What the Editors-in-Chief say about the review process in our Journals: Our Editors-in-Chief declare, confirm, certify and sign the substantial, important, line by line peer review process and our high-rejection rates.
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
1. Publication and Authorship
2. Plagiarism, Image Manipulation and Data Fabrication Statement
3. Publication Ethics for Special Issues
4. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Human Subjects
5. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Animals
6. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Cell Lines
7. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Plants
8. Clinical Trials Registration
9. Copyright and Licensing
10. Conflict of Interests
11. Citation Policies
12. Retraction Policy
13. Authors' Responsibilities
14. Reviewers' Responsibilities
15. Editors' responsibilities
1. Publication and Authorship
I. When more than one author contributes, a corresponding author should be indicated which will act as the point of contact between the Editor/Editorial Team and the other authors (keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication).
II. For the purposes of transparency, all submitted manuscripts should include the Statement "Contribution of Individual Authors to the Creation of a Scientific Article (Ghostwriting Policy)" that specifies the work of each author or for research articles with several authors a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions should be provided. The above statement is available at the Journal's Template
III. Changes to Authorship should be made during the editorial process, before manuscript acceptance or during the revision process, before publication. Changes, including any addition, removal, or rearrangement of author names will require the approval of all authors including any to be removed and the corresponding author should contact the Editorial Team.
IV. All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least three international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper.
V. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language.
VI. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
VII. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
VIII. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
IX. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
X. No research can be included in more than one publication.
XI. Authors with accepted papers cannot withdraw after the completion of the review process.
2. Plagiarism, Image Manipulation and Data Fabrication Statement
I. Plagiarism including copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving credit to the original source is not acceptable in WSEAS.
II. In accordance with COPE guidelines, reuse of text that is copied from another source should appear between quotation marks and the original source must be cited. For this reason authors should mention the title of the article, the author(s) name(s), the Journal title, Volume, Issue, Year, pages, DOI and the publication URL.
III. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript will be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, a retraction notice will be published.
IV. WSEAS use Turnitin and Ithenticate Internet-based Plagiarism Services to check for text duplication.
V. Data/Image(s) must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image. If irregular data/image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we will reject the manuscript. If irregular data/image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we will correct or retract the paper.
3. Publication Ethics for Special Issues
I. WSEAS Special Issues generally comprise 6 to 10 papers and might be published within a
regular issue of a WSEAS Journal as a separate section.
II. New proposal should be submitted via our Web form
https://wseas.com/form/specialissues-form/upload-form/index.php
All the information requested in the form for Special Issue in our Journals is the
following: First Name, Last Name, Department, University, Country, Primary Academic Email,
Secondary Web-based Email, Title of the Journal, Title of the Special Issue, Topics, Aim of the
Special Issue, Welcome Message from the Organizer.
III. WSEAS reserves the privilege to request additional information from Guest Editors pertaining to
academic resume and selection, suitability, and scope of the topic for Special Issues.
IV. WSEAS is open to submissions in all scientific domains from researchers worldwide.
Importantly, all manuscripts accepted for publication in WSEAS Special Issues cannot be from
the same nation state.
V. Guest Editors and Organizers of Special Issues should recuse themselves from the review
process of manusripts.
VI. Conflicts of interest must be carefully considered
and declared to the Guest Editor and Co-Editors immediately by all involved in the peer review
process, decision-making process, and publication of a submitted manuscript.
VII. A submitted manuscript rejected for publication with a Special Issue cannot be resubmitted for
regular publication by one of the WSEAS Journals
VIII. Manuscripts submitted to WSEAS Special Issues are subjected to a double-blind peer-review
process.
IX. Guest Editors are authorized to observe and access all manuscripts and supplementary
materials throughout the review, decision, and publication processes.
X. Submitted manuscripts to WSEAS Journal web pages must be accompanied by a cover letter to
the Editors informing of particular topic of a Special Issue
XI. Guest Editors and authors should adhere to guidelines for number of selected articles and
manuscript submission deadlines and reject requests for related extensions.
