SciTeMed journals strictly adhere to follow the best practices on ethical matters, errors and withdraw. Preventing publication malpractice is one of the vital responsibilities of the editorial board. Any unethical behavior is not acceptable, and SciTeMed journals do not tolerate plagiarism in any form. Therefore, the authors should ensure that the manuscript contents are original.

Duties of Editor

• Publication Decisions. The editor has complete responsibility and authority to accept, reject, or request modifications of the manuscript based on the review report.
• Review. Each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. Following desk review, the manuscript is forwarded for blind peer review to the editorial review board based on their research interest since they will make a recommendation to accept, reject, or modify the manuscript.
• Fair Review. The Editor should evaluate the manuscript without any partiality with regards to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
• Confidentiality. The editor must ensure that any information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors are kept confidential.
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. The editors shall not use the unpublished materials for their own research without any written permission from the author of the manuscript.
• Proof of Misconduct. The editor should not reject papers based solely on suspicions. He/she should have a black and white proof of any misconduct that was done.

Duties of Authors

• Publication guidelines. Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
• Original Work. Authors must guarantee that they their entire written work is original and must likewise certify that the manuscript has not been previously published elsewhere or used for another research.
• Multiple Submissions. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
• Peer Review Process. Authors must participate in the peer review process.
• Authorship of the Paper. All authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
• Authenticity of Data. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript and must state that all data in the paper are factual and authentic.
• Conflict of Interest. Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
• Fundamental Errors. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes at any point in time if the authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in the submitted manuscript before publication.

Duties of Reviewers

• Agreement. The reviewers must read the review invitation properly to ensure that the time given for review is sufficient or not; and to read the title or abstract to know whether the paper/manuscript is in his/her research area of expertise.
• Confidentiality. Reviewers should keep all information confidential such as the author details or the content of the paper.
• Standards of Objectivity. Reviews should be conducted objectively, without personal criticism of the author.
• Review Comment. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. The review comment will not be considered in case the reviewer fails to show the support for his/her argument.
• Plagiarism. Reviewers should let the editor know if the content of the manuscript is copied from another work, and must cite every detail of the previous work as much as possible.
• Relevant Work. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
• Conflicts of Interest. Reviewers should not review manuscripts where they bear conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
• Promptness. The review comment report should be accurate, honest and objective. Comments should be framed as per the quality of content provided in the manuscript.
• Changing the content. The reviewers should avoid changing or overwriting the manuscript to uphold the existing authors’ copyright.
• Timeline. The review comment should be submitted within the time line requested by the managing editor. If the given time for review is not sufficient the reviewer may appeal an extension to complete the review and submit the comment to the handling editor.