Publication Ethics, Similarity Screening and Publication Malpractice Policies

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Policies

The JAFES is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in publishing. In order to ensure readers and stakeholders of this commitment, the journal is guided by the following principles:

 

Editors

  • The editors of JAFES are responsible for deciding journal content. In evaluating submitted manuscripts, all editors shall limit themselves only to the intellectual content.  
  • It is the editors' responsibility to ensure the confidentiality of the manuscripts until publication, except in the case of suspicion of double submission.  
  • In case the editors decide not to publish or reject a manuscript, it should not be used for any other purpose without the written consent of the author.  
  • The editor of a submitted manuscript is also obliged to declare any conflicts of interest* and should abstain from making any decisions on the manuscript in which they have potential conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the material, whether personal, financial, or non-financial. Editors with potential conflicts of interest shall declare these in writing to the Editor-in-Chief for documentation.  Accordingly, another editor shall be assigned for the article. If the Editor-in-Chief has potential conflicts of interest, these shall also be declared and documented, and the decision shall be deferred to the Vice Editor-in-Chief.
  • Moreover, all editors of the JAFES (Editor-in-Chief, Vice Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board, Advisers) are required to disclose on annual basis, any potential conflict of interest, including current or recent financial relationships with any commercial entity whose products or services may be contained in the journal content. These are made available publicly in the  JAFES website: https://asean-endocrinejournal.org/index.php/JAFES/editor_conflict_of_interest 

 

Peer Reviewers

  • JAFES peer reviewers are experts in their respective fields, who assist the editors in making decisions on publishing a manuscript. 
  • Like editors, the reviewers are bound to treat the manuscript received with the highest level of confidentiality, and must not use the information obtained through peer review for personal advantage.  
  • The reviewers should abstain from reviewing manuscripts in which they have potential conflicts of interest* with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the material.

 

Authors

  • In order for a manuscript to be considered, reviewed or edited, all the authors will be required to accomplish, sign and submit a scanned copy of the JAFES Author Form.  The Author Form certifies that: 
    • The submitted manuscript represents original, exclusive, and unpublished material, that is not under simultaneous consideration for publication elsewhere, and that it will not be submitted for publication in another journal until a decision is conveyed regarding its acceptability for publication in the JAFES;
    • The submitted manuscript and supplemental materials do not infringe any copyright, violate any other intellectual property, data privacy rights of any person or entity, and have obtained written permissions from copyright or intellectual property owners for all copyrighted/patented works that are included in the manuscript;
    • The study on which the article is based is approved by the appropriate institutional review or ethics board, and is adherent to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
    • The article had written/informed consent for publication from involved subjects (for Case Report/Series, Images in Endocrinology, Clinical Case Seminars).**
    • No references or citations have been made to articles published in predatory/ suspected predatory journals.

Similarity Screening

JAFES adheres to the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). As part of its commitment to publication integrity, all submitted manuscripts are routinely screened for plagiarism and text similarity using Turnitin prior to peer review and at various stages of the editorial process.

JAFES does not rely solely on a specific similarity index percentage in determining plagiarism or research misconduct. Similarity reports are evaluated by the editorial team in the context of the manuscript, taking into account properly cited material, standard methodological descriptions, references, and acceptable overlap. Manuscripts with evidence of substantial unattributed similarity, plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, inappropriate citation, or other forms of publication misconduct may be returned to the authors for clarification or revision, rejected, or subjected to further editorial action in accordance with ICMJE and COPE guidelines.

*NOTE: Examples of personal, financial, or non-financial potential conflicts of interest can be found in Section 2.1.3 of the Council of Science Editors Editorial Policies subsection on Publication Ethics.

**NOTE: In case the involved subjects can no longer be contacted (i.e., retrospective studies, no contact information available, all attempts at contacting the subject and/or guardian/relative of the patient), the author must seek ethical clearance from the institutional review or ethics board to publish the information about the subjects.