Ethical Oversight

1. Authors submitting works to JIWE do so with the understanding if it is discovered that these basic principles have not been adhered to, action will be taken following the COPE guidelines and may result in one of the following Correction notices:
1. Erratum: This generally refers to a production error, which has been introduced during the publication process. If an erratum is issued, it will appear on the abstract of the online version of the paper to ensure full visibility.
2. Corrigendum: This generally refers to an author error or oversight, prior to the paper’s submission to the publication. If a corrigendum is issued, it will appear on the abstract of the online version of the paper to ensure full visibility.
3. Retraction notice: A retraction notice will be issued in serious cases of ethical misconduct or where the research is seriously flawed and misleading. In normal circumstances, the paper will remain in the online version of the journal. A retraction notice will appear on the online version of the paper.
4. Note of clarification: A note of clarification will be used when a point needs to be emphasized or clarified in the text but it does not constitute a correction. Please note that any correction has to be highlighted as a stated erratum, corrigendum or note of clarification and the text cannot be amended. This is to make sure that the reader is aware of any changes to the text which they might have cited or referred to in their subsequent research or practice.
5. Expression of concern: In cases where a conclusion is unclear or where we are unable to make a fair decision due to conflict of interest or lack of information, we will publish an expression of concern regarding the paper. An expression of concern will appear on the online version of the paper at the abstract level in order to ensure visibility for all readers, including non-subscribers.
2. Please note that for legal reasons or when an article forms evidence in an independent hearing, we may not be able to take action until all matters have been fully resolved.  MMU Press reserves the right to not proceed with a case if the complainant presents a false name or affiliation or acts in an inappropriate or threatening manner towards MMU Press editors and staff.
1. In all cases, MMU Press will:
2. Act professionally and efficiently
3. Be fair and objective
4. Always approach the accused party to establish their position before making a decision or committing to a course of action.
5. Ensure that we provide sufficient time for all parties to respond
6. Keep all parties informed of the decisions, including the copyright owners, editors and authors
7. As members of the Committee on Publication Ethics, follow the processes highlighted in the flowcharts presented by COPE
8. It is the responsibility of MMU Press to protect the authors' moral rights (to be acknowledged as the author and not to be misrepresented) and to ensure the correct record of the literature.

3. MMU Press reserves the right to withdraw and rescind any acceptance should a case of ethical misconduct be discovered prior to publication. It will not be possible to please all parties in every case. Following a fair and considered process, the final decision in any disputed case will rest with the editor and MMU Press.
4. For further information on MMU Press ethics and policies, please contact (Legal Email), or refer to the COPE guidelines.

 

