Guidelines
1. Ethical Guidelines
QAJ ethical guidelines is to ensure originality and to reflect the Qubahan Academic Journal’s unique values and mission. These principles align with recognized global standards while demonstrating QAJ's commitment to ethical publishing practices.
General Principles:
- QAJ is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency in research and publishing.
- Authors, reviewers, and editors must adhere to ethical principles of honesty, accountability, and confidentiality.
2. Adherence to Established Standards
QAJ follows the principles outlined by internationally recognized organizations such as:
- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): [COPE Core Practices]
These resources guide QAJ's practices in handling misconduct, conflicts of interest, and ethical research conduct. Links to the full texts of these guidelines are provided for reference.
3. Research Involving Vulnerable Populations
Given QAJ’s focus on publishing studies involving vulnerable groups (e.g., children, marginalized communities), specific policies have been introduced to address ethical concerns:
- Consent and Assent:
- Studies involving children or other vulnerable populations must obtain informed consent from legal guardians and assent from participants where appropriate.
- Researchers must ensure that participants fully understand the nature of the research and their rights.
- Risk Minimization:
- Researchers must demonstrate efforts to minimize risks and discomfort to vulnerable participants.
- All studies must undergo rigorous ethical review to ensure participant safety.
- Compliance with International Standards:
- All research involving human participants must adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki and other relevant ethical frameworks.
4. Publication Ethics
QAJ is committed to protecting research integrity and publishing only work that meets high ethical and scientific standards. Editorial decisions are based on merit, relevance, and ethical compliance—without discrimination.
- Plagiarism and Misconduct:
- All submitted manuscripts will undergo plagiarism checks using advanced detection tools. QAJ permits a maximum similarity (plagiarism) index of 20%.
- Any detected cases of fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism beyond the permitted threshold will result in rejection and reporting to relevant authorities.
A) Authors must:
-
Submit original work (no plagiarism, no duplicate submission).
-
List only eligible authors and disclose contributions.
-
Declare conflicts of interest and funding transparently.
-
Report data honestly (no fabrication/falsification) and avoid improper image manipulation.
-
Provide ethics/IRB approval details for human/animal studies and confirm informed consent when applicable.
-
For vulnerable populations (e.g., children/minors, refugees, prisoners, cognitively impaired participants), include enhanced safeguards and consent/assent requirements.
B) Reviewers and editors must:
-
Maintain confidentiality, declare conflicts of interest, and act fairly and professionally.
C) Misconduct handling:
QAJ investigates suspected ethical breaches (plagiarism, unethical research, manipulated data/images, undisclosed COI). Outcomes may include rejection, correction, retraction, or institutional notification when warranted.
D) External guidance:
QAJ’s policies are developed in-house and informed by recognized best practices (e.g., COPE/WAME/Declaration of Helsinki) with links provided on the journal website.
5. Conflict of Interest Policy
To maintain transparency and trust in the research process, all authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest.
- Authors should provide a statement of financial or non-financial conflicts of interest in their manuscript.
- Reviewers must recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest with the manuscript under review.
- Editors will ensure that decisions are made independently of any potential conflicts.
6. Data Sharing and Reproducibility
- Authors are encouraged to make their data available in public repositories where possible and applicable.
- Manuscripts must include a data availability statement, specifying where the data supporting the findings can be accessed or explaining any restrictions.
- Research relying on proprietary or sensitive data must provide a clear justification for non-disclosure.
It requires to use the QAJ Template in the final version of your manuscript
Please complete and sign the form and send it with the final version of your manuscript
