1 Publishing Ethics for Reviewers
1.1 Perform duties closely and review in time
Reviewing manuscripts is the main content of peer review. As a part of peer review in academic research activities, it is the responsibility and obligation of each participant in the scientific community. Therefore, reviewers should endeavor to perform the duties of reviewing manuscripts. If the reviewers can't fulfill the duty, they should return the manuscript under reviewing as soon as possible, or recommend others to review, or inform the editors of the time and reasons for the possible delay.
1.2 Evaluate fairly and respect innovation
In order to maintain the general standards of scientific and expressive nature, reviewers should make fair evaluation of manuscripts in terms of the significance of their topics, their theoretical level, writing quality and the rationale of the interpretation and argumentation in them. They should respect the independence of the authors' thoughts and the initiative of scientific research innovation and get rid of parochial prejudice, racial discrimination and personal grievances.
1.3 Evaluate objectively with sound evidence
Reviewers should expound and quote the basis of evaluation as much as possible with the limitations of the individual’s scientific understanding fully considered and provide the literature of the viewpoints and facts on which the evaluation is based when necessary to seek for objectivity of the evaluation, make it convenient for editors and authors to understand the comment of reviewing and avoid subjectivity of evaluation and the remarks of suspected personal attacks.
1.4 Review comprehensively and pertinently
Reviewers should be clear that reviewing manuscripts is not only an evaluation of the manuscript level but also a review and check of scientific research ethics, so they are supposed to pay full attention to the possible academic misconducts such as omission of quotation, misquotation, plagiarism and forgery. Authors and editors should be reminded of possible suspicions in the manuscripts when uncertainties exist, so that the authors and editors could further verify or give necessary explanation.
1.5 Warn proactively to avoid conflict
In order to maintain the impartiality of reviewing, reviewers should take the initiative to judge and actively avoid the conflicts of interest between themselves and the manuscript under review; in case of any chances of interest conflicts, reviewers should immediately withdraw from the reviewing and briefly explain the reason; if they are not quite sure whether the conflicts exist or not, it is their obligation to remind the editors,when submitting reviewing opinions,to check and judge cautiously.
1.6 Preserve integrity and observe strict confidentiality
Reviewing is clearly based on trust, so reviewers should keep the content of the manuscript confidential and not disclose the content and related information of the manuscript to others. If they need help from others for evaluation, reviewers should inform the editors of the identity of the person who is asked in advance or when submitting their opinions after the reviewing.
1.7 Perform duties with credibility and no regard for private interests
Reviewing manuscripts is both a duty and a learning process. Reviewers should give careful scrutiny to individual research results that may be inspired by the manuscript under review. Unless the author's consent is obtained in advance or after the manuscript is submitted, the information contained in the manuscript under review should not be used or disclosed. Reviewers should not, explicitly or implicitly,compel the author to cite their papers and opinions with their reviewing opinions.
If reviewers, during the reviewing process, leak the reviewing information or fail to evaluate the manuscript objectively, or do not take the initiative to avoid the conflicts of interest between themselves and the manuscript under review, and any other analogous cases that are not in compliance with the publishing ethics may occur, the reviewers will be notified to stop reviewing the manuscript.
2 Publication Ethics for Authors
2.1 Express accurately and report objectively
The primary purpose of scientific publication is to report intellectual achievements. Therefore, the primary responsibility of the author is to ensure the accuracy of the description of the results, discuss the results impartially in a realistic manner, and try to avoid carelessness, mistakes and exaggeration.The reports of original research should include necessary details or disclose relevant experimental and equipment data and other resources, so as to facilitate peer repetition of the research process and validation of research results.
2.2 Cherish resources and avoid duplication
Academic publishing resources,not only of publishing companies but also the publishing resources of the entire academic community,are limited, so every participant should cherish the resources, including layout resources, review resources and editing resources. Any manuscript should not be contributed and cannot be issued more than once, unless the publisher reprints or republishes it according to some convention based on the needs of dissemination. After the preliminary results are published in form of briefing, the author should present the briefing to the editors and quote it when it is later extended to complete paper and submitted.
2.3 Clarify results and standardize labelling
Works that have a great influence on the reporting of papers must be specifically labeled in the text in a prescribed way, and the original and cited results papers should be clearly defined and distinguished, so as to facilitate readers to quickly trace and understand the earlier literature on which the results are based.It is the authors’ obligation to search and cite the literature that is closely related to their papers as comprehensively as possible and indicate the source. Information obtained through non-public means, including correspondence, talks and reviewing, should not be used without the clear consent of the owner.
2.4 Express completely and try to assist
Authors should ensure the integrity of the results in the reports and the getting papers published by splitting the research results into fragments should be avoided, because the scattered publication not only wastes academic publishing resources but also affects the reader's complete understanding and consequently increases the difficulty of readers' literature retrieval. After the publication of the paper, under the premise of safeguarding their legitimate interests, the authors should try to provide the relevant information, materials and samples needed by the peers or indicate the ways to obtain them.
2.5 Self-certify rights and keep alert to conflicts
Any authors,initiatively or upon request, should provide a description or evidence telling the extent to which their manuscripts are related to similar manuscripts, either of himself or of others, that have been published or re-reviewed, or a copy of relevant manuscripts if necessary. The authors should make every effort to avoid potential interest conflicts due to the publication of results. In cases where the conflicts may be difficult to avoid, the author should tell editors and readers the possible conflicts of interest proactively, for example, the author should expound the sources of funding for research results clearly.
