PUBLICATION ETHICS

Aiming to be a high-quality scholarly journal, the journal's publication ethics is highly concerned. It is important that all parties involved in publishing: the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the author(s), agree upon standards of ethical behavior. The followings are ethical standards of the journal for the three publishing parties.

 

1. DUTIES FOR AUTHORS

• Authorship of the Paper

Principle author  should be one who has made a major contribution to the article.  All those who have made substantial contributions should be cited as co-authors.

• Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources.

The authors should ensure that the submitted article is original. Proper acknowledgment of the work by others must always be provided. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Followings are policy for plagiarism.

• Reporting Standards

A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

• Confidentiality

Information obtained in confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without permission of the author of the work.

 

2. DUTIES FOR EDITORS

Editors shall declare competing interests when joining the LAJ’s editorial board. The editors have full editorial independence, yet their consideration will base on the following ethics.

• Peer review

The articles must typically be reviewed by at least two external and independent reviewers, and where necessary the editor should seek additional opinions. The editor team will be responsible for selection of reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field and shall follow best practice in avoiding the selection of fraudulent peer reviewers. The editor shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias. The editor shall assure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely.  

• Fairly Evaluate

LAJ’s editorial policies encourage transparency and complete, honest reporting, and the editor should ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.  The editor should evaluate the articles for their intellectual content without regard to gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin of the authors.

• Cautious on the Published Record

The editor shall work to safeguard the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing reported or suspected process of research, publication, reviewer and editorial, in conjunction with the publisher.

• Confidentiality

The editor will protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers.

 

3. DUTIES FOR PEER REVIEWERS

Scholarly journals traditionally have used peer review to assess the scientific validity, novelty, and significance of submitted manuscripts. As a result, reviewers have considerable influence over what findings are published, effectively serving as filters of new research. LAJ expects our reviewers to handle all submissions in confidence while holding up the following ethics.

• Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication assisting in making editorial decisions. The reviewers will give unbiased consideration to submitted manuscripts. The article shall be judged with their merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author.

• Competing Interests

Reviewers shall consult the editor before agreeing to review a paper if there are any potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or connections with author(s), or institutions connected to the papers.

• Standards of Objectivity

Reviews shall be conducted objectively.  Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias they may have and take this into account when reviewing a paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Reviewer shall not suggest author(s) to include citations of the reviewer’s work to increase the reviewer’s citation count.

• Confidentiality

Information or correspondence about a manuscript obtained through peer review shall be kept confidential. Any manuscripts received for review will be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers will not share the review or information about the paper with anyone. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in a reviewer’s own research without consent from the author(s).

 

PLAGIARISM POLICY

 

According to Oxford Dictionary (2021), plagiarism is “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own The LAJ recognizes that plagiarism is not acceptable in scholarly publications. As such, LAJ establishes the following policies and actions when plagiarism is detected in a manuscript that is submitted to LAJ. Submitted manuscripts must be original, not being pending for any publication elsewhere, and not violate the rights of any individual. Any material, which is taken verbatim from other sources, needs to be clearly identified as different from the present original text by

(1) use of indentation,

(2) apply quotation marks, and

(3) identify the source.

Any graphic material reproduced from another source should provide proper citation and/or requires permission from the copyright holder. åIn case the plagiarism is found during initial stages, editors will take a determining action. If the plagiarism is detected after being published, the editor will conduct preliminary investigation, may be with the help of a suitable committee constituted for the purpose. A warning is given to the authors and a request to change the text and properly cite the original article is made. It is understood that all authors are responsible for the content of their submitted paper as they all sign the LAJ copyright Form. If a penalty is imposed for plagiarism, all authors will be subject to the same penalty.

 

• Self-plagiarism

LAJ acknowledges that some instances of self-plagiarism may arise in scholarly publishing. When the self-plagiarism is identified, our editorial board will take determining actions. The manuscript, which is identical with one that is previously published in conference proceedings or elsewhere, may not be accepted. However, it may be acceptable if the manuscript is in an expanded form of conference proceedings or prior publications.

There should be indications of changes, and modification for proper contents. It is strongly recommended that title of the manuscript should be modified. If an author uses some of his/her previously published material to clarify the presentation of new results, the previously published material shall be identified and the difference to the present publication shall be mentioned. The author(s) must identify the name of the conference proceedings and the date of the publication and obtain permission to republish from the copyright holder. The corresponding paragraphs or figures should be identified and the previous publication referenced.

The author should identify the sources of the previously published material and obtain permission from the original author, the publisher, or the copyright holder. However, an author shall be permitted to use material from an unpublished presentation, including visual displays, in a subsequent journal publication.

 

• Submission to Multiple Journals

If manuscript submitted to LAJ and manuscript submitted to another journal are significantly overlapped meaning use of identical or almost identical figures and identical or slightly modified text for one half or more of the paper. Whether detected in any stage, it is considered and treated as a severe plagiarism case and the manuscript shall be rejected.

In any other cases, additional qualifications will be considered specifically for acceptance by the editorial board.