XII. The WSEAS Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to make the final decision to publish or not a
manuscript to an article.
4. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Human Subjects
I. When authors are reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, it is mandatory to declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), which revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, approval is required from the local institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee. The approval must be obtained before undertaking the research to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines. As a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval and the title of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be stated in the section "Human Subjects Research Statements" of the article.
II. For non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed if the anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be used and if there are any risks associated. As with all research involving humans, ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee must be obtained prior to conducting the study. If ethical approval is not required, authors must either provide an exemption from the ethics committee or are encouraged to cite the local or national legislation that indicates ethics approval is not required for this type of study. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee which provided this should be stated in section "Human Subjects Research Statements" with a full explanation regarding why ethical approval was not required.
III. A written consent form for publication must be obtained from participating patients. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need won't be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). In addition, patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting their manuscript to WSEAS. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions.
IV. A Consent Form is available at the link: https://wseas.com/documents/wseas-consentform.docx
The form must be uploaded along with the paper submission for evaluation. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
V. If the study reports research involving vulnerable groups, an additional check may be performed.
VI. The submitted manuscript will be thoroughly checked by the editorial office and upon request, documentary evidence (consent forms and any related discussion documents from the ethics board) must be supplied. Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., explanation regarding why such categorization was needed must be clearly stated in the article.
5. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Animals
The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly-accepted '3Rs' [1]:
• Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
• Reduction in number of animals used, and
• Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.
Authors must include details on housing, husbandry and pain management in their manuscript.
For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures [2], American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [3] or European Animal Research Association [4].
If national legislation requires it, studies involving vertebrates or higher invertebrates must only be carried out after obtaining approval from the appropriate ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in section "Animal Subjects Research Statements".
In addition,
• Research procedures must be carried out in accordance with national and institutional regulations.
• Statements on animal welfare should confirm that the study complied with all relevant legislation.
• Clinical studies involving animals and interventions outside of routine care require ethics committee oversight as per the American Veterinary Medical Association. If the study involved client-owned animals, informed client consent must be obtained and certified in the manuscript report of the research. Owners must be fully informed if there are any risks associated with the procedures and that the research will be published.
• If available, a high standard of veterinary care must be provided.
• Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript.
If ethical approval is not required by national laws, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee, if one is available. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee that provided this should be stated in Section "Animal Subjects Research Statements" with a full explanation on why the ethical approval was not required.
If no animal ethics committee is available to review applications, authors should be aware that the ethics of their research will be evaluated by reviewers and editors.
Authors should provide a statement justifying the work from an ethical perspective, using the same utilitarian framework that is used by ethics committees. Authors may be asked to provide this even if they have received ethical approval.
WSEAS comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (arriveguidelines.org/) and ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (https://arriveguidelines.org/publications) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers must use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at https://arriveguidelines.org/sites/arrive/files/documents/ARRIVE%20Compliance%20Questionnaire.pdf.
Editors reserve the right to ask for the checklist and to reject submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines, to reject submissions based on ethical or animal welfare concerns or if the procedure described does not appear to be justified by the value of the work presented.
1. NSW Department of Primary Industries and Animal Research Review Panel. Three Rs. Available online: https://www.animalethics.org.au/three-rs
2. Home Office. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Bred, Supplied or Used for Scientific Purposes. Available online: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/388535/CoPanimalsWeb.pdf
3. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science. The Scientific Basis for Regulation of Animal Care and Use. Available online: https://www.aalas.org/about-aalas/position-papers/scientific-basis-for-regulation-of-animal-care-and-use
4. European Animal Research Association. EU regulations on animal research. Available online: https://www.eara.eu/animal-research-law
6. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Cell Lines
Submissions reporting on researches with cell lines or methods should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin. Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
7. Publication Ethics for Researches Involving Plants
Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.
Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.
8. Clinical Trials Registration
I. WSEAS follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which require and recommend registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.
II. Purely observational studies do not require registration.
III. A clinical trial not only refers to studies that take place in a hospital or involve pharmaceuticals, but also refer to all studies which involve participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment.
