JOPR’s CODE OF ETHICS
Redundant, Multiple or Concurrent Publication is not allowed in JOPR. An Author must not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. The manuscript submitted to JOPR must not be previously submitted, uploaded or published in anywhere, either in whole (including book chapters) or in part(including paragraphs of text or exhibits), or in any language. Any submission of manuscript that has been published in full or in part in any conference proceeding is also not allowed for JOPR. This is due to originality and novelty are important criteria in the selection of papers.
Authors must not submit to JOPR the same work, in whole or partially of their work to two or more places of publication at the same time, or at any time. A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time.
Authors should not submit their work to JOPR if their manuscript is submitted or uploaded in any platform (e.g. Preprint), under review, or has been previously published in anywhere. An Author must not submit his/her work to any publication or platform about the study that is in whole or in part under review at JOPR. It is also improper for an Author to submit a manuscript describing their similar research to other platforms, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected from other journals (need to clarify in cover letter when submitting manuscript through ScholarOne system) and have withdrawn from publication.
Before submitting manuscript to JOPR, Authors must withdraw articles that are under review with any other journals or any article that is uploaded in any platforms. Any manuscript that has been uploaded in any platform would not be considered by JOPR. Moreover, if the manuscript contains materials that overlap with work that is previously published, that is in press, or that is under consideration for publication elsewhere, the Author must cite this work in the manuscript. The Author must also inform JOPR’s Editor of the related work and send the manuscript to him/ her as needed.
Authors should not resubmit a manuscript to JOPR that was previously submitted to JOPR and “Rejected” by JOPR, it would not be reconsidered by JOPR. If the earlier version was rejected by JOPR with the decision of “Rejected and Resubmit”, and the Author wishes to resubmit the revised version, this fact and the justification for resubmission should be clearly communicated by the Author to the Editor of JOPR at the time of submission and should be declared in cover letter.
Authors must explicitly cite their own earlier work and ideas, even when the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased in the manuscript. Authors should avoid excessively citing their earlier works in order to inflate their citation count. Authors should avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest throughout the research process. Conflicts of interest may influence the judgment of Authors, Reviewers, and Editors. Possible conflicts may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. Any queries about possible conflicts of interest should be addressed to JOPR’s Editor. JOPR reserve the right to require further information before the paper is reviewed.
Co-Authors and Corresponding Authors should be those who genuinely contribute to the research work which culminates in the submitted manuscript. It would be counterproductive if co-Authors also include those who just happen to be the administrative Head of the Author or those who have not made substantive contribution to the research, for example in lieu of lending equipment for use in the research. All Authors are collectively responsible on what has been published. The Authorship should be based on contributions to the research work.
Corresponding Authors have the responsibility to confirm that this manuscript has not been uploaded or published elsewhere and is not under consideration by any other journals. The corresponding (submitting) Author is solely responsible for communicating with the journal and with managing communication between coAuthors. The Author who submits the manuscript to ScholarOne system via his/her account would be the corresponding Author.
Before submission, the corresponding Author ensures that all Authors are included in the Author list, its order has been agreed by all Authors, and that all Authors are aware that the paper was submitted. Corresponding Authors have the responsibility to confirm the name and affiliations of Authors and corresponding Authors, number of Authors, sequences of Authors’ name before submission to JOPR. This is due to JOPR’s policy on Authorship does not support any altering, adding or removing of names once the article has been submitted to JOPR, yet Author is allowed to withdraw their manuscript. The corresponding Author’s name and affiliation could not be changed after submission. All Authors should have approved and agreed with submission of the manuscript to JOPR to avoid any dual submission that violates the code of ethics.
Copyright violation is an important, and possibly related, ethical issue. Authors should check their manuscripts for possible breaches of copyright law (e.g., where permissions are needed for quotations, artwork or tables taken from other publications or from other freely available sources on the Internet) and secure the necessary permissions before submission. For any figures, data or technologies being cited in the manuscript, Authors must obtain the copyright from the publisher before submitting the manuscript to JOPR.
Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) as Publisher holds the copyright to all published articles in JOPR. Hence, the Author(s) should submit the JOPR’s Copyright Transfer Agreement to the Editor once the manuscript has been accepted for publication. For manuscript that is published in JOPR, Authors must seek for JOPR’s Editor permission to submit, present, upload or publish in any platform or publication elsewhere such as conference, book chapter, etc.
For primary research, manuscripts in the JOPR journals (research articles, short communications, reviews) reporting experiments on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, the corresponding Author must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations and the necessary ethics clearance has been obtained from the relevant body. Any human trial conducted in the studies must adhere to the guidelines from World Health Organization (WHO) International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (Geneva 2002) and other internationally recognised human research guidelines.
It is strongly suggested that Authors wishing to submit manuscripts for JOPR publication should use any application program to check for possible plagiarism in their manuscript before submitting it to JOPR.
• To present a concise and accurate report of their research and an objective discussion.
• To give due recognition to published work relating to their submitted manuscript by way of correct reference and citation.
• To avoid undue fragmentation of their work into multiple manuscripts.
• To inform the Editor of related manuscripts under consideration for publication by the same Author in any journal, on submission of their current manuscript. Authors should provide copies of these related manuscripts, and details of their present status.
Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing off” another’s article as the Author’s own article, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s article (without credit), claiming results from research done by others.
Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader about the contributions of the plagiariser. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, or unpublished and published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic).
Authors are expected to explicitly cite others’ works and ideas, even if the works or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. The standard applies whether the previous work is published, unpublished, or electronically available.
Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and is an unacceptable violation of publication ethics. Any work in the manuscript that has been proven to contain any form of plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable should be dealt with promptly based on JOPR’s code of ethics and Editors. Due process and confidentiality are important in all cases of alleged plagiarism, falsification and other unethical conduct.
If the case is referred as “major” unethical conduct, the manuscript will be rejected and all Authors may be barred from submitting to JOPR for a period of time (one to three years) depending on the nature of the unethical conduct. JOPR’s Editor reserves the right to evaluate issues of unethical conduct such as plagiarism and redundancy, etc. on a case-by-case basis. JOPR’s reputation rely heavily on the fairness and professional decision on Editors and board members. If the Editor or board member is one of the Authors, the affected Editor or board members or their research groups should exclude themselves in the publication decision of such manuscript. The JOPR Editor and board members have the sole responsibility and Authority to determine the sanction, which it may be applied unevenly in the case of multiple Authors.
• Authors create multiple articles that differed slightly from each other, which are submitted for publication in different journals without acknowledgement of the other articles
Self-plagiarism is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus on whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one’s own words can be used before the actual ‘plagiarism’. Probably for this reason, self-plagiarism is generally not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals. Moreover, since publication decisions are influenced by the novelty and innovativeness of manuscripts, such deception is inappropriate and unethical. In actual fact, this can be minimised or avoided by citing one’s previous publications as necessary.
Authors should therefore minimise recycling of previous writings. If recycling is unavoidable, the Author should inform the Editor at the time of submission and reference, as well as the previous writings in the manuscript. Such selfreferencing should be worded carefully so as to avoid compromising the doubleblind review process.
If exact sentences or paragraphs that appear in the Author’s other work are included in the manuscript, the material must be put in quotation marks and appropriately cited.
Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and in all its forms constitute unethical publishing behaviour, which is unacceptable.
• To ensure that a manuscript is submitted for publication in only one journal at a time.
• To ensure that their submitted articles contain no personal criticism of other scientists.
• To give due acknowledgement to all workers contributing to the work.
• To declare all sources of funding for the work.
A number of three (3) Reviewers will be assigned to evaluate the scientific quality of the submitted manuscript. Authors are encouraged to indicate in the names of 2 or 3 potential Reviewers, but the Editors will make the final choice and Authors have no right to interfere to Peer Review process. The Editors are not, however, bound by these suggestions. Authors may request that certain Reviewers not be used when submitting their manuscript, but this decision should be left to the Editor’s discretion.
The Editor should routinely assess all reviews for quality. An Editor may edit a review before sending it to an Author (for example, to remove a phrase that would identify the Reviewer) or not send the review to the Author if it is not constructive or appropriate. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of content, the Editor reserves the right to modify the typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between Author and reader.
Authors should respect the confidentiality of the review process and should not suggest or nominate preferred Reviewers such as their friends, colleagues or whom they have already known each other or have collaborated. Authors should never communicate with Reviewer individuals on the submitted manuscript and vice versa if the assigned Reviewers were to be someone they know. Attempting to get someone with a conflict of interest in your favor to review your paper is unethical and we would hope that none of the Authors submitting to JOPR would do this intentionally. The Peer Review process should be confidential as this would automatically violate the peer review process. If a Reviewer knows the identity of an Author or Co-Author as someone they recognize, this should be grounds for refusal to review to avoid any possible suspicions of favoritism or conflicts of interest. The Peer Review process should be fair, balanced and constructive. Reviewers also have a responsibility to refraining from direct Author contact, avoid writing, doing or saying anything that could identify them to an Author.
Regular Reviewers selected for the journal should be required to meet minimum standards regarding their background in original research, publication of articles, formal training, and previous critical appraisals of manuscripts. Peer Reviewers should be experts in the scientific topic addressed in the articles they review, and should be selected for their objectivity and scientific knowledge. Reviewers should provide written, unbiased, constructive feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the work, together with the documented basis for their opinion. Reviewers should also ensure the confidentiality of the review process, not to share and discuss the reviewed paper with third parties or disclosing any information.
Reviewers should be prompt with their reviews. If a Reviewer cannot meet the deadline given, he/she should contact the Managing Editor as soon as possible to determine whether a longer time period or a new Reviewer should be chosen. Typically, the time to complete the first review is 2 weeks.
• To destroy/erase the manuscript and to inform the Editor should they be unqualified to review the manuscript.
• To judge the manuscript objectively and in a timely manner.
• To inform the Editor if there is a conflict of interest.
• To explain and support their decisions so that Editors and Authors can understand the basis of their comments, and to provide reference to published work, where appropriate.
• To inform the Editor of any similarities between the submitted manuscript and another published article.
• To ensure that all unpublished data, information, interpretation and discussion remain confidential and not to use reported work in unpublished, submitted articles for their own research.
• To alert the Editor if a manuscript contains plagiarised material.
• Not to retain the submitted manuscript in any form; to comply with data protection regulations.
• To declare any conflicts of interest that might arise
• To accept or reject a manuscript for publication concerning only the manuscript’s importance, originality and relevance.
• To respect the intellectual independence of Authors.
• To make known any conflicts of interest that might arise. Where an Editor is an Author of a manuscript, it should be passed to another Editor for independent peer review.
• Not to use for their own research, work reported in unpublished or submitted articles.
• To ensure the confidentiality of Reviewers; adjudication and appeal referees.
• To deal fairly with appeals against rejection of a manuscript.
• To comply with data protection regulations, as appropriate.
JOPR’s Code of Ethics: DOWNLOAD IN PDF