Summary of our research & publishing ethics

You should only submit your research to us if the following conditions apply:

• The research has been conducted with the highest standards of rigour and integrity.
• The article/chapter/book/case study is original.
• The work has not been submitted elsewhere and is not under consideration with any other publication.
• The work does not include libellous, defamatory or unlawful statements.
• Permission has been cleared for any third-party material included.
• Proof of consent has been obtained for any named individuals or organisations.
• Authorship has been agreed prior to submission and no one has been ‘gifted’ authorship or denied credit as an author (ghost authorship).

If your research is published and we find that any of these conditions have not been met, we may take action in line with the COPE guidelines, which may result in one of the following correction notices, or we may remove or retract the article or book chapter from our database. For legal reasons, or when an article or chapter forms evidence in an independent hearing, we may not be able to take action until all matters have been fully resolved.

Ethics issues

Clinical trials

We can only accept submissions featuring clinical trials if the following applies:

• The trial is registered in a publicly accessible database. This must have been done prior to the start of the trial or enrolment of the participants. Examples of publicly accessible databases include these sites by the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization. When submitting your work to Granthaalayah, please include the name of your trial register and your clinical trial registration number.
• You can demonstrate you obtained clearance from your institutional ethics board for the trial.

Authorship

When it comes to listing the authors of your paper, we understand that it can be tempting to include everyone who has assisted you in your work. It’s also easy to forget someone who may have been involved at the very start of the process. Authorship issues vary, but include:

• Ghost authorship – exclusion of a contributor from the list of authors.
• Gift/guest authorship – Inclusion of someone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
• Disputes over the order of the authors and the level of contribution that each has made to the paper.

These issues can overshadow your work, and potentially lead to retractions, so it’s important to agree on authorship prior to submitting your paper.

Granthaalayah, we subscribe to the authorship principles outlined by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). These state that for someone to be considered an author, they must have: 

• Made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Given final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreed 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.

If an individual is solely responsible for obtaining the research grant that funded the research, this does not constitute authorship. If a contributor does not meet all four of the ICMJE criteria, they should be included in the acknowledgements instead.

Any authors listed should be able to identify which co-author wrote which section of the paper and have full confidence in the integrity of their co-author’s work.

If you have any doubts about meeting the above criteria, please discuss these with your co-authors or with your institution’s Research Integrity Officer, prior to submission.

When authorship disputes arise, we always try to help the parties involved reach an agreement. However, as it relates to the research stage, it’s not possible for us or our editors to comment on the level of contribution by each author. Please refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website for the processes we follow.

Informed consent

If your article has a medical focus and there is a human subject involved, you must obtain clearance from your institutional ethics board and confirm recognised standards (for example the Declaration of Helsinki) have been followed to minimise harm to the individuals taking part.

If your article includes an image of someone’s face, or anything else that might identify them, you must provide proof of informed consent via a completed consent to publish form.

Citation manipulation

Citations and referencing are important when writing any research, however, researchers should be mindful of the following behaviours:

Self-citation

Authors should not indulge in excessive self-citations of their own previously published works. Included citations must be relevant, add value to the article, and should not be included just to increase the citation score of that author.

If discussing methodologies or literature reviews, authors should keep their self-citations to a minimum.

Coercive citation

During the peer-review process, you may be referred to papers the reviewer believes can further develop and improve your ideas. While there may be legitimate reasons to reference other publications, ‘coercive citation’ is unethical (this is where a reference is included as a condition of acceptance or without academic justification).

We are an advocate of both author freedom and editorial independence. If you feel you have been pressured to include a particular reference in your article, or that an editor is unclear on best ethical practice, please contact us.

Citation pushing

‘Citation pushing’ is where an author includes superfluous or irrelevant references with the intention of boosting another specific individual’s citation score; this often occurs amongst groups of individuals who aim to boost each other’s citation scores. This kind of behaviour is monitored across all of our publications.

Granthaalayah takes this behaviour very seriously and will act in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics, including escalation to the author’s institution as appropriate.

