Publication Ethics
1: Duplication
The article must be original, has not been previously published either in printed or electronic form, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. MOJ does not accept duplicate submission or publication.
Duplicate submission refers to submitting manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Duplicate publication refers to publication of material that significantly overlaps with articles that have already been published by the same authors, without clear reference to the latter. Both duplicate submission and publication are considered to be un-ethical, and may infringe upon the international copyright laws.
[ICMJE: Overlapping Publication]
MOJ will consider an article that has been presented as an oral presentation or a poster during a scientific meeting. Publication as an abstract is also acceptable, unless it contains the same data tables and figures. During public health emergencies, sharing or publishing vital information with important implications towards further research, prevention, and treatment of a specific condition may not preclude the material from being considered for publication
2: Plagiarism
Copying of significant amount of text from previously published material is a form of plagiarism. This would include materials (text, images, graphics, audio and video) generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. Citing the original source does not allow the author to duplicate the exact wordings unless they were placed within inverted commas. MOJ will subject all submitted papers to Crossref similarity check (based on iThenticate) and those with high similarity index will be scrutinized for plagiarism.
Authors wishing to include figures (photograph, diagram, drawing, etc.) or tables that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Evidence that such permission has been granted must be submitted together with the manuscript.
MOJ will adhere to COPE guidelines on issues related to plagiarism. If the content or illustration of a paper is found to be plagiarized, the paper will be rejected (before publication) or retracted (after publication).
3: Conflict of interest
MOJ requires each author to declare any direct or indirect relationship, connection or financial interest with other individuals or organizations that may inappropriately influence (bias) the conduct, analysis, discussion or conclusion of their study. Each author has to submit the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest. Authors can access the interactive PDF forms at the link below, complete the form electronically, save the file before submitting them as attachments.
[Disclosure Form: Dislosue of Interest Form]
4: Retraction of articles
It is the responsibility of the Editorial Board of a journal to alert the readers when there is serious flaw in the scientific content, or infringement of professional ethics of a published article. The editorial board will investigate the incidence, and take the necessary the action based on the guidelines recommended by COPE. Retraction notice will be issued when there is conclusive evidence to support such an allegation. The main purpose of retraction is to correct major mistakes and ensure the integrity of biomedical literature.
https://publicationethics.org/files/retraction-guidelines.pdf
