Ethics

    The Journal of Research and Applications in Mechanical Engineering (JRAME) insists on the highest possible ethical standards of publication practice. The JRAME follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and other organizations to ensure the integrity and validity of research publications. The JRAME expects editors, reviewers, and authors to adhere to ethical standards and to avoid plagiarism, conflicts of interest and research misconduct. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a leading organization dedicated to promoting ethical and transparent practices in academic publishing (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

Important guidelines established by COPE for authors, reviewers, and editors include:

1. Allegations of misconduct: Journals should have a clearly described process for handling allegations of misconduct, in any manner that they are brought to the journal's or publisher’s attention. Journals must take allegations of pre-publication and post-publication misconduct seriously. Policies should include how to handle allegations from whistleblowers.

2. Authorship and contributorship: Clear policies that allow for transparency around those who contributed to the work and their capacity should be in place as requirements for authorship and contributorship as well as processes for managing potential disputes.

3. Complaints and appeals: Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against a journal, its staff, editorial board, or publisher.

4. Conflicts of interest: There must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication.

5. Data and reproducibility: Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs according to standard practice in their discipline.

6. Ethical oversight: Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication about vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research involving human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices.

7. Intellectual property: All policies on intellectual property, including copyright and publishing licenses, should be clearly described. Additionally, all costs associated with publishing should be clear to authors and readers. Policies should be clear on what counts as prepublication that will preclude consideration. That which constitutes plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication should be specified.

8. Journal management: A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential that includes the business model, policies, processes, and software for efficient running of an editorially independent journal, as well as the efficient management and training of editorial boards as well as editorial and publishing staff.

9. Peer review process: All peer review processes must be transparently described and well managed. Journals should provide training for editors and reviewers and have policies on the diverse aspects of peer review, especially with respect to adoption of appropriate models of review and processes for handling conflicts of interest, appeals and disputes that may arise in peer review.

10. Post-publication discussions: Journals must allow post-publication debate, either on their site, through letters to the editor, or on an externally moderated site, such as PubPeer. They must have mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles after publication.

    According to these guidelines, COPE provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for ethical conduct in academic publishing aimed at promoting transparency, fairness, and rigor in the research process that includes professional conduct and community standards.

Publication Ethics

    The Journal of Research Applications in Mechanical Engineering (JRAME) follows high standards of publication ethics and maintains integrity and transparency in the publishing process. It is expected that authors, reviewers, and editors will follow the journal’s ethical guidelines and conduct themselves professionally. The publication ethics and publication malpractice statement of JRAME are shown as the following principles:

1. Author Responsibilities

• Authors must ensure that their submitted manuscript has not published elsewhere.
• Authors should present their results clearly and honestly.
• Authors should present their results without illegal, falsified or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Authors should follow publication requirements.
• Authors should submit their original works that are not plagiarized and/or have not been published elsewhere.
• Authors should state funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest.
• The submitted manuscripts should focus on ethical standards and responsible behavior.
• The submitted manuscripts should comply with all relevant legislation.

2. Editor Responsibilities

• Editors should publish guidance to authors and reviewers that is regularly updated.
• Editors should review all submitted manuscripts to ensure that they are state-of-the-art and of high quality.
• Editors should state all JRAME expectations to peer reviewers and authors.
• Editors should make fair and unbiased decisions on all submitted manuscripts and remain independent from commercial considerations.
• Editors should monitor and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process.
• Editors should adopt editorial policies to promote maximum transparency with complete and honest reporting.
• Editors should maintain appropriate policies to handle editorial conflicts of interest.
• Editors should maintain the integrity of published records by issuing corrections and retractions following the COPE guidelines.
• Editors should pursue suspected and/or alleged irregularities as well as reviewer, editorial and publication misconduct.

3. Reviewer Responsibilities

• Reviewers should provide prompt manuscript feedback to the editors of JRAME.
• Reviewers should keep information of all reviewed manuscripts confidential.
• Reviewers should pursue suspected and/or alleged irregularities as well as publication misconduct.
• Reviewers should report their reasons and possible conflicts of interest related to the reviewed manuscripts and their authors.
• Reviewers should state possible plagiarism if authors misplace and/or fail to indicate related publications, including their own.
• Reviewers should provide review decisions and comments clearly and use supportive statements.
• Reviewers should inform the editors of JRAME if they do not have the expertise to review a particular manuscript.
• Reviewers should recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct.