Publication Rules and Ethics
The Asian Journal of Biology Education (AJBE) is edited and published by the Asian Journal of Biology Education Editing and Publishing Office (c/o Department of Science Education, Aichi University of Education, Hirosawa 1, Igayacho, Kariya, 448-8542, Japan) for the Asian Association for Biology Education (AABE).
The AJBE Editorial Board has full responsibility for the publication of AJBE. The AJBE Editorial Board is committed to promoting integrity in research and the prevention of misconduct through strict editorial standards in the publication of AJBE. The Editorial Board will deal with any misconduct promptly. The following duties and responsibilities are imposed on the Editorial Board members, reviewers and authors and form the basis of the AJBE editorial policy on integrity in publishing.
AJBE Editorial Board Members’ Ethics and Responsibilities
(1) The Editor-in-Chief is nominated by the AABE Executive Committee and appointed by the AABE Director. Then the Editor-in-Chief selects the members of the Editorial Board from among the AABE members and notifies the composition of the Editorial Board to the AABE Executive Committee.
(2) By accepting office, members of the Editorial Board are deemed to have agreed to this policy and to have undertaken not to commit any misconduct in the performance of their AJBE duties. If an Editorial Board member is found to have committed misconduct, the Editor-in-Chief shall scrutinise the facts, report to the AABE Executive Committee and, upon approval, dismiss the member concerned. Then, the Editor-in-Chief shall review the editorial operations of the AJBE to reduce further risks of misconduct and possible damage to the journal’s reputation.
(3) The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for all aspects of the publication of the AJBE. The Editor-in-Chief confirms that there are no irregularities or illegitimacy in the submitted manuscripts before their acceptance for publication. In reviewing submitted manuscripts, the Editorial Board members are obliged to ensure research integrity in the submitted manuscripts at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. Based on the collective opinions and recommendations of the Editorial Board members and the reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief will decide whether the submitted manuscripts are acceptable for publication or required revisions and communicate his decision to the authors.
(4) In reviewing submitted manuscripts, the Editorial Board will ensure that the review process is not biased towards any attribute of the contributors, such as race, gender, nationality, ideology or creed.
(5) The Editorial Board shall keep all submitted manuscripts, including their contents, data, and evaluations, strictly confidential and shall not disclose any part of them to anyone outside the Board without the author’s consent.
(6) Members of the Editorial Board will not misappropriate the content or ideas of submitted manuscripts for personal use.
(7) If the Editorial Board discovers any misconduct by an author or reviewer, it will recommend to the person concerned for the correction of the misconduct immediately and will take appropriate action if the recommendation is not followed. For example, if there is misconduct in the submitted manuscript, the review process will be suspended, and the author concerned will not be allowed to subsequently submit any manuscript to the AJBE for a certain period of time. In the case of a reviewer’s misconduct or undisclosed conflicts of interest, the request for review will be cancelled and further request for review to the person concerned will be permanently suspended.
(8) In the event that any misconduct is discovered in a published paper or an allegation or suspicion of misconduct in an unpublished paper is brought to her/his attention, the Editor-in-Chief, will promptly initiate a thorough investigation before taking a decision.
(9) If any damage or loss is caused by the misconduct of an author or reviewer, the Editorial Board and the AABE will not be liable for any compensation for the damage or loss. The Editorial Board and the AABE has the right to demand the person concerned to compensate for the damage or loss. If an evidence of misconduct arises subsequently in papers that have been published, the Editor-in-Chief announces the retraction of the papers in the journal.
Peer Reviewers’ Ethics and Responsibilities
(1) Reviewers are obliged to make an appropriate judgment as to whether the manuscript they are asked to review is worthy of publication in AJBE and report their judgment to the Editorial Board.
(2) The reviewer will endeavour to check for any irregularities or illegality in the manuscript requested for review.
(3) If the invited reviewer decides that she/he is not competent to review the manuscript or is unable to meet the review deadline, the reviewer must immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief.
(4) The reviewer must make every effort to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript under review and not to divulge any information about it.
(5) The reviewer will not misappropriate the contents or ideas of the manuscript under review for personal use.
(6) Reviewers will endeavour to maintain fairness and objectivity in the peer review process and will not engage in unsubstantiated, subjective or emotional criticism of the contributors.
(7) The reviewers will judge the appropriateness of the references and citations of the contributors and will endeavour to point out any missing relevant references or citations.
Authors’ Ethics and Responsibilities
(1) Authors must prepare manuscripts for submission in accordance with the instructions in the latest edition of the AJBE Instructions to Contributors. Manuscripts that do not follow the instructions may be rejected.
(2) Authors should ensure that their manuscripts are original and novel and maintains the quality of a scholarly article. Manuscripts must be written in such a way that a follow-up examination is possible.
(3) Authors must ensure that their manuscripts are free from fraudulent data, data falsification, and plagiarized texts, etc. The primary sources of original data used in preparing the manuscript must be made available to the Editorial Board upon request.
(4) Authors are to confirm that the content of the manuscript submitted has not been partially or fully previously published in any language. If authors cite data or text from their own or others’ previously published work, they must clearly state the sources of these citations. If the exact sentences are reproduced from published articles, these must be in quotation marks and the relevant source and page number(s) presented.
(5) Authors must not submit their manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. The review process will be terminated if it is discovered that even a part of the manuscript has been submitted to another publication medium.
(6) Authorship of submitted manuscripts is limited to those who hold the right to be authors. Submitting a manuscript without the permission or knowledge of the co-researchers involved in the research, excluding a person who holds the right to be an author, or including a person who was not involved in the research as an author, is prohibited.
(7) If the research has received financial or other support, it is advisable to clearly state this in the manuscript. If permission from a research or funding organisation is required for the publication of research results, the author must obtain its permission to publish prior to submitting the manuscript and must clearly indicate in the manuscript that permission has been obtained. Any permissions, licences or approvals from ethics committees or similar bodies must be noted.
(8) It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain the written permission from the copyright holder for citing figures, tables, texts, etc. in their manuscripts. The AJBE Editorial Board and the AABE are not responsible for any protests or claims for compensation from the copyright owner after the author’s paper is published in AJBE, and the author must take full responsibility of any copyright infringements.
(9) Authors must immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief of any errors in data or in the text that are found anytime during the peer review process, after the manuscript has accepted for publication, or after its publication.
(10) The copyright of papers published in AJBE belongs to the authors and AABE. AABE automatically owns the copyright when the manuscript of the article is accepted. Authors may reproduce the article in any medium or register it in the repositories of non-profit organisations such as research and educational institutions without getting an agreement of AABE. Authors may also translate the published article into languages other than English or use part of the contents of the article in other articles, with due acknowledgement in the reference or citation of the prior publication of the article in the AJBE. AABE can register published articles or their information in any open access online databases. However, authors must obtain permission from AABE, and AABE must obtain permission from the authors, if they wish to use part or all of an article for commercial purposes.