Ethical Guidelines

Publication Ethics Statement

AICEI Proceedings follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)'s Core Practices.

The editors of AICEI Proceedings are encouraged to practice a double-blind peer-review process together abiding to the outlined ethical policies and standards in order to ensure publication of high-quality research manuscripts. In cases if AICEI Proceedings becomes aware of certain ethical issues, it will pursue further investigation and actions.

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

The authors who wish to have their work published with us have to abide to the following responsibilities:

• All submitted material must be accurately presented by the author(s) accompanied by an objective presentation of the research findings and a significant discussion of their significance.
• Possible conflict of interest must be clearly disclosed by the author(s) prior to the submission as well as sources that have supported the research.
• Only original research is accepted. All authors are obliged to submit novel and not previously published work. An author should not submit any paper previously published anywhere to the journals for consideration (this includes another language).
• The Methodological and Results section of the research must be presented in significant detail as to allow replication and adequate comparison of the work.
• IN cases when others’ work and/or words are used in the research, appropriate citations are required. We do not tolerate plagiarism in any form and consider it unethical and unacceptable publishing behavior.
• Publishers, editors, reviewers, and readers are entitled to request the author to provide the raw data from the relevant research, while taking into account the securing the anonymity of the research participants.
• In cases when errors and inaccuracies are identified, it is expected that the author should promptly inform the journal editor and collaborate to make a retraction or correction of the paper. In events when another party identified the error and inaccuracy, the author is expected to write a retraction or make the correction based on the medium of publication.
• All those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments section.

Please note that this list is not complete, thus authors should be aware of local regulations and accepted norms within academic publishing.

Authorship

In accordance to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines, authors must satisfy the following four criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement 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.

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. A corresponding author should be nominated that will be a contact point during the process for consideration for publication. In addition, the corresponding author should keep the co-authors informed as well as involve them in all communication related to the manuscript. AICEI Proceedings reserves the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance.

Editors-in-chief, members of the editorial board and reviewers of AICEI Proceedings are allowed to submit their works, however, they will be excluded from the editorial process and not involved in any segment of the decision making process relevant to their manuscript or manuscripts submitted by their colleagues.

Author Contributions

In respect for transparency, all authors are required to submit an author contribution statement specifying the work and individual contributions of each author.

Example of the statement includes: Concept of the manuscript was made by, X.X. and Y.Y.; the methodology was designed by, X.X.; collection of data was done by X.X; statistical analyses of data was performed by, X.X.; draft of the manuscript was written by, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; All listed authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Only those who have provided substantial contribution to the submitted work are eligible for authorship. Please refer to CRediT taxonomy for an explanation of terms.

In cases when the article is based on student’s dissertation or thesis, we recommend that the student is listed as a principal author.

Acknowledgement

Individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship, but have contributed to the research, can be included in acknowledgement section.

Plagiarism

AICEI Proceedings does not accept plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving credit to the original source. AICEI Proceedings uses plagiarism software to check for text duplication.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. In cases when plagiarism is detected after publication, the journal will conduct an investigation and make a decision whether to issue a correction or retract the paper.

Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers

For general guidance on the peer review process please refer to the relevant section. This section explains the ethical aspects relevant to reviewers:

• AICEI Proceedings operates on a double-blind peer review;
• All reviewers should acknowledge potential conflicts of interests prior to their review. Additionally, in case reviewers notice that the same manuscript was submitted to another journal they are obliged to inform the Editorial office and
• All reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the manuscript during the review process. Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors.

Ethical Guidelines for Editors

Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members are responsible for monitoring the peer review process of AICEI Proceedings. More specifically: Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members are obliged to undertake action in case of

• Ethical breach before or after publication in accordance to the COPE guidelines.
• Plagiarism, duplicate publication or similar concerns;
• Errors in the author background and qualification.
• Possible conflict of interest of the author(s) to be considered prior to submission.
• Presentation and discussion of research findings and
• Issues with data and methods used in the research such as lack of detail that does not provide enough information for replication of the work.