Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics Statement

JDC is committed to upholding the integrity of its content. JDC aims to ensure that best practices and ethical standards are maintained by our editors, authors and reviewers. Editors and reviewers are required to review and assess manuscripts fairly, objectively and to maintain confidentiality. Authors must ensure that research articles submitted to JDC are their own original work and are not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. JDC authors, reviewers and editors are expected to fully adhere to our policy regarding publication ethics and to avoid unethical behaviours.

Duties of Authors

The authors submitting their work to The Journal of Development Communication must adhere to the following guidelines:

  1. Declare that their articles are their own original works and whenever they have relied on the work of others this has been properly cited and quoted. Any form of plagiarism is considered as unethical and it is not acceptable.
  2. Present an accurate account of the original research performed and sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.
  3. Ensure that the submitted paper has not been published or is not currently being processed for publication elsewhere.
  4. Contribute substantially to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. All other persons who made substantial contributions but do not meet the criteria for authorship such as linguistic editors, advisors etc. should be referred to in acknowledgments.
  5. Contribute substantially in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and giving final approval of the version to be published
  6. Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
  7. Ensure that throughout submission, peer review and after acceptance, a single corresponding author is responsible for providing all necessary manuscript information and interactions with the editorial office. 
  8. Ensure that the corresponding author provides a proper list of co-authors, if applicable, and ensure that all co-authors have accepted the final version of the paper and agreed for its potential publication.
  9. Ensure that all the authors must have agreed to the order of their names on the title page.
  10. Disclose any potential conflict of interest such as employment, funding, consultancies, that could be considered as influencing the results or their interpretation in their work.
  11. Ensure that information obtained privately from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties, or information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications are not used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source.
  12. Notify the JDC editors about any significant errors or inaccuracies they discover in their published paper and cooperate with the editors as to how this issue should be handled; and in a situation when a third party informs the JDC editors about any significant errors or inaccuracies, the authors are obliged to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide the evidence to the JDC editors of its correctness.
  13. Participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for information, clarification, or correction. In principle, authors are obliged to implement the editors’ and reviewers’ suggestions. However, the authors have the right to not implement them whenever well-justified and convincing reasons are provided.

Duties of Editors

  1. Ensure that each article is initially evaluated for originality, making use of appropriate software to do so. Following an editorial review, the article is forwarded for double blind peer review to selected experts who will make a recommendation to accept, reject, or modify the article.
  2. Evaluate submitted articles exclusively on the basis of their academic merit and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, nationality, religious belief, seniority, political philosophy or institutional affiliation, and decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal.
  3. Ensure to make all reasonable effort to process submitted manuscripts in an efficient, timely and professional manner.
  4. Ensure to keep the review process confidential; editors and editorial staff should not disclose any information about a submitted article to anyone outside the review process.
  5. Ensure that unpublished information disclosed in a submitted article is not used for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent.
  6. Recuse themselves from considering articles in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.
  7. Ensure to facilitate publication of corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies whenever needed.
  8. To have complete responsibility and authority to accept, reject or request modifications to the submitted article. 

Duties of Reviewers

  1. Evaluate articles based on content and academic merit without regard to the race, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, seniority, religious belief, political orientation or institutional affiliation.
  2. Ensure to keep the peer review process confidential; reviewers should not disclose any information or show to others or discuss with others about a submitted article to anyone outside the review process.
  3. Withdraw from the review process if he/she feels unqualified to assess the article or cannot provide an assessment in a timely manner as defined by the editor, or if there are conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.
  4. Provide a clear, constructive, comprehensive, and appropriately substantial review report so that authors can use them for improving the article.
  5. Make all reasonable effort to submit the report and recommendation in a timely manner, informing the editor if there is any delay.

Duties of Advisory Board Members

  1. Advise on journal policy, scope, contents, topics and publishing standards.
  2. Advise on direction for the journal by giving feedback on past issues and making suggestions for ideas, new initiatives and programs to support the development of the journal.
  3. Review submitted manuscripts, identify topics for special issues or encourage new authors and submissions if necessary.

UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

  1. Unethical behaviour includes duplicate submission, falsification and fabrication of research data, plagiarism, authorship conflict, and conflict of interest.
  2. Research misconduct applies to any action that involves mistreatment of research subjects or purposeful manipulation of the scientific record such that it no longer reflects observed truth.
  3. Data fabrication means the researcher did not actually do the study, but made up data. Data falsification means the researcher did the study, but then changed some of the data.

FAIR PLAY

  1. Editors evaluate manuscripts solely for their intellectual content without regard to the author’s citizenship, gender, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, political philosophy or religious belief.
  2. Acceptance or rejection of a paper by editors for publication is based on the importance, originality and clarity of the paper as well as its relevance to the aim and objectives of JDC.

DISCLOSURE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

  1. Editors and reviewers will not use unpublished information in submitted manuscripts for their own research purposes without explicit written consent from the authors. Privileged information obtained by editors will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage.
  2. Editors will ensure that material submitted remains confidential while under review. Submitted manuscript will not be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and editorial advisers.
  3. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest. In the event that this kind of conflict arises, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.
  4. Authors must, while submitting the manuscript, disclose any information on conflicts of interest that could be considered as influencing the results or their interpretation in the manuscript.
  5. Authors will receive corrections and suggestions relatively quickly depending on the availability and expertise of reviewers.

PLAGIARISM

  1. While the editor makes reasonable efforts to determine the academic integrity of papers published in JDC, authors are responsible for the originality of submitted manuscripts.
  2. Manuscript submissions are checked with anti-plagiarism software for exact or near-exact matches in the public domain to ensure that the submitted manuscript has not been plagiarised.
  3. Authors must credit the work of others including academic advisors and their own previously published work and acknowledge the findings of others on which they have built their research.

 GHOST WRITING AND GUEST AUTHORSHIP POLICY

  1. The journal considers ghost writing and guest authorship as research ethics infringements
  2. Ghost writing is when someone made a significant contribution to a paper but their role is not revealed either as one of the authors or in special acknowledgments.
  3. Guest authorship means that someone is officially declared as the author or co-author of a paper without having contributed to the paper or the contribution is negligible.

PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

  1. Unethical behaviour may be identified and brought to the attention of the editor and publisher at any time, by anyone. Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such conduct should provide sufficient information and evidence in order for an investigation to be initiated.
  2. Allegations of unethical behaviour should be taken seriously and treated in the same way, until a successful decision or conclusion is reached. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.
  3. Editors should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made. It may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, depending on the seriousness of the misconduct.

REVIEW PROCEDURE 

  1. The review process of the articles submitted to JDC is done online fully or partially. Authors are encouraged to use the online system for article submission. If they are unable to do so they should contact the editor through email.
  2. Editorial review to assess the quality (readability, grammatical usage and suitability) and type of submission is undertaken by the editors before sending it to the reviewers.
  3. Articles not meeting the standards and not following the guidelines for authors will not be considered for the reviewing process.
  4. Articles meeting the standards will be sent to at least two reviewers who are requested to advice on the scientific merit as well as the quality of presentation and likely appeal the paper will have for broad journal’s readership.
  5. Reviewers review the article and send it back to the editorial office within 30 days and periodic reminders of the due date will be sent to them.
  6. Once all the reviews are in-house, the Editor-in-Chief will make a decision within one week either to accept, reject, accept with minor amendments, or sent out for another review.
  7. Corresponding author will be contacted by the editor to inform the decision.
  8. Authors are requested to respond to reviewer comments and make necessary amendments. Authors can differ with the reviewer comments supported by justification which will be examined by the editor.
  9. Editors assess the amended articles before recommending the paper for the journal or otherwise. Accepted articles are then sent for the production process.
  10. All efforts are done to complete the whole process within three months from submission with the first decision on an average done within 30 days to inform the status of their article.