Ethical Issues

1. JIWE will follow the Ethical Oversight Flowcharts in COPE’s Core Practices that include step-by-step guideline to handle ethical issues in submitted or published articles related to: 
1. Redundant (Duplicate) Publication: Authors are expected to submit original, previously unpublished content to MMU Press publications. It is an unacceptable academic practice to submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time – authors are expected to wait until receiving a decision from one journal before submitting the next.
2. Plagiarism: MMU Press requires that all articles submitted to the journal is original. Using another person’s idea, language, graphs, pictures, results and experiments without giving credit to them.
3. Self-Plagiarism (Text Recycling): Authors are expected to submit original content to MMU Press publications. It is only acceptable for a research to be repeated if it leads to different or new conclusions or for comparisons with new data. In all cases, it is important to provide reference of the previously published work. If any element of the work has been published previously, ensure that the work is fully referenced and state it at the point of submission, so that the Editor may make a fully-informed decision.
4. Fabrication/ Falsification of Data: Making up data, results and recording or reporting them, is fabrication of data. Falsification of data is manipulating research materials, omitting, deletion, suppression of conflicting data without justification. This will cause mistrust and disgrace to scientific community.
5. Authorship Problems: In multi-authored papers, it is important that all authors that have made a significant contribution to the paper are listed. Those who have provided support but have not contributed to the research should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section.
2. Authorship issues falls into three main types:
1. The exclusion of a contributor from the list of authors
2. The inclusion of a named person who has not contributed to the paper or does not wish to be associated with the research
3. The order of the authors on the paper and the level of contribution that they have made to the paper.
3. Undisclosed Conflict of Interest: All conflicts of interest should be declared by the author, editor or reviewer. Conflicts of interest include:
1. A financial or personal interest in the outcomes of the research;
2. Undisclosed financial support for the research by an interested third party;
3. A financial or person
4. A note to highlight the background to financial support for the research from third parties or any other possible conflict of interest must be added to the paper prior to review. If a conflict of interest is suspected, then it should be reported to the Editor.
5. Coercive Citation: During the peer review process, it is typical for authors to be directed by reviewers to papers which further develop and improve the author’s ideas. Whilst there may be legitimate occasions where it is necessary to reference other publications, MMU Press regards ‘coercive citation’ (i.e. where a reference is included as a condition of acceptance or without academic justification) as unethical and does not condone this kind of behaviour.
6. Defamation / Libel: MMU Press requires that authors obtain written "proof of consent" for studies about named organizations or people. If inaccurate, unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organizations or people in a submitted paper, MMU Press reserves the right to request changes to the text from the author or to reject the paper prior to publication. Critiques and reviews of products and services are acceptable but comments must be constructive and must not be made maliciously. If statements have been made in a paper that is published by MMU Press and found to be defamatory, a retraction notice will be published. In some cases, and when legally required, the paper will be withdrawn from the online version of the journal. An apology will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal or volume of the book. MMU Press will advise all authors of case studies to inform the subject (person or organization) and to seek permission. If MMU Press considers that the study could be potentially libellous, we will require written proof of consent before placing the paper into the production process.
7. Unethical Research and Testing: An author must follow appropriate international and national procedures with respect to data protection, rights to privacy, child protection and medical testing on humans and animals. Authors must make available to all consent forms and requisite forms from the appropriate regulatory bodies to the editors and publishers at MMU Press. MMU Press encourages all authors to demonstrate how their research contributes to the benefit of the society. If research is found to contravene international or national procedures and it is confirmed with the appropriate regulatory body, MMU Press will publish a retraction notice at once.

Allegations of Misconduct

1. Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics.
2. Reviewers and Editor-in-Chief are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare any competing interests.
3. The Editor-in-Chief will vigorously investigate allegations of research or publication misconduct and reserve the right to contact the authors’ institutions, funders or regulatory bodies if needed.
4. In cases of suspected or alleged misconduct, the COPE guidelines will be adhered to and advice may be sought at the COPE forum. If conclusive evidence of misconduct is found, steps will be taken to correct the scientific record, which may include issuing a correction or retraction.
5. The Editor-in-Chief may be formally contacted via email or any other means suitable if there are any concerns about potential misconduct.

 

Complaints

1. The peer review process and appeal to the Editor-in-Chief’s’ decisions are as follows:
1. Complaints by Authors
1. Complaints pertaining to matters related to a failure of process (e.g. lengthy delays) or reviewer misconduct should be emailed to the Editor-in-Chief.
2. All complaints should be accompanied with adequate supporting information (e.g., copies of email correspondence). If the complaint is related to a specific article, include the title and URL (if it is published) or the manuscript ID number (if it is unpublished).
2. Complaints by Public about Articles
1. Complaints by the public about author’s misconduct should be emailed to the Editor-in-Chief.
2. All complaints should be accompanied with adequate supporting information (e.g., copies of email correspondence). If the complaint is related to a specific article, include the title and URL.
3. Concerns may include, but are not limited to suspicion of unethical matters relating to:
1. Manuscript (including undeclared conflicts of interest, false ethical declarations, use of identifiable images without consent or use of copyrighted images without permission)
2. Image manipulation in a published article
3. Publication process (including practices such as duplicate publication, self-plagiarism, salami-slicing or excessive self-citation)
3. Complaints about Editor-in-Chief
1. Any complaints about the Editor-in-Chief regarding severe misjudgements (e.g. an improperly applied retraction notice) should be directed to MMU Press. 
2. MMU Press will consider the complaints against the Editor-in-Chief only when there is a clear breach of policy.
3. A rejection of the submission of a manuscript is not a ground for complaint, unless there is evidence of misconduct on the part of the Editorial or the Editor-in-Chief. 
4. MMU Press will consider appeals against the Editor-in-Chief’s decision only when there is a clear breach of policy.
5. Investigations will be made to establish that correct procedures are followed, ensuring the decisions are reached based on academic criteria and not by personal prejudice or any form of biased decision that influences the outcome, and to resolve any outstanding issues.

