Publication Ethics

IST Publications is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. We follow COPE guidelines to ensure ethical publication practices.

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This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour.

COPE Member

Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

  • The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
  • The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work.
  • A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions (avoid "salami-publishing").
  • No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions.
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author's own ("plagiarism").
  • Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors.
  • Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work.

Important: The journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

  • Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage may be warranted with proper justification.
  • A letter must accompany the revised manuscript to explain the reason for any authorship changes.
  • Requests for changes after acceptance are honored only after formal notification and agreement between all authors.

Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research, authors should include information regarding:

  • Sources of funding
  • Potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial)
  • Informed consent if the research involved human participants
  • Statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals

Authors should include these statements in a separate section entitled "Compliance with Ethical Standards" when submitting a paper.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines.

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Examples include:

  • Research grants from funding agencies
  • Honoraria for speaking at symposia
  • Financial support for attending symposia or educational programs
  • Employment or consultation relationships
  • Position on advisory board or board of directors
  • Financial relationships, such as equity ownership or investment interest
  • Intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights, royalties)
  • Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest

The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list.

If no conflict exists: "Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest."

A submission to the journal implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality.

The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either:

  • Deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate)
  • Presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files

For certain types of data (protein sequences, DNA/RNA sequences, etc.), submission to a community-endorsed public repository is mandatory.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the following measures:

  • If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
  • If the article has already been published online, either an erratum will be placed or complete retraction will occur.
  • The author's institution may be informed.

Note: Retraction means the paper is maintained on the platform, watermarked "retracted" with an explanation provided in a linked note.

Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

IST Publications uses the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which means:

  • Articles can be linked from external sources
  • Content can be scanned by search engines
  • Articles can be re-used by text mining applications, websites, blogs, etc.
  • All usage must provide proper accreditation of the source and original publisher

IST Publications believes that open access publishing fosters the exchange of research results amongst scientists from different disciplines, facilitating interdisciplinary research.