Publication Ethics of the Journal of Crop and Weed

All possible steps and measures are taken to uphold the highest standard of publication ethics and to reduce malpractices during publication of the "Journal of Crop and Weed". Authors are to submit and declare that they have submitted article arising out of their original work and is free from any type of copying or plagiarizing. The authors are required to appropriately acknowledge, credit and refer work(s) or words of others or sources (including financial / intellectual etc.).

Disclosure of actual or potential conflict of interest is a must by the authors. Journal of Crop and Weed always insists on minimization and disclosure of any conflict of interest among the authors, reviewers, editors. Journal of Crop and Weed is committed to fair and blind peer review of the submissions. Shortcomings, in any form of the above should be brought to the notice of the Chief Editor for immediate redressal of the problem, if any, and the Editorial Board is committed to this mission.

Papers related to investigation in Animal Sciences should be in compliance with the Animal Ethics of the Institution where the actual work has been carried out and a statement by the authors in this regard is necessary. The Journal of Crop and Weed is strongly against unethical animal investigation/ experimentations.

All submissions are processed with appropriate respect to the confidentiality of the work, authors and the reviewers. Disclosures of any information about manuscripts in any form other than the authors, reviewers (partly) and the Chief Editor is strictly prohibited. All submissions are privileged communications; comments, findings, data used, work referred are the responsibility of the authors. Reviewers are requested to refrain from making copies of the manuscript, sharing with others, except with the permission of the Chief Editor. On completion of the review process the reviewers should either return or destroy copies of manuscripts.

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Crop and Weed always insists on best practices in every field and also desire to have the authors of the articles, the reviewers and the Editorial Board to follow the best practice guidelines on ethical behavior. The journal encourages the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible measures against publication malpractices. The Crop and Weed Science Society (CWSS) as a publisher, takes its duties of supervision at all stages of publishing extremely seriously and recognize ethical and other responsibilities

A summary of the key points for the Editors, the Authors and the Reviewers is provided below. The Journal of Crop and Weed follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the the  Publishers. One should try to adhere to these best possible way and may also consult guide lines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Duties of Editors

Fair play and editorial independence

Submitted articles are checked for plagiarism followed by evaluation by the editors entirely on the basis of their scientific merit providing due importance to originality, importance, validity, clarity vis-à-vis relevance of the article to the journal’s scope. The decision, on these aspects should  have no regard to the authors’ citizenship, race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, political belief or institutional affiliation. In this regard the journal follows the policy based on COPE guideline which states that "Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or otheragencies outside of the journal itself." Decisions to modify/edit and publish /not to publish should be determined by the journal policy itself; no other body or agency should influence the process. The Chief Editor has full authority over the timing of publication and on  the content of particular article or entire content of the journal.

Confidentiality

Under no circumstance the Chief Editors/Editors and editorial staff should disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers/the publisher etc..

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Chief Editor/Editors and editorial members/staff should refrain themselves from any  use of unpublished information in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes or any body else without the written consent from the authors. Chief Editor/Editors and editorial board members should not use privileged information or ideas obtained as a result of handling the manuscript for their personal advantage. Editors will refrain themselves from the decision making process  with respect to any  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. In the event of possibility of such cases the task should be handled by the another member of the editorial board as would be decided by the Chief Editor / Editorial Board.

Publication decisions

The editorial board should ensure that all submitted manuscripts should undergo double-blind peer-review system by the expert in the respective field. The Chief Editor (may be in consultation with Editors) takes the  responsible for deciding the manuscripts submitted to the journal to be published, based on the importance, originality, validation of the work, the reviewers’ comments, conflict of interest status, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

The Chief Editors, Editors (in conjunction with the publisher and/or society) will take appropriate measures when ethical disputes are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published article. Every dispute of unethical publishing behavior will have to be addressed, even if it is discovered years after publication. In this regard the guideline as provided in COPE Flowcharts is followed.  In the event of establishment of unethical behavior on investigation correction, deletion, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be notified/published in the journal and/ or Society website.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Unbiased, fear free, without having any prejudice are main pillars of peer review system which helps in editorial decisions, the authors, and in the process helps in improving the quality of the manuscripts. Peer reviewing process is one of the most important stage towards publication of any scholarly article and  any suggestion in improving the process is always welcome.

Promptness

Importance of timely publication of research article for greater interest should be one of the directions of any scientific journal. Any reviewer should cooperate to this direction and the reviewer who feels lack of expertise/qualification to evaluate the research reported in a manuscript or apprehends that its timely evaluation is not possible should immediately  intimate the corresponding editor and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewer could be contacted.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality till its publication is one of the important aspect and should be maintained at all levels during the processing of manuscript submitted for publication. Any manuscript received for review is confidential document and must be kept as such; it must not be displayed to or discussed with others unless and otherwise authorized by the Chief Editor. This publication ethics is also applicable to the reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of objectivity

Objectivity and guidelines of the review for the journal form the basis of reviewing any article submitted for publication. Reviews should be conducted in such a way supplemented with supporting arguments so that authors can use these for improving the manuscript. In every comment there should be attempt to improve the quality of the article. Personal criticism of the authors should have no place in the process of review of research article

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should examine and report the relevant published work that required to be 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. Mismatching of cited work in the text and the works referred in review of literature should be matched. A reviewer should intimate the editor about the substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which he/she has personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any potential reviewer, invited for reviewing article having  conflicts of interest as a result of competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions related to the manuscript and the work should immediately inform the concerned editor and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers could be contacted.

