ARAA Publication Ethics
For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editor(s), the peer reviewer and the publisher)，it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. The ethics statements for Journal of Agricultural Research in Arid Areas are based on the following ethics.
As for the editors:
1. The editors of the journal shall be responsible for each editing link, including dedicating possible effort to boost the expansion of the journal and ensuring timely and high-quality editing of manuscripts and publishing of journals; In making these decisions, the editors may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board as well as by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
2. The editors should maintain authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of the manuscripts reviewing and improving record; The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
3. The editors should fairly evaluate the intellectual content of manuscripts with regard to their originality, contributions, explicitness and confirmation to the purpose and scope of the journal; The editors will not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than the author(s), reviewers and potential reviewers, and in some instances the editorial board members, as appropriate.
4. The editors should manage to communicate with the authors and seek for consent once the article needs a drastic revision;
5. The editors should completely preclude business needs or interest exchange from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
6. The editors shall bear the responsibilities of looking into and linking up for issues concerning plagiarism and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.
7. The editors are to ensure that unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research or for assisting others’ research without consent from the author. Personal information of peers or related inblind review or from the editorial department must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage;
8. The editors should propel academic controversies and reply to the discrepancies of author against the ideas by the reviewer.
9. The editor should seek so ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.
As for the authors:
1. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and the paper should contain accurate underlying data, objective statement and analysis and exact conclusions. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
2. The quoted research work of others must always be labeled on the spot and listed in detail in the bibliography. Infringement act like plagiarism is unacceptable;
3. The authors should ensure the research to be published must not disclose or breach national secrecy;
5. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design, execution, or compiling of the reported study. All co-authors must be indicated at the time of manuscript submission free from disputes; Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
6. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editor to either retract the paper or to publish an appropriate correction statement or erratum.
7. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.
8. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project, including but not limited to the project fund, should be disclosed.
As for the reviewers:
1. The reviewers investigate the innovativeness, scientificity and practicality of the manuscripts with their professional expertise and competence; assist the editor in accepting the manuscripts by offering impartial evaluation on the research methods, design, results and conclusions or whether or not all these breach confidence; and propose detailed revision or modifications to detected problems to help improve the manuscripts;
2. Treatment suggestions proposed should be exclusively based on academic evaluation with no regard to personhood assessment, race, gender, religion, belief, position, qualification and authority of the authors; Personal criticism of the author is inacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.
3.Any manuscripts received for review must be promptly replied to the editorial department with complete record of suggestions and the manuscripts impossible to be reviewed in time should be returned to the department with eloquent description of reasons;
4. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Neither could they be shown to or discussed with others nor could the data, ideas and conclusions of the reviewed research be used or published except if authorized by the editor.
5. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.
6. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submission.
As for the publisher:
1. An independent editorial board shall be set up in the editorial department to safeguard and monitor the proceeding of the above-mentioned publishing ethics.
2. All publications and accessible data of the editorial office should preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.
3. The editorial office should testify all published manuscripts via AMLC system and ensure the exclusion of plagiarism or fraudulent data.
4. The editorial office should maintain the integrity of academic record
5. In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work.