Policy & Ethics

We as the Publisher in our day-to-day activity follow recommendations, the guidelines and the best practices of the world recognized databases as well as academic associations including but not limited to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

As recommended by COPE, for every journal “there must be clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after publication”. Following the COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, Academic OA adopts interpretation of the Conflict(s) of Interest as issue(s) that “may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers and editors”. Conflicts of interest may be also “those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived”. Such issues may result from, amongst others, financial, personal, political, commercial, professional, legal and other relationships between and among the editors, reviewers and authors and shall be clearly declared.

Following the ICMJE recommendations, we require all participants of the publishing process to disclose such apparent and potential conflict(s) of interest.

Authors

If apparent currently existing or potential which may happen in future conflicts of interest are detected by the authors in the process of cooperation with Academic OA, all such issues shall be disclosed to the publisher clearly, openly, fully and immediately after they have been identified. The declaration about conflict(s) of interest existing or anticipated at the moment of the article submission shall be given by the corresponding authors via the checklist during the submission process.

Reviewers

Reviewers shall forbear from reviewing the papers where they may have apparent or potential conflict(s) of interest with the authors or their affiliation institutions within the meanings described above.

Editors

The Editors are in charge of managing all existing or potential conflict(s) of interest among the editors, reviewers and authors and shall settle such conflicts in accordance with the COPE guidelines and best practices. If such conflict(s) of interest can’t be settled, the Editors shall decline and refrain from editorial function as long as such conflicts may influence their professional judgement.

Additional Documents: 

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement