Best Practice Guidelines

ESSENCE follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers. The ESSENCE Journal follows the Ethical guidelines for journal publication based on Elsevier recommendations and COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Therefore the journal is committed to ensuring ethics in the publication of quality articles and it follows the Code of Conduct defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) available at:

http://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20Conduct_2.pdf
https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf

For the publication of an article in a peer reviewed journal it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher. Our ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Duties of Publisher

set, communicate, and review journal policies
protect intellectual property and copyright
respect editorial independence and support editorial work
publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and content
publish a description of the peer review process
provide a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions
ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions

Duties of Editors

guard the integrity of the published record
ensure a fair, appropriate, timely, and confidential peer review process
pursue reviewer, editorial, and author misconduct
strive to improve the journal quality and to meet the need of authors and readers
provide clear description to authors and peer reviewers what is expected from them
publish submission and acceptance dates for articles
provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies and developments
act in the case of suspected misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is presented
pursue plagiarism
respond promptly to complaints

Duties of Reviewers

assist editorial decisions and may also assist authors in improving the manuscript
manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document
respond in a reasonable time-frame
declare any potentially conflicting or competing interests
follow journal’s policies
should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors
conduct a review objectively, and provide a review, which is based only on the content of the manuscript

Duties of authors

ensure that the submitted work is original, not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere
follow the applicable copyright laws and conventions
avoid multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance
provide sufficient detail of the research work and references to permit others to replicate the work
provide a proper acknowledgment of the work of others
disclose relevant funding sources and any existing or potential conflicts of interest
ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication
assure that unusual chemical hazards inherent in their use are pointed out in the manuscript
promptly notify the journal editor if a significant error or inaccuracy is discovered in the published work and cooperate with the editor to correct the manuscript