 

Article Withdrawal Policy

1. Withdrawal of articles is not encouraged. It is granted on a case by case basis. Withdrawal refers to Articles of the early version, which have been accepted for publication.  Reasons for withdrawal may include reasons such as:
1. contains errors
2. may have been accidentally submitted twice
3. may violate the journal’s publishing ethics guidelines (e.g. multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or similar incidences)
2. Note to authors: 
1. Authors do not have the right to withdraw an Article after it is published.
2. A completed Article Withdrawal Form, indicating valid reason for withdrawing, must be signed by all authors must be submitted to the editorial office.
3. Authors can only assume their Article has been withdrawn after they received an acknowledgement letter from the editor’s office.
4. A penalty will be levied if an Article is withdrawn after 10 days of acceptance.

 

Article Retraction

1. Articles may be retracted as per COPE retraction guidelines found at Retraction Guidelines website. on the following grounds:
   
   
1. There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error). 
2. The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication). 
3. It constitutes plagiarism.
4. It reports unethical research.
2. The decision to retract an article is made on a case by case basis only after the editor consults the author(s) and reviewers. 
3. The author(s) must sign the retraction note and submit it to the Chief Editor before an article can be retracted. All the authors must consent to the retraction before a retraction note can be published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list. However, in the case of some co-authors disagreeing to the retraction of the article, the editor will decide on the retraction upon identifying the dissenting co-authors.
4. On the webpages of the retracted article, a note stating that the article has been retracted from the journal will be posted to replace the article.

 

Article Removal

1. Albeit exceptionally, it may be necessary for a published Article to be removed due to the following reasons:
1. Defamatory, or infringement of legal rights of others
2. Possibly a subject of a court order
3. Violation of the copyright of others
4. Legal issues arising/expected to arise in the context of the article
2. In such circumstances, the bibliographic information and the PDF file will also be removed. A note, stating that the article has been removed will replace the Article text.

 

Article Replacement

1. Flawed original articles can be replaced with a corrected version. 
2. Only significant corrections such as inaccurately published information etc. will be published. Minor corrections such as spelling or grammatical errors which do not alter the comprehension of a paper will require no corrections.
3. The following actions can be taken for errors discovered in the published article: 
1. An Errata will be published only when mistakes are recognized in the published article which went unnoticed during Editing and Layout setting in Figures, Tables etc.
2. A Corrigenda is published when the authors realise that errors in the published article could affect its accuracy or its validity of the scientific content. On the other hand, if readers detect an error in a published article, they can submit the same as a letter to the editor. The author, editor and a reviewer would then assess the validity of the error pointed out. Corrigenda will then be published with reference to the letter and the answers provided by the author.
3. An Addenda is published if significant information is inadvertently omitted during manuscript submission and the authors would like to add the revised content to the article after publication. The information provided for addendum will undergo peer-review prior to editorial acceptance. The Editor-in-Chief will grant Addendum only if the information is essential to understand a significant portion of the published article.
4. For Errata and Corrigenda, the PDF version of the correction Article is attached to the online version of the original article and a link is created between the errata/corrigenda article and the original article for readers and other users/systems to be aware of the corrections. For corrigenda, the article must follow the format: “Corrigenda: “original article title” (“original article reference”).