Publication Ethics

The following guidelines should be followed in line with the journal’s instructions for authors. Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors should consider these ethical policies once working with NAJFNR.

Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas.

NAJFNR is committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere, nor is under review elsewhere. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.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 authors 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.

Improper Author Contribution or Attribution

All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. It is important to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.

Redundant Publications

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

Sanctions

In the event that there are documented violations of any of the above mentioned policies in any journal, regardless of whether or not the violations occurred in any article published by NAJFNR, the following sanctions will be applied:

Immediate rejection of the infringing manuscript.
Prohibition against all of the authors for any new submissions to NAJFNR, either individually or in combination with other authors of the infringing manuscript, as well as in combination with any other authors. This prohibition will be imposed for a minimum of 36 months.
Prohibition against all of the authors from serving on the Editorial Board NAJFNR.

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.

About Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper.

Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut and pasted. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication. But minor plagiarism without dishonest intent is relatively frequent, for example when an author reuses parts of an introduction from an earlier paper. The editors will judge any case of which they become aware (either by their own knowledge of and reading about the literature, or when alerted by referees) on its own merits.

If a case of plagiarism comes to light after a paper is published in NAJFNR, the journal will conduct a preliminary investigation. If plagiarism is found, the journal will contact the author's institute and funding agencies. A determination of misconduct will lead the Journal to run a statement, bidirectionally linked online to and from the original paper, to note the plagiarism and to provide a reference to the plagiarized material. The paper containing the plagiarism will also be obviously marked on each page of the PDF. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted.

Complaints Policy

Making a complaint

The best way to reach us is by email. Complaints should be directly emailed to najfnr@najfnr.org, where they are dealt with confidentiality.

Complaints at The NAJFNR are resolved through a process of response and escalation:
• Wherever possible complaints will be dealt with by the relevant member of the editorial staff, escalating to a section editor if required.
• In the case that this initial response is insufficient, the complainant can request for the complaint to be escalated to a specialty editor.
• If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be escalated to the editor in chief, whose decision is final.

NAJFNR is aware of the complaints stated below:

Authorship complaints
Plagiarism complaints
Reviewer bias or competitive harmful acts by reviewers

Research results misappropriation

Multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication/Simultaneous submission
Research standards violations

Allegations of research errors and fraud
Undisclosed conflicts of interest

Policy for Handling Complaints

If the Journal receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal infringes copyright or other intellectual property rights or contains

material inaccuracies, libelous materials or otherwise unlawful materials, the Journal will investigate the complaint.

Investigation may include a request that the parties involved substantiate their claims.

The NAJFNR will make a good faith determination whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material.

A decision not to remove material should represent the Journal's belief that the complaint is without sufficient foundation, or if well‐founded, that a legal defense or exemption may apply, such as fair use in the case of copyright infringement or truthfulness of a statement in the case of libel.

Journal should document its investigation and decision.

We strive to ensure that all of articles published in NAJFNR are of the highest quality and are free from errors.

However, we accept that occasionally mistakes might happen.

If you have a complaint with our editorial, please email us at najfnr@najfnr.org.

Editorial Complaints Policy
The Managing Editor and staff will make every endeavour to put matters right as soon as possible in the most appropriate way, offering right of reply where necessary. As far as possible, we will investigate complaints in a blame-free manner, looking to see how systems can be improved to prevent mistakes occurring.

Guiding Principles
Our general approach to complaints is that they are a rare but inevitable part of a process that involves putting together complex material at great speed. We accept that we make mistakes and try to treat all complaints with urgency, however small. We believe that timely solutions can prevent problems escalating.

How to make a complaint?
The procedure outlined below aims to be fair to those making complaints and those complained about.
All complaints will be acknowledged (within three working days if by email).
If possible a definitive response will be made within two weeks. If this is not possible an interim response will be given within two weeks. Interim responses will be provided until the complaint is finally resolved.
If the complainant remains unhappy, complaints should be escalated to the editor, whose decision is final.

What to do
Complaints about editorial content should be made as soon as possible after publication, preferably in writing by email to: najfnr@najfnr.org

All article published in NAJFNR contain are double-blind peer-reviewed. Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly based on the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011)

The NAJFNR is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes seriously publication malpractice and conflicts of interest. Personal, financial and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest. All authors and all members of NAJFNR’ Editorial Boards are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission or upon accepting an editorial or review assignment.

The NAJFNR review process is designed to guarantee transparent and objective editorial and review process, and because handling Editor and reviewers' names are made public upon the publication of articles, conflicts of interest will be openly apparent.

As an author, disclosure of any potential conflict of interest should be done during the submission process. Consider the following questions and make sure you disclose any positive answers. If you failed to disclose any of the potential conflict of interest below during submission, please contact the NAJFNR Editorial Office with the details as soon as possible.

Did you or your institution at any time receive payment or services from a third party for any aspect of the submitted work?
Do you have financial relationships with entities that could be perceived to influence, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, what you wrote in the submitted work?
Do you have any patents and copyrights, whether pending, issued, licensed and/or receiving royalties related to the research?
Do you have other relationships or activities that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, what you wrote in the submitted work?