Egyptian Journal of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology

The Egyptian Journal of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology adheres to the highest possible ethical standards, as described, for example, by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). If an ethical problem related to a submitted or published article is referred to the Editor-in-Chief, then he will evaluate the problem as outlined by appropriate bodies such as the ICMJE and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and take appropriate steps. The following are problems in the ethics of publication that every author should be familiar with. Violations of any of the following ethical principles may incur sanctions described below.

Plagiarism

All journals published by KenzPub are committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published nor is under review elsewhere. KenzPub as a participant of Crossref Similarity Check uses iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other author(s), whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are found to have been published elsewhere, or to be under review elsewhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If author(s) have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Citation Manipulation

Submitted manuscripts that are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, will incur citation manipulation sanctions.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Submitted manuscripts that are found to have either fabricated or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images, will incur data fabrication and falsification sanctions.

Redundant Publications

Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles.

Publisher Responsibilities

• The publisher is committed to follow and comply with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations.
• The publisher does not influence the editors' decisions and pledges the review process probity.
• The publisher is committed to respond to research misconduct complaints promptly, received at complaints@kenzpub.com.

Use of Human and Animal Subjects

In any studies, involving human subjects all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Papers describing studies on human subjects must include a statement that their relevant institutional committee has approved the described work.

In the case of experiments involving animals, the author(s) should provide a statement assuring that the described experiments have been approved by the relevant institutional committee.

The following is a summary of our expectations from editors, reviewers, and author(s) to follow the publication ethics standards and the procedures of handling the unethical behaviors.

Ethical Responsibilities Standards

Editors' Responsibilities

• Act objectively without any kind of discrimination grounded on ethnic or geographical origin, religious or political beliefs, gender, or sexual orientation of the author(s).
• Handle regular as well as special issue submissions following the same standards, without any commercial influence, focusing mainly on the quality of the presented material.
• Maintain the honesty of the academic record and keep the intellectual standards.
• Follow the journal standard procedures in handling ethical complaints.
• Publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when required.

Handling Reviewer Misconduct

Editors entrust reviewers with a high level of responsibility. Reviewers are given access to privileged information (i.e. unpublished research) and their recommendations can sway the publication outcome. Unfortunately, there are rare occasions when that trust is misplaced.

Reviewer misconduct, ranging from minor issues, such as rude or unconstructive reviews, to major issues, such as the appropriation of author's ideas or data.

Minor problems are relatively easy to respond to, such as deleting rude comments and not inviting particular reviewer again if he/she supplies poor quality, late, or unconstructive review.

There may be other instances where editors receive complaints from authors about reviewer misconduct. Forward those complaints to complaints@kenzpub.com to be investigated and dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

• Provide journals with accurate personal affiliations and professional information.
• Share the responsibility of the decision making in the reviewing process with the aim of improving the published papers and ensuring their quality.
• Commit to carry out their fair share of review in a timely manner.
• Respect the confidentiality of the manuscripts they handle during the peer review process.
• Be able to discover the similarity between the new submitted manuscripts and those that are already published or under review and report such issues to the responsible editor.
• Declare any potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, and collaborative) informing the responsible editor and if necessary decline to review that manuscript.

Authors' Responsibilities

• Acknowledge that the submitted manuscript is not under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere.
• Confirm the originality of the submitted manuscript and to acknowledge and cite any content reproduced from other sources. Obtain permission to reproduce any content from other sources, providing the editor with a copy of any submitted manuscript that might contain overlapping or closely related content.
• Declare funding sources or financial support and any potential competing interests that could reflect a non-objective attitude during the publication process. These may be financial, non-financial, professional or personal. Author(s) should provide a statement at the end of the manuscript revealing all possible competing interests related to the work presented in the manuscript, or the lack thereof.
• Only individuals who have made significant contributions to the intended publication may be listed as authors. Authors who have contributed equally to the intended publication must be identified and acknowledged.
• Promptly notify the journal editor or publisher if a significant error is identified and accordingly cooperate to publish an erratum, addendum, corrigendum notice, or to retract the paper when necessary.
• Must follow ethical means of undertaking research, acquiring data, and presenting information.

Dealing with Unethical Behaviors

Identification of Unethical Behavior

When the editor or publisher is informed of misconduct or unethical behavior, they should be provided with sufficient information and evidence to help investigating such issues.

Investigating Violations

Evidence should be gathered accurately and privately, avoiding spreading any allegations beyond those who should be informed.

Sanctions

In case that there are documented violations, the following sanctions will be applied:

• Immediate rejection of the manuscript of the infringing author(s).
• Immediate rejection of every other manuscript submitted to any journal published by KenzPub by any of the infringing author(s).
• Prohibition against all the infringing author(s) for any new submissions to any journal published by KenzPub, either individually or in combination with other author(s). This prohibition will be imposed for a minimum of 36 months.
• Prohibition against all the infringing author(s) from serving on the Editorial Board of any journal published by KenzPub.

In cases where the violations of the above policies are found to be particularly egregious, the publisher reserves the right to impose additional sanctions beyond those described above.