JHED Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Journal of Hygienic Engineering and Design follows the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct. More details can be found here: https://publicationethics.org.

The Consulting and Training Centre KEY as a publisher, takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities.

Duties and responsibilities of Editors

Editorial Board

Editorial board is and will be generated from recognized experts in the respective field.

Fair play and editorial independence

Editors are evaluating submitted manuscripts only on the basis of their respective academic merit and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content. 

Confidentiality

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. Editors will ensure that material submitted remains confidential while under review.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead of that, they have to ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Publication decisions

The editors are ensuring that all submitted manuscripts that are considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least three reviewers who are expert in the respective field. Responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published (regarding the validation of the work in question, reviewers’ comments, its importance to the researchers and readers, and the legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism) is the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief may consult with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

Editors will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication, following COPE Flowcharts when dealing with cases of suspected misconduct. If the ethical concern is well-founded, a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be published in the journal.

Duties of Reviewers

All of a journal’s content is subjected to peer-review.

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communication with authors, assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Articles submitted for possible publication are subjected to a triple-blind, peer review process.

Promptness

Any invited referee who consider that is unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible, should immediately notify the editors and Editor-in-Chief and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscript received for review is confidential document and have to be treated as such; these materials must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This is applicable also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews have to be conducted objectively and the comments and observations have to be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers have to identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest regardless if it’s from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors in order to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Any unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the expressed and written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This is applicable also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of Authors

Publication and Submission fee

Fees that are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the journal are easily accessible and clearly stated in: https://keypublishing.org/jhed/jhed-about/, Publication Fees, so the   potential authors can find it prior to submitting their manuscripts for review.

Open Access Policy

The journal is freely available online. Authors are required to agree with this open access policy which enables unrestricted access and reuse of all published articles. The articles are published under the Creative Commons copyright license policy CC-BY. Users are allowed to copy and redistribute the material in printed or electronic format and build upon the material, without further permission or fees being required, provided that appropriate credit is given.

Reporting standards

Original research authors should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work. The manuscript have to contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be accurate, objective and comprehensive, while editorial ‘opinion’ or perspective pieces should be clearly identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and not previously published, which is clearly stated in the Cover letter, which have to be submitted following the abstract submission. If they have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing off” another’s paper as the author’s own, 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 publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and unacceptable. All authors should fill out and send to the Publisher a Cover letter, indicating they have not submitted the same or a similar manuscript for publication elsewhere, and that they are the sole owners of the manuscript submitted.

Authorship of the manuscript

As authors in the manuscript should be listed only persons who meet authorship criteria: (a) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, and/or analysis and interpretation of the study; (b) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made significant contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the “Acknowledgement” section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition), and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

At the earliest stage possible, authors should (by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript) disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include: employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, grants or other funding and membership, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference numbers, if any).

Acknowledgement of sources

Authors have to ensure properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Any information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Peer review

Authors have obligation to participate in the peer review process which is clearly stated in the Cover letter. They have to cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests. In the case of a first decision of “revisions necessary”, authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given. All unavoidable disagreements will be submitted in a written form.

Fundamental errors in published works

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behavior

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.