Animals in research

If your research involves animals, we expect you to follow the 3R principles:

• Replacement of animals in research, wherever possible
• Reduction of animal use, i.e. minimising the number involved
• Refinement: Improving the welfare of any animals you work with.

You will be asked to provide a statement confirming that your study received institutional and national ethical approval and followed all relevant guidelines and regulations. For example, the study should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and the following, depending on the location of the research:

• UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (SI 2012/3039)
• EU Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes
• US Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and, as applicable, the Animal Welfare Act.

Defamation/libel

You are required to obtain written proof of consent for studies about named organisations or people before you submit your work.

If inaccurate, unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organisations or people in a submission, we may ask you to change the text, or reject the work prior to publication.

Critiques and reviews of products and services are acceptable, but comments must be constructive and not malicious. If statements made in work published by Granthaalayah are found to be defamatory, a retraction notice will be published. In some cases, and when legally required, the paper will be withdrawn from the online version of the journal or book.

We advise all authors of case studies to inform the subject (person or organisation) and to seek their consent. If we think the study is potentially libellous or contains sensitive information, we will require written proof of consent before placing the paper in the production process.

Plagiarism

The content you submit to a publisher should be based on your own research and expressed in your own words. If it isn’t, that could be considered plagiarism.

Granthaalayah editors have access to the originality checking service Crossref Similarity Check. iThenticate, developed by Turnitin, is the leading provider of professional plagiarism detection and prevention technology used worldwide by scholarly publishers and research institutions to ensure the originality of written work before publication. iThenticate helps editors, authors and researchers prevent misconduct by comparing manuscripts against its database of over 60 billion web pages and 155 million content items, including 49 million works from 800 scholarly publisher participants of Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate software.

This, combined with our knowledgeable reviewers and editors, means it’s increasingly hard for plagiarised work to go unnoticed. There are various forms plagiarism can take.

Verbatim copying

Verbatim copying of more than ten per cent (or a significant passage or section of text) of another person’s work without acknowledgement, references or the use of quotation marks.

Paraphrasing

Improper paraphrasing of another person’s work is where more than one sentence within a paragraph or section of text has been changed or sentences have been rearranged without appropriate attribution. Significant improper paraphrasing (more than 10 per cent of a work) without appropriate attribution is treated as seriously as verbatim copying.

Re-using parts of a work without attribution

Re-use of elements of another person’s work, for example, a figure, table or paragraph without acknowledgement, references or the use of quotation marks. It is incumbent on the author to obtain the necessary permission to reuse elements of another person’s work from the copyright holder.

Self-plagiarism

At Granthaalayah we require that all authors sign a copyright form that clearly states that their submitted work has not been published before. If elements of a work have been previously published in another publication, including a Granthaalayah publication, you, as the author, are required to acknowledge the earlier work, and indicate how the subsequent work differs and builds upon the research and conclusions contained in the previous work. Verbatim copying of an author’s own work and paraphrasing is not acceptable, and we recommend that research should only be reused to support new conclusions.

We recommend that authors cite all previous stages of publication and presentation of their ideas that have culminated in the final work, including conference papers, workshop presentations and listserv communications. This will ensure that a complete record of all communication relating to the work is documented.

Republication of original work

Original work is published in Granthaalayah journals with only a small number of exceptions. These exceptions include conference papers, archival papers that are republished in an anniversary or commemorative issue, papers that are of particular merit and that have received only limited circulation (for example through a company newsletter). These papers are republished at the discretion of the editor. The original work is fully and correctly attributed and permission from the appropriate copyright holder is obtained. Attributions will be added to archive content that has been found to have been republished in a Granthaalayah journal in the past.

Handling allegations of plagiarism

We seek to uphold academic integrity and to protect authors’ moral rights. We take all cases of plagiarism very seriously. We are also aware of the potential impact an allegation of plagiarism can have on a researcher’s career. Therefore, we have procedures in place to deal with alleged cases of plagiarism.

In order for us to take an unbiased approach, we investigate each case thoroughly, seeking clarification from all affected parties. We were one of the first academic publishers to adopt the iParadigms software (iThenticate) to help inform us when an alleged case of plagiarism is brought to our attention.