IV. Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trials register and cite a reference to the registration in the Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register and those listed by the World Health Organisation International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.
V. Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration.
VI. WSEAS reserves the right to refuse any paper without trial registration for further peer-review.
VII. The CONSORT Statement comprises a 25-item checklist and a flow diagram should be completed as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomized trial.
VIII. At minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist.
9. Copyright and Licensing
I. The copyright is retained by the authors for all articles published in WSEAS journals.
II. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.
All WSEAS Publications are accompanied by Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license which included on the Journal's Template
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0)
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_US
III. Specific conditions, such as funding, are reported at the section "Sources of Funding for Research Presented in a Scientific Article or Scientific Article Itself" where the authors may report potential sources of funding if there is any.
10. Conflict of Interests
I. According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose”.
II. This section cover aspects related to how the study topic was selected, how the study was designed, how the data were collected and how they were analyzed.
III. Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of the reported research results.
IV. If there is no conflict of interest, the authors should state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest". All privately funded studies must clearly state the role of the funder.
V. All authors have participated in (1) the conception and design, or in the analysis and interpretation of the data, (2) in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content and (3) have approved the final version.
VI. When submitting a manuscript, the author(s) should make sure (1) to not submit it elsewhere, nor (2) the manuscript is under review at another journal or other publishing venue.
VII. The author(s) have no affiliation with any organization with a direct or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the manuscript.
VIII. The author(s) have affiliations with organizations with direct or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the manuscript.
11. Citation Policies
I. Authors must ensure that when material is taken from other sources (including their own published papers), the source is clearly cited and that the appropriate permission is obtained.
II. Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.
III. In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice that we encourage authors, Editors and Reviewers to take it into account.
12. Retraction Policy
I. A paper might be retracted due to several issues that contain serious errors that harm the Scientific Community and WSEAS. These errors are related but not limited to ethical breaches, fabrication of data, plagiarism, falsification and/or other reasons.
II. WSEAS follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction: https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines
III. If a retraction is required, a Retraction Notice is published in the current Volume of the Journal with the publication details of the manuscript.
WSEAS and the Editor-in-Chief consider retracting a publication if:
• They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
• It constitutes plagiarism
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication).
• It contains material or data without authorisation for use.
• Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy).
• It reports unethical research.
• It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process.
• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.
Retraction Notice:
• Are linked to the retracted article wherever possible (ie, in all online versions).
• Clearly identify the retracted article (eg, by including the title and authors in the retraction heading or citing the retracted article).
• Are clearly identified as a retraction (ie, distinct from other types of correction or comment).
• Are published promptly to minimise harmful effects.
• Are freely available to all readers (ie, not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers).
• State who is retracting the article.
• State the reason(s) for retraction.
• Be objective, factual and avoid inflammatory language.
Retractions are not usually appropriate if:
• The authorship is disputed but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings.
• The main findings of the work are still reliable and correction could sufficiently address errors or concerns.
• An editor has inconclusive evidence to support retraction, or is awaiting additional information such as from an institutional investigation.
• Author conflicts of interest have been reported to the journal after publication, but in the editor's view these are not likely to have influenced interpretations or recommendations or the conclusions of the article.
iv. WSEAS take into account the Expressions of Concern Forum discussion of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
v. The above is an extract from the COPE Retraction guidelines (PDF).
13. Authors' Responsibilities
I. Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
II. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
III. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
IV. Authors must participate in the peer review process.
V. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
VI. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
VII. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
VIII. Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
IX. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
X. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
XI.Authors accept that they cannot publish more than five manuscripts in a Volume.
14. Reviewers' Responsibilities
I. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
II. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author
III. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments
IV. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
V. Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
VI. Reviewers should not review 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 papers.
15. Editors' responsibilities
I. Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
II. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
III. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
IV. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
V. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
VI. Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources.
VII. Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
VIII. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
IX. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
X. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
XI. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
XII. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
XIII. Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
XIV. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.