2.6 Alert people to danger and contend in civilized way
Authors should clearly point out that various dangers involved in the relevant research work of the papers, such as dangers caused by chemicals, instrument and equipment, or in experimental process and so on, may possibly arise. Normal academic controversy is an important part of scientific research, but personal assault and racial discrimination should be refrained from.
2.7 Observe the specifications for signature and share obligations
Signature, the right of authors, is the recognition and respect for the authors' labor, and is also the confirmation of academic and moral obligations.Authors of papers should include all those who have made substantial contributions to the research work of the papers and they should be sorted according to their contributions or conventions. At the same time, all the authors signed should be responsible for the research results, including academic and moral obligations.
If a paper has a low repetition rate, but it is found after reviewing to involve such implicit academic misconducts as tampering with others’ results,the author of the paper will be blacklisted and the editorial department will notify the author's unit and will not accept the author's contribution within two years.
3 Publication Ethics for Editors
3.1 Evaluate fairly
In the process of evaluating manuscripts, editors should treat each manuscript impartially and decide whether it can be accepted or not on the basis of its academic level and application value, that is, the foresight of the topic, the depth of research and the attention of readers, but not on the basis of the author's race, religion, nationality, gender, seniority and the author’s post. However, the evaluation of the editors based on the relevance of the research and the readers' convenience of reading is not excluded, nor is the editors' decision to deal with the manuscript according to the author's bad records.
3.2 Evaluate scientifically
Before deciding whether a manuscript can be accepted or not, editors should seek the opinions of peer experts and invite experienced reviewers to make comments and give suggestions on the manuscript from a professional perspective in accordance with the publishing requirements and recruitment criteria of the journal. If the content of a manuscript differs from the reviewer's research direction and may affect the fair evaluation of the manuscript, editors should invite other experts to review the manuscript. In order to ensure the fairness of the evaluation, editors should give full consideration when the author requests to avoid some reviewers. However, editors may reject manuscripts directly without expert reviewing when they believe that the manuscripts are inconsistent with the purpose and scope of the journal.
3.3 Keep manuscript information confidential
Editors and other staff in the editorial department should not disclose the information in the manuscript and the reviewing of the manuscript to anyone except for seeking experts’ assistance from the professional perspective due to the need of manuscript evaluation. After the manuscript is decided to be accepted and before it is published, editors and other staff of the editorial department may publicize the recognized publishing information, such as the title of the manuscript and the author. If more information needs to be publicized, the author's consent is required. Unless the author agrees, editors should not apply the information, arguments, or interpretations of the unpublished manuscripts of the editorial department to their own research. At the request of the author or based on previously-reached agreement, editors may disclose to the pre-agreed author the facts in other authors’ manuscripts that have been accepted for publication as a basis for subsequent research, provided that the source should be indicated.
3.4 Respect innovation
Editors should fully respect the authors’ exploration and innovation in research work, advocate contention and encourage innovation and exploration. They should encourage authors to publicize academic views that are different from existing theories or expert opinions, and give special respect to the research results proposed by authors and different from those of the editors in their personal studies or those published in previous issues of the journal.
3.5 Evade proactively
Editors are generally not encouraged to publish manuscripts written by themselves in the journal who sedition and publication they are in charge of. If they want to submit a manuscript, they should submit it to other qualified editors of the editorial department for reviewing, so as to avoid conflicts of interest in manuscript reviewing. If the viewpoints or narration of the manuscript is similar to or different from the research of the other editors and this may bring about conflicts of interest, the editorial department should have the manuscript and led by other qualified editors.
3.6 Report in time
With regard to manuscripts submitted by authors, editors should deal with them in time within a reasonable period of time, and decide whether or not they are to be accepted as soon as possible, so as to ensure that research results meeting the publication requirements and quality standards of the journal can be publicized in time, thus shortening the reporting cycle of research results and speeding up the exchange of academic information. When deciding on the chronological order in which a manuscript is published, the standard should be the time of submission, but editors should not be excluded from arranging and publishing related and special manuscripts in advance according to column settings, topic selection planning and research hotspots.
3.7 Serve as a reminder
Editors should remind authors to respect the work of editors, publishers and reviewers. While recognizing the journal as an important resource with costs, they should use journal resources economically and rationally. Besides, they should remind the authors not to miss citations and to reduce to minimum the size of relevant research materials that should be cited but have not been cited;they should remind the authors not to use or report any non-publicly published information in manuscripts without the consent of the original information owners and to pay attention to the conflicts of interest that may arise after the publication of manuscripts, including the betrayal of confidential matters that may be caused by the publication of the results in manuscripts and may affect some departments or the country, and the infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of others.
3.8 Be alert at all times
Editors should pay attention to the rationality of documentary citation in reviewing manuscripts and avoid invalid citation of the previous research work of the author or related research work of others; if the reviewer's research work is not cited adequately in manuscripts, editors should pay attention to the one-sidedness in the evaluation of manuscripts caused by conflicts of interest and the fact that no personal assault on authors is allowed at any time, since the authors’personal dignity should be respected.
If editors fail to abide by relevant ethics in the publishing of the journal, they will be given criticism or warning according to seriousness of the circumstances.