Ethical Policies

General Principles

All journals of Bastas Publications are committed to adhere to the publication ethics policies and core practices of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). 

Authors: Authors must submit their original works that have not been published before and are not currently being considered for publication anywhere, and other supporting documents such as informed consent and ethics committee approval if the study involves live subjects (human or animal, specifically vulnerable populations) or the use of hazardous chemicals, as required by related laws, regulations, and principles, including Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must clearly declare any direct or indirect conflict of interests. Authors are expected to fully cooperate with the editors by promptly responding to their requests. Data, code, or other materials used in the study may be requested from the authors. Only those who have substantially contributed to the manuscript and those who approve and assume full responsibility of the findings, discussions and conclusions stated in the final version of the manuscript should be included in list of authors. Contributions of others who are not enlisted as authors must be acknowledged. E-mail addresses of all authors and ORCID of the corresponding author are required during manuscript submission to prevent ghost or gift authorship. To increase transparency, all authors are encouraged to include contribution statements, institutional e-mail addresses, ORCIDs, Scopus Author IDs, and WoS ResearcherIDs. In rare cases, addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors may be possible during revisions with proper justification and consent of all co-authors, and is subject to editorial approval. No change to author list is allowed after the article is accepted for publication. Work, words, ideas or findings of others that are used in the study must be properly cited and acknowledged. If the study contains copyrighted material (such as photographs, tables, text, and so on), authors must seek formal permission from the copyright owners to reproduce the information. Editors and the publisher assume that all necessary permissions have been obtained by the authors before submission and cannot be held responsible if proven otherwise.

Reviewers: Reviewers are invited to assist the editors in making editorial decisions. Invited reviewers should promptly inform the editors if they feel unqualified to review the manuscript or if potential conflict of interest exists. When reviewers accept the invitation, they are expected to keep the research material strictly confidential, and provide their objective constructive feedback in a clear and timely manner.

Editors: Editors are responsible for communicating with expert reviewers for their professional guidance, managing the double-blind editorial peer review process, keeping the submission strictly confidential during this process, dealing with suspected unethical behavior, and committing unbiased publication decisions based on the relevance, originality, significance, and quality of the submissions and not based on the ethnicity, gender, religion of the authors. Editors supervise the compliance of published research materials with internationally accepted ethical guidelines. Manuscript submissions by an editor must be handled by other editors who have no conflict of interest. 

Publisher: As the publisher, Bastas Publications is responsible for providing the necessary infrastructure and online tools that are required for the ongoing publishing activities of the journals, making the content permanently accessible, and dissemination of journal content. The publisher does not intervene with the editorial processes and decisions, while it encourages authors, editors, and reviewers to follow the COPE standards of fair play, confidentiality, objectivity, honesty, respect, and promptness.

Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

We enforce zero tolerance policy against academic misconduct including plagiarism, self-plagiarism, simultaneous submission, duplicate publication, salami slicing, data fabrication, falsification, copyright infridgement, citation manipulation, ghost or gift authorship. 

All incoming manuscripts are initially checked using a plagiarism detection software (iThenticate), which checks the submitted manuscript against millions of already published articles, web pages, and other documents. Additionally, we encourage editors to check each revision against plagiarism as well. 

In the event of suspected misconduct, even if discovered years after publication, publisher and journal editors cooperate closely, follow appropriate COPE flowcharts to clarify the case, and take necessary actions.

Corrections and Retractions

Errors or inaccuracies that are discovered after publication must be corrected with an erratum or corrigendum. In cases where the errors or inaccuracies are so critical that they invalidate the basis of the study, or in cases of documented academic misconduct, the article will be retracted in accordance with the COPE retraction guidelines.

Complaints and Appeals

Anyone who is not satisfied with the quality of the publication processes or the content can send a detailed description of the case to the Ethical Committee at ethics@bastas.co.uk. All concerns will be thoroughly investigated according to COPE complaints and appeals guidelines.

Other Issues

Issues that are not described on this page will be handled according to related COPE guidelines and flowcharts.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact contact@bastas.co.uk.

Last updated on 17  February  2022