High ethical standards are essential for the quality of scientific research, the credibility of scientific findings, and giving credentials to the respective authors for their work. The AJEB Ethical policy sets forth the ethical principles and standards that underlie the responsibilities and conduct of authors, editors, reviewers and the AJEB. Our Ethical policy is in accordance with the COPE standards and policy. This policy should be used as guidelines during the whole manuscript publishing cycle.
Authors’ Responsibilities
• The authors must claim that the manuscript is original and free from any kind of plagiarism.
• The authors must not submit the manuscript for publication elsewhere at the same time nor has been already published and if so the relevant work must be cited in the manuscript.
• The authors must clearly acknowledge any potential conflict of interest during the publication process.
• All the authors listed as authors must contribute substantially in the preparation of the manuscript and must agree to be listed. Any person who meets the authorship criteria should not be omitted.
• All authors must approve manuscripts final submitted version.
• Authors must accurately acknowledge the individuals, institutions and funding sources related to the manuscript.
• Authors must obtain permission for any content used from other sources.
• Authors must cooperate with the editors in retraction or correction of the manuscript if necessary.
• Authors must immediately inform the journal whenever any error in their published manuscript is identified.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities
• The reviewer should immediately inform the editors if they feel incompetent or sees difficulties to meet the deadline of the review process.
• The reviewers should provide an objective, constructively criticized, and unbiased timely evaluation of the manuscript.
• The reviewers should evaluate the originality and scientific accuracy of the manuscript with utmost care and attention.
• The reviewers should maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript throughout the publication process.
• The reviewer should inform the editors if there is any possible conflict of interest related to the assigned manuscript and declining to review the manuscript when a possibility of such a conflict exists.
• The reviewers should immediately notify the editor of any ethical violation they noticed in the manuscripts; such as any violation in protocols for animal or human studies or any considerable similarities between the reviewing manuscript and another article either published or under consideration to another journal.
Editors’ Responsibilities
• The editor should clearly identify the manuscripts that are fully within the scope and the aim of the AJEB.
• The editor has complete responsibility and authority to approve the submitted publication or reject it.
• The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their scientific and academic merit only, free from any sort of biased based on race, gender, geographical origin, the religion of the author(s) or any commercial or self-interests.
• The editor(s) and the editorial staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice is sought.
• The editors should recuse themselves from processing any manuscript if they have any conflict of interest with any of the authors or institutions related to the manuscripts.
• The editors must ensure that identity of the reviewer is kept confidential.
• The editors cannot use any part of the content of the submitted manuscript for their own future research, except with the consent of the author.
• The editors should publish retractions, rectifications, and erratum when required.
• The editors must immediately take proper action to resolve any ethical concern relating to any manuscript.
AJEB’s responsibility
• AJEB is committed to publish original articles which contribute significantly in the advancement of knowledge in the field of environmental biology
• AJEB is committed to offer high quality of editing of the manuscript and maintaining the transparency of editorial decisions
• To the maximum possible extent AJEB will ensure a rapid and timely publication of the manuscript.
• AJEB guarantees that advertising or other commercial interests of AJEB has no influence on editorial decisions.
• In cases proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism AJEB will take all appropriate measures and this includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, the complete retraction of the affected manuscript.
AJEB ensures to work with editors, authors and reviewers to set benchmarks for best practices on ethical matters.