Policies and Ethics

JOURNAL POLICIES

I Access Policy

Journal of Information and Knowledge is under paywall/Subscription. Readers who wish to access the full text should subscribe to the journal or can purchase individual article.

II Peer-review Policy

All the manuscripts submitted to Journal of Information and Knowledge will be subjected to double blinded peer review process;

• The manuscript will be reviewed by two suitable experts in respective subject area.
• The reports of both the reviewers will be considered while deciding on acceptance/revision or rejection of a manuscript.
• Editor-In-Chief will make the final decision, based on reviewer’s comments.
• Editor-In-Chief can ask one or more of the advisory board members for their suggestions upon a manuscript, before making the final decision.
• Associate Editors and Reviewers provide the administrative support to maintain the integrity of peer review process.

III Licensing Policy

Authors will transfer copyright to the publisher as part of the journal publishing agreement. However the authors will retain the right to:

• Self-Archive their article for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and Scholarly Sharing purposes, with a DOI link to the version of record on www.srels.org (and with the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC- ND license for author manuscript versions)
• Retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data).
• Proper attribution and credit for the published work.

IV Archiving Policy

• Authors sign the copy right transfer statement and still retain their rights to self-archive the articles.
• The accepted manuscript may be archived on the author’s website.
• Authors can deposit in any repository their works, but it should not be the final version as available with the publisher.
• Author can post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication with a link to the published article, it has to be the DOI number link. The Final published article is available at Informatics Journals (URL:....)

PUBLICATION ETHICS

The Journal of Information and Knowledge is an electronic Double Blind peer reviewed journal upholding the highest standards. Articles not in accordance with publication ethics and malpractices will be removed from publication if detected at any time. Plagiarism and research fabrication such as making up of data, manipulation of existing data, tables etc. and ethical clearance on the use of humans or animals for the study will also be checked. The journal reserves the right to use plagiarism detecting software to screen submitted papers at any time and suspected plagiarism or duplicate publishing will be reported immediately.

I Authors Responsibility

They must ensure that

• Their work is original
• Must not have been published elsewhere
• Other authors, contributors or sources should be appropriately credited
• They are responsible for language editing before submission
• Their work has not been copied or plagiarized in whole or part from any other work
• The financial support and conflict of interest for the project / research work if any should be disclosed
• They are obliged to notify the editor if any error or inaccuracy is discovered and co-operate with the editor to correct the same

Articles should be submitted using online procedures. Simultaneous publication in more than one publication is a breach of publication ethics.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) during the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010 has developed the below mentioned guidelines. Informatics Journals, as a publisher follows COPE, WAME and has adopted COPE’s best practice guidelines for dealing with ethical issues in a journal. The Journal Members (Advisory Board, editors and the journal manager) have consented to adopt the COPE as it meets the purpose and objective of the Journal.

The following is a summary of COPE’s international standards for authors of scholarly research publications and describes responsible research reporting practice. The comprehensive guidelines can be downloaded here

• The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
• Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
• Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarised, and has not been published elsewhere.
• Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
• The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.

II Editor’s Responsibility
They must ensure that

• The submitted manuscript undergoes Double - blind peer review before publishing
• They will strive to prevent any conflict of interest between the author and editorial and review personnel
• All the information related to the submitted manuscript is kept confidential prior to publishing

III Reviewers Responsibility

They must ensure that

• Reviews of the manuscript is completed and provides suitable comments for improvement
• Promptness in notifying the editor about his inability to review the manuscript
• Maintains confidentiality about the manuscript obtained for review, by not discussing with others
• Standards of Objectivity preserved by reviewing the manuscripts objectively with clear views and supporting arguments and without any personal criticism
• Acknowledgement of Sources
• All References not cited by author should be removed. All citations should be accompanied with any previously reported observation, derivation or argument.
• The editors should be intimated for any overlap of the reviewed manuscript with any other published paper.
• Disclosures and Conflict of Interest– manuscripts having conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or any other relationships or connections with institutions connected to the paper will not be considered.

1V Copyright Policies

All the articles published in Journal of Information and Knowledge are held by the Publisher. Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science (SRELS), as a publisher requires its authors to transfer the copyright prior to publication. This will permit SRELS to reproduce, publish, distribute and archive the article in print and electronic form and also to defend against any improper use of the article.

V Disclaimer

The author(s) of each article appearing in this Journal is/are solely responsible for the content thereof; neither the Journal of Information and Knowledge nor its editors or publisher or anyone else involved in creating, producing or distribution assumes any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in the Journal, nor shall they be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages arising out of the use of Journal of Information and Knowledge.

VI Plagiarism

For every Journal, the peer review process is at the heart of the success of publishing. As part of our commitment to the protection and enhancement of the peer review process, The Journal of Information and Knowledge would like to ensure that all published articles are within the accepted level of plagiarism. The Journal uses the very well and widely accepted Plagiarism Detection tool, iThenticate. All submitted Manuscripts are first subjected to Plagiarism check and then the Publishing cycle begins.

In case, plagiarism is detected during review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately and we can also consider other steps depending upon the seriousness of the case. If the plagiarism is proven after publication, such manuscript(s) will be removed from our website and appropriate announcement will be placed in this regards. Further, "Journal of Information and Knowledge" can bring such instances in notice of author's funding agencies, author's institutes (where they work) and to the original authors whose work has been plagiarized. Please report the plagiarism to editor@informaticsglobal.com

VII Article Retraction

Editor’s decision is the decisive factor for all scholarly publications. However, this decision is based on Editorial Policies – which includes plagiarism, copyright etc. It becomes important to retain the Published articles as it is – without any alterations. However, owing to certain circumstances, a published article may at times be retracted, removed or may require a change.

Retraction could be due to:

• Plagiarism
• Bogus Authorship
• Fraudulent Data
• Correction in Publication

Standards for Article Retraction at Informatics Journals are:

The article PDF will remain available with the watermark “Retracted” available on it. Only incase of legal/controversial/incorrect PDF, they will be replaced or removed completely from the website with a note.