Disclosure Form

Authors are required to affirm the status of their articles by filling a form (Disclosure Form). Information required from authors in the aforementioned form include:

1. A declaration that the manuscript is original and work by the author or authors so listed.
2. An indication of submission approval by other authors if the manuscript is co-authored.
3. A declaration that the manuscript has not been published or is not being considered for publication by other publishers in the same form or other languages and /or platform.
4. Where copyright concerns are triggered, a written copyright permission is required.
5. Evidence of approval by relevant authorities or communities where research leading to such manuscript requires ethical clearance.

 Correspondence and Contributions of Authors

To ensure effective communication and accountability, IJSI requires that for every manuscript submitted with more than one author, the corresponding author should be clearly identified and the contribution(s) of each author to the manuscript (from conception to submission of the manuscript) should be stated.

 Deliberate Data Manipulation and Forgery

IJSI does not in any way encourage nor would it tolerate falsehood, data manipulations and forgery of any kind, and would therefore, not promote such on its platform. Hence, manuscripts that are proven to contain manipulated/forged data will:

1. not be published if discovery is made before publication and
2. if the article is already published, it will be taken down from the platform immediately the allegation is proven.  
3. Authors of such articles will be punished in line with our in-house rules including not allowing them to publish in IJSI again.     

 

Citation Fraud

Any attempt to deliberately and fraudulently increase the number of citations of an author’s work or published articles in a particular journal, once proven, will attract severe sanctions that may include permanently denying such authors the right to publish in IJSI.   

Redundant Publication

The current practice whereby many unscrupulous authors intentionally split outcomes of a particular study for publication purposes, as several manuscripts is considered as a serious fraud by IJSI reviewers and editors. For deterrence purposes, such manuscripts will not be published once it is spotted.

Repetition of Manuscript/Articles

We are only interested in publishing original manuscripts/research works that have not been published elsewhere and is not also receiving publication attention in another journal. IJSI will rely on available web resources in carrying out background checks on submitted manuscripts to ascertain if it is similar and or overlapping with other published texts or manuscripts receiving attention. We will hold authors accountable for infractions bordering on duplication of materials and appropriate sanctions will be applied including not availing such authors IJSI publication platform in the future. However, where it is necessary and applicable, authors who use their previously published works or works under review, as the basis for the current/submitted manuscript are required to:

1. make appropriate reference(s).
2. state in clear terms, the contribution(s) of the current manuscript to knowledge and how that or those contributions are different from the previous publication(s).    

 Authorship Change

It is advisable that corresponding authors should carefully consider the list of authors and their contributions to the manuscript before submitting manuscript for publication considerations. This becomes necessary because IJSI will rarely consider request for addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors names in the authorship list. However, where it is very necessary to make changes, it is a requirement that such request:

1. should come before final acceptance of such manuscripts.
2. must be accompanied by a statement undoubtedly explaining the reason(s) for such request.
3. evidence that other authors (including the one being added or deleted) is/are aware and have consented to the requested change.
4. must be approved by the Editor-in Chief.   
5. the manuscript will only be published when the foregoing conditions are met.