the editor, including providing
evidence to the editor where requested.
1.10.
Image Integrity
It is not acceptable to enhance, obscure,
move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within
an image. Adjustments of brightness, contrast,
or color balance are acceptable if and as long as
they do not obscure or eliminate any information
present in the original. Manipulating images
for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation
for other purposes could be seen as scientific
ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly (Rossner
and Yamada 2004).
Authors should comply with any specific
policy for graphical images applied by the relevant
journal, e.g., providing the original images as
supplementary material with the article or
depositing these in a suitable repository.
1.11.
Clinical Trial Transparency
TheUnique Scientific Publishers supports clinical
trial transparency. For relevant journals,
authors are expected to conform to industry best
standards in clinical trial registration and
presentation, for example, the
CONSORT guidelines as further set out in the
policies of the relevant journal (ICMJE).
