Ethics and Malpractice
The Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing are guided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) code of conduct.
The publishing ethics for all groups involved in our publishing process are as follows:
Responsibilities of the Editors
- At Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing, we have created a range of online resources to help researchers and professionals understand where the ethics boundaries lie.
- Authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscripts are ethically sound and meet the industry recognized standards.
- Providing guidelines to authors for preparing and submitting manuscripts.
- Providing a clear statement of the Journal’s policies on authorship criteria.
- Treating all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, honesty, and transparency.
- Establishing and defining policies on conflicts of interest for all involved in the publication process, including editors, staff, authors, and reviewers
- Protecting the confidentiality of every author’s work
- Establishing a system for effective and rapid peer review
- Making editorial decisions with reasonable speed and communicating them in a clear and constructive manner
- Being vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or referees delaying a manuscript for suspect reasons
- Establishing clear guidelines for authors regarding acceptable practices for sharing experimental materials and information, particularly those required to replicate the research, before and after publication
- Establishing a procedure for reconsidering editorial decisions
- Describing, implementing, and regularly reviewing policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone involved in the peer review process.
- Informing authors of solicited manuscripts that the submission will be evaluated according to the journal’s standard procedures or outlining the decision-making process if it differs from those procedures.
Responsibilities of the reviewers
The Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing reviewers have the following responsibilities:
- Ensure the rigorous standards of the scientific process by taking part in the peer-review system.
- Uphold the integrity of the journal by identifying invalid research, and helping to maintain the quality of the journal.
- Fulfill a sense of obligation to the community and their own area of research.
Responsibilities of the Authors/Co-authors
- It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all named authors have approved the submitted version of the article, and all further revisions, agree to its submission and are willing to take appropriate responsibility for it.
- It is important that all authors have approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication.
- It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure the paper is not under consideration by any other journal at the time of submission.
- It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure the contact details for all co-authors are entered and correct at the time of submission.
- The author should not publish the same research in more than one journal.
- List of references should be provided by the authors.
- Author has responsibility to declare financial support towards the research if any.
Consequences of Misconduct
Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing 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 a complaint is made, Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing treats the authors professionally with respect, and in return, we would request that you treat Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing staff with the same courtesy. Any abuse or harassment of Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing staff or editorial teams will not be tolerated, and complaints may no longer be considered. Disciplinary action will be undertaken on the reviewers/editors based on the level of the misconduct. The consequences will include and not limited to official warnings and summary of dismissal. The editors shall take reasonable steps and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred.
Retraction and Correction of Articles
Stratford Peer Reviewed Journal and Book Publishing is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.