Editorial Policy

Originality of work

The contents of articles must be original and have not been published, submitted, or under consideration elsewhere. Innovation, originality, authenticity and accuracy must be important features of research articles. Our journals receive different types of research papers including original articles, reviews, short communications, technical reports and letters to editors. Each type of article has a special format and the submission must follow the guidelines that are on every journal website. The publisher will not change any information after publishing unless the changes are required based on the publication ethics. Submitted articles must adhere to the instruction that every journal has elaborated. It is crucial that the submitted articles are within the designated scopes of journals; the subjects of each journal will be carefully examined by editors in chief.

Peer Review Process

On submission, papers are assessed by the Editorial Office (Mainly the Editor-in-Chief) to ensure that they are suitable for the full peer-review process. If there are any aspects of the submission that are not complete or require clarification (for example, incomplete figures or author list) then the submission will be returned to the authors at this stage for completion. If the paper is out of the scope of journals or it has poor quality content, the Editor-in-Chief can reject the paper. The Editor-in-Chief also checks the originality of papers using the Plagiarism Engine Detector. Papers with unacceptable similarities to or overlaps with other publications will be rejected.

If a paper is ready for full peer review, the Editor-in-Chief assigns the paper to an Associate Editor (based on expertise). If the associate editor considers that the paper warrants full peer review, then they will assign two independent reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief may assign papers to reviewers directly.

EurAsia Academic Publishing Group (EAPG) journals follow a single-blinded and double-blinded process of peer review. Reviewers selected are not able to check other reviewers’  comments, and the reviews received are completely independent.

When reviewers’ reports have been received, the Editor-in-Chief or associate editor assesses the reports, makes the decision on the paper, and mails the decision letter to the authors. On a rare occasion, if reviewer reports are conflicting, then the editors (here, we refer to the editor in chief or associate editor) can solicit the opinion of a third reviewer.
The decisions that can be made by editors are:

  • Accept as it stands
  • Accept with minor revisions
  • Major revisions invited
  • Revise and submit as a new paper (papers that have this decision require substantial revision, and the paper would be considered as a new submission and undergo the full peer review process if submitted again)
  • Reject and transfer
  • Reject outright

Authors are given either 1 month (minor) to 2 months (major) to revise their papers. Authors can request longer if needed. If not returned within the 1 or 3 month times the papers may be subjected to a long peer-review process. If a revised paper has not been received after 1 year (and there has been no contact from the authors requesting additional time), then the paper will be treated as a new submission if submitted again.

For revised papers, a point-by-point response to the reviewer reports received should be submitted, along with the revised paper. Once a revised paper has been received, it will be assessed by the editors who handled the peer review of the original version. At this point, the editors can evaluate the revision themselves or can assign the revised paper to the reviewers who examined the original version. After completion of the second round of the peer-review process, the final decision is then made on the paper and sent to the authors by editors.

It is possible that the peer review process will be repeated after the second revision if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the authors are able to improve their papers step by step.

After acceptance, the publication team will proofread and create the paper’s layout. During this production period, the corresponding author must check for and be responsive to possible queries.

The peer-review process must be clear and unbiased. Peer-review transparency is considered a crucial factor in the journal’s policies. To pursue this significance, EAPG is negotiating to start a close connection with Publons. Reviewers can add their reviews to Publons where they can track, verify or recognize the comment made in the next future.

The journal profiles in Publons may be endorsed by reviewers. We encourage researchers and reviewers to register in Publons and share their review experiences.

Appeals

If you wish to appeal a decision that has been made on a paper, the process followed is set out below (and in accordance with the Code of Conduct and Best Practice for Editors and Publishers, published by COPE).

  1. Author contacts the publisher’s office to appeal a decision.
  2. The paper will be sent to an independent member of the Editorial Board for assessment of the original reviewer reports and the original decision. In some cases, the person handling the paper can be the Editor-in-Chief.
  3. During an independent assessment, the adjudicating member of the Editorial Board may consult with the original reviewers and/or authors.
  4. Following an independent assessment, a final decision on the appeal will be sent to the authors.

Note that if there is a further dispute, the Editor-in-Chief will be called upon to make the final decision. 

Ethical Processes

(i) Animal experimentation

Experiments with animals should comply with national legislation and local Institutional Review Board requirements and there should be a statement about this issue in the paper. In the absence of any national regulations, authors/reviewers can seek advice from the Editorial Office. For additional information on the reporting of work on animals, please see the ARRIVE Guidelines. In particular, please ensure that in your paper you state the site where the animal work has taken place, and where the ethics approval has been sought/obtained.

In addition, research, where chloral hydrate is used as an anaesthetic, will not be considered because this agent does not provide analgesia and its use in animal experimentation no longer reflects best practice. 

(ii) Human experimentation

Papers describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the research has been carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Research should comply with national and Institutional Review Board requirements for ethical approval and informed consent. In the absence of any national regulations, authors/reviewers can seek advice from the Editorial Office.

(iii) Scientific publication

Our aim is to maintain the highest level of research integrity.

The publisher encourages journals to become members of COPE. EAPG is a member of ALPSP (the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) and endorses the guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), including the Code of Conduct for Editors, which are available at http://www.publicationethics.org/. Any objection to the journal process or decision should be handled by the Editor-in-Chief, and the publisher’s actions should be based on the COPE rules.

Notwithstanding, the Editorial Board will not accept papers where the ethical aspects are, in the Editorial Board’s opinion, open to doubt.

EAPG believes that the Editorial Boards of its journals have a duty to protect the scientific record and content accuracy. Therefore, any apparent misconduct will be thoroughly investigated regarding both published and unpublished papers and their research settings.