Reviewers should refrain themselves from using unpublished material in a submitted manuscript for his/her  own research without the written consent of the authors. This ethics is also applicable to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Only the  original research works  should be  presented for possible consideration of publication. A clear-cut description of  the work performed and the results obtained thereof commensurating  with  objective discussion of the significance of the work with reference to the previous work and the present work must be presented in holistic way. The article should be enriched with sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be objective and comprehensive, as far as possible exhaustive in the specific area with up to date information

Data access and retention

Data access and retention If situation warrants, the authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study for editorial review and should be ready to make the data publicly available if practicable and deemed necessary by the editorial board. Such data should be maintained for at least 10 years after publication

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have worked, written and submit original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, including those have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should have been appropriately cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, and any form is unethical and unacceptable.

Simultaneous submission/publication

Concurrent submission  and or publication of research articles based essentially the same research work in more than one journal is highly unethical and are to be discouraged at all levels. Authors should refrain themselves from submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been submitted / published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and unacceptable.

Authorship of the manuscript

Authorship of the manuscript is ascertain by the  significant contributions to  (i) the concept, ii) designing the experiment, iii) execution, iv) data acquisition, v) analysis/interpretation of the study; (vi) preparationof the manuscript viii) revision of the manuscript for its intellectual quality etc.  All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript must  only be listed. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors  as per their contribution listed above and no inappropriate coauthors are included and also verify that all coauthors have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure of conflicts of interest

During the submission of the manuscript the authors / corresponding author ( on behalf of all the authors) should disclose any conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest like financial educational grants or other funding, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, other financial,or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements along with  personal or professional relationships, affiliations etc should clearly be disclosed.

Acknowledgement of sources

Acknowledgement of others works those have influential impact on determining the nature of the work in proper way forms the basis of any scientific communication and is included in the ethical consideration of publication.  Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and also cited such  publications properly. Information obtained through private  conversation, correspondence or discussion  should be reported with the permission from the source.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

The authors must clearly identify in the manuscript the involvement of hazards related to  chemicals, procedures or equipment. In the event of  involvement of animals or human, the authors should ensure the compliances with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants.

Peer review

Research articles submitted for consideration are first reviewed by editors/ editorialboard member in respective fields. The editors may reject it out either because it is not dealing with the subject matter for the journal or because of its low quality. Articles that are found suitable for review are then sent to two experts in the field of the paper Each and every article submitted for possible publication in the journal undergoes double blind peer review system; wherein identity of neither the authors nor the reviewers are disclosed. Articles are generally send to at least two reviewers, one from outside the country and another from outside the province/state where the actual has been carried out. Reviewers are allowed a blanket to go through the content of the article without any prejudice or bindings; scientific content of the article remains the only criteria.
Ethically, authors are obliged to participate in the double blind peer review process and cooperate fully and promptly to editors’ requests for review compliances including proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions. The authors should comply to the reviewers’ comments/requirements systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal with in the stipulated deadline given.

Addressing fundamental errors in published works

If the authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their published work, it is their obligation to promptly intimate the same to the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum. If the editors or publisher notice otherwise 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

Under no circumstances any step would be taken to encourage misconduct  against the publication ethics of the journal. In cases of alleged /intimated/notified or proven misconduct etc against the publication ethics of the journal, the Chief Editor /the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate steps  to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This may include  publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work followed by notification in this regard.

Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research.

Copyright:

During submission of an article the authors should clearly surrender the copyright of the article, if published to the publisher i.e. the Crop and Weed Science Society.

Ownership and management:

The Crop and Weed Science Society, with its Secretariat at the Department of Agronomy, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, post - Krishiviswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741252, Nadia West Bengal, India is the publisher of the Journal of Crop and Weed. The journal is under the guidance of an International Advisory Board and managed by its Editorial Board comprising of renowned experts from different disciplines of Agriculture and Allied Sciences.

Dealing with unethical behaviour

Dealing with unethical behaviour

The journal management, the authors, the reviewers, the readers or any person may brought to the notice of the Chief Editor any type of misconduct and unethical behaviour at any point of time Misconduct and unethical behaviour may include, but need not be limited against the ethical standard and good practices as outlined above to maintain the academic and publication sanctity. Sufficient information and evidences should be provided in order to facilitate initiation of an investigation. All allegations would be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached.

Investigation

Initially the decision should be taken by the Chief Editor, who may consult with or seek advice from the Editors/ Editorial Board members, if he feels appropriate and evidential investigation should be carried out avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who need to know.

Measures

Up on receiving complaints, the persons associated with the complaints should be consulted and before arriving at any measure against any complaint the person(s) against whom the complaint is should be provide enough opportunity to defend against the allegation. Depending upon the intensity/ severity /gravity/magnitude of the misconduct complaints are dealt with utmost sincerity. In case of minor misconduct the corresponding persons against whom the complaint is, may be informed/educated/advised/cautioned. For serious misconducts different measures like notifying a strong worded letter to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behaviour, the employers of the accused be notified, publication of notification detailing the misconduct, a formal letter to the head of the author's or reviewer's department or funding agency, retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal, imposition of a formal embargo on contributions from an individual for a defined period, reporting the case and outcome to professional organisations may be taken.