Publication ethics

IJCRM follows the principles for journal publication set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Everyone involved in publishing a paper, the authors, the reviewers and the editors, carries part of the responsibility for the published record being trustworthy.

Authors

• Originality. Submit only work that is your own and not published elsewhere. See the plagiarism policy.
• Authorship. Everyone listed must have contributed materially to the work, and everyone who contributed materially must be listed. Do not add an author who did not contribute, and do not omit one who did. Up to 4 authors per paper.
• Data. Report data honestly. Fabrication and selective reporting that changes what the results mean are serious misconduct. Be ready to supply the underlying data if an editor asks.
• Attribution. Cite the work you relied on, including your own earlier work.
• Concurrent submission. Do not have the same manuscript under consideration at another journal at the same time.
• Funding and conflicts. Declare funding sources and any financial or personal interest that could be seen to influence the work, at submission rather than afterwards.
• Errors. If you find a significant error in your own published paper, tell the editors. Correcting your own work is not an admission of incompetence; leaving it uncorrected is the problem.

Reviewers

• Confidentiality. A manuscript under review is a confidential document. Do not show it to anyone, discuss it outside the review, or use anything in it for your own work before it is published.
• Objectivity. Judge the work, not the author. Personal criticism is not a review.
• Conflicts of interest. Decline where you have a relationship with an author, whether a collaboration, an institution in common, a friendship or an antagonism. Tell the editor rather than proceed. This is set out in the peer review process.
• Promptness. If you cannot review in the time asked for, say so straight away so the manuscript can be reassigned.
• Missing citations. Point out relevant published work the authors have not cited. Do not press authors to cite your own work in order to inflate your citation count.

Editors

• The decision is the editor's. Reviewers advise; editors decide, on the work's quality and its fit with the journal's scope.
• No discrimination. The authors' race, gender, nationality, religion, politics, seniority or institution play no part in a decision.
• Confidentiality. Nothing about a submitted manuscript is disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, the reviewers and the publisher.
• Conflicts of interest. An editor with an interest in a submission hands it to another editor.
• Acting on concerns. Credible concerns about a published paper are investigated, whoever raises them and however long after publication.

Corrections and retractions

Where a published article needs correcting, the journal issues a correction notice. Where the findings are unreliable, whether through error or misconduct, it issues a retraction notice.

In both cases the article stays at its original address and the notice is published alongside it. IJCRM does not remove published articles. Other people's papers cite these URLs, and deleting one turns a citation into a dead link, which conceals the problem instead of correcting it. A reader arriving from a reference list must find out what happened, and they can only do that if the address still answers.

Confidentiality of unpublished work

A manuscript under review is unpublished and confidential. It is never placed at a public address before acceptance and it is not circulated beyond the editors and assigned reviewers.

Raising a concern

Write to editor@ijcrm.com with the article title, the issue and page range, and what you believe is wrong, with evidence where you have it. Concerns are examined on their substance, regardless of who raises them or how long ago the paper appeared.