EAPG journals also follow the guidelines COPE published regarding the retraction of articles

a) Plagiarism and duplication submissions

As the primary goal of EAPG (member of Crossref) is the integrity of research content, people involved in publishing a paper must avoid unethical issues and misconduct. So we are committed to protecting the authenticity, accuracy, and reliability of the content published by our journals. Therefore, apart from the editorial process in which the content of papers is validated, the iThenticate software is applied to check similarities. There are different facets of plagiarism and misconduct detected by both the publisher and editors. Passages quoted or closely paraphrased from other authors (or from the submitting authors’ own published work) must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the sources of the quoted or paraphrased material must be acknowledged. The use of unacknowledged sources will be construed as plagiarism. The review process will be halted immediately if any manuscript contains plagiarized material.

b) Images
Images will be checked for manipulation when a paper is accepted. The Editorial Board may request that authors supply the original data for comparison against the prepared figures. If authors are unable to comply with such a request, the acceptance of the paper may be withdrawn. The interpretation of this policy is in the hands of the Editorial Board, who judges whether each paper submitted is acceptable in terms of science and presentation.

c) Authorship
Submission of a paper to the EAPG journals implies that it has been approved by all of the named authors, that all persons entitled to authorship have been listed, that it reports unpublished work, that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere in any language, and that conflicts of interest are declared.

EAPG endorses the Vancouver Guidelines on authorship as defined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, namely that entitlement to authorship should be based on the following criteria:

(1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements. On submission, a paragraph outlining the contribution of each author to the study should be included and will be published as part of the paper. Please note that the author list that is provided at submission (and on the accepted paper) is what will be included in the published paper. 

The copyright agreement must be observed and signed by ALL authors. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of content published. Submitting manuscripts to every journal of this publisher means that authors agree with publication ethics and peer review policies.

d) Changes to authorship

  1. As a general rule, extensive changes to the authorship of an article are not permitted. During submission of the original and revised versions of the paper, the corresponding author takes responsibility that all persons listed on the paper should be authors (are eligible for authorship per the criteria described above). Extensive changes to the author list will be investigated on a case-by-case basis, and if it cannot be ascertained why an extensive change has taken place, the paper may be rejected on that basis.  
  2. Authorship changes on submission of a revised version of a paper: Depending on the nature of the revisions asked for in decision letters sent to authors, new author(s) might be added to a revised version of a paper, particularly if new experimental work has been requested as part of the peer-review process, and if the contributions of previously unnamed persons now merit authorship listing on the revised manuscript (criteria for authorship described above). In the event of the addition of authors at revision, the author contribution paragraph at the end of the manuscript must be updated to reflect what the newly added authors contributed to the paper. 
    If any authors are being removed from a revised paper, then it should be clear why that author has been removed, and written confirmation should be obtained from all authors (including the author who has been removed) confirming that they are aware of and agree with the removal of the author.
  3.  Authorship changes following acceptance of a paper and/or during the proof process: we do not support the addition or removal of authors after acceptance.

Conflicts of Interest

Incompatible aims and concerns can result in wrong judgment and decision, therefore, authors must disclose all funding, financial and non-financial support and interests. Lack of transparency in revealing profits and financial resources of research can be considered misconduct. Likewise, it is essential that authors clearly state their affiliations and organizational dependency which might cause contradictions. People who are involved in the submission, and peer-reviewing process must consider the significance of conflicts of interest. Reviewers and editors are not excluded. Reviewers must decline manuscripts in which they might share the same interest. If reviewers or editors are in the peer-reviewing process and they identify that they might share the same interest, they have to inform the publisher or editor in chief

Examples of conflicts of interest that should be declared are (but are not limited to):

  • employment (where you will receive financial gain)
  • consultancy (where you will receive financial gain)
  • personal relationships
  • academic competition

Open Access

Since the open access policy seeks to ensure that authors’ discoveries and findings are freely available, EAPG provides the full open-access option to ensure that authors are compliant with their funder mandates. For full details of the open access options available, please take a look at our open access policy.

Data Policy

EAPG encourages Authors to share their data and upload raw data and datasets to open data repositories for publication. We do not stipulate a particular repository but encourage Authors to find a suitable repository by visiting http://www.re3data.org/.

During article reviewing, authors might be asked to present the raw data which might be necessary as a part of article evolution when editors need to check the accuracy and reliability of data and analysis. 

Reuse and Permissions

For full details of the policy around reuse of work, please take a look at our Rights and Permissions information.

Pre-publication Policy

EAPG welcomes submissions of work that was previously presented as a poster and/or work that has been posted to a pre-prints server.
Placing a pre-submission version of an article on a pre-prints server and/or publishing and presenting research as a poster is not considered as duplicate publication.
Extensions of preliminary work or work previously presented in abstract form are welcomed. For example, we welcome as new submissions any content published on forums such as BioRxiv.

Confidentiality

It is evident that the publishers will access various kinds of information and data that we, as the publisher, are responsible to protect. EurAsia Academic Publishing Group (EAPG) completely preserved users’ metadata and information.
Likewise, editors and reviewers are committed to preserving authors’ information and their research content until possible work publication. They are not allowed to reveal or use the authors’ information and scholarly content without the authors’ permission. Editors also have to keep the confidentiality of reviewers’ identities. However, to follow the transparency of peer-reviewing policies, reviewers can agree to transfer their comments to the Publons environment.

Please contact Ethics@eaapublishing.org, if you have any question about our editorial policy.