If we are approached by a third party with an allegation of plagiarism, we would always seek a response from the original author(s) or copyright holder(s) before we decide on a course of action. We will not be influenced by other parties and will form our decisions in an unbiased and objective manner.

Granthaalayah is not obliged to discuss individual cases of alleged plagiarism with third parties. We reserve the right not to proceed with a case if the complainant presents a false name or affiliation or acts in an inappropriate or threatening manner towards Granthaalayah editors and staff.

Fabricated data

To fabricate or manipulate data is fundamentally wrong and a breach of research integrity. We may review data or request the original data files. If there is reason to suspect that the data is not plausible, we reserve the right to reject that paper, and to notify your institution, as appropriate.

Redundant publication

Also known as a dual publication. Any work you submit to us must be original and previously unpublished. It is an unacceptable academic practice to submit to more than one journal at the same time – you are expected to wait until receiving a decision from one journal before submitting to the next.

Figure or image manipulation

Image manipulation falls into two categories:

• Inappropriate manipulation: the adjustment of an image or figure, which violates established research guidelines, but does not impact the interpretation of the data shown.
• Fraudulent manipulation: the deliberate adjustment or manipulation of an image or figure to affect the interpretation of the data.

Manipulation may include the addition or removal of elements from a figure, or adjustments to image formatting designed to obscure or highlight a particular result.

Images or figures submitted to Granthaalayah journals should be minimally processed. We may screen images and if there is evidence of potential manipulation, editors will request the original data. If intentional manipulation is found, we reserve the right to reject the paper and contact your institution, as per the COPE guidelines.

As all research is conducted prior to the work being submitted to Granthaalayah, it is not possible for us or the editors to adjudicate in all cases. We will try to help the parties involved reach a resolution and will refer the matter to the authors’ institutions, if appropriate. Please refer to the relevant COPE flowcharts for further details on the processes we follow.

Attribution

You should cite any previous publication or presentation of the ideas featured in your current submission. This includes conference papers, workshop presentations and listserv communications. This ensures that a complete history of the work is documented.

References to other publications should be in APA for Granthaalayah journals – you will find further details in your chosen journal’s author guidelines. All references should be carefully checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency.

Conflicts of interest

Authors, reviewers and editors all have a duty to report possible conflicts of interest. In the case of authors, you should declare anything that may have influenced your research or could influence the review process or the publication of your article. If you are unsure whether it’s a conflict of interest, always check with the editor or publisher ahead of submission.

Possible conflicts of interest include:

• A prior relationship between author and editor.
• A financial or personal interest in the outcomes of the research.
• Undisclosed financial support for the research by an interested third party.
• A financial or personal interest in the suppression of the research.
• A pending patent.

When submitting your work, you should include a note providing the background to any financial support for the research from third parties and highlight any other possible conflict of interest.

If you are concerned the editor or reviewer handling your submission might have a conflict of interest, please let the journal publisher or book commissioning editor at Granthaalayah. In all cases, we will follow the COPE guidelines. If we find there is a conflict of interest, the editor or reviewer will no longer be involved with your manuscript.

Grievance procedure

Granthaalayah appreciates that there are times when things can go wrong and wants to give authors the opportunity to tell us when things haven’t gone quite right.

When you make a complaint, Granthaalayah will treat you professionally with respect, and in return, we would request that you treat Granthaalayah staff with the same courtesy. Any abuse or harassment of Granthaalayah staff or editorial teams will not be tolerated, and your complaint may no longer be considered.

Complaint about an editorial decision

Granthaalayah supports editorial independence and will not comment on the decision made by a journal editor, unless there is evidence the article was not handled in accordance with best practice.

If your article has been rejected and you believe there are grounds to appeal the decision, such as new evidence or a reviewer’s misunderstanding of your article, you may appeal the editorial decision.

To do this, you must follow the following process:

• The complaint must be submitted in writing to the Editor of the journal;
• The complaint will be considered by the journal editorial team;
• The complaint will be acknowledged within 7 days of receipt and we aim to resolve it within 30 days;
• The decision will be in writing and will be final. You may not appeal more than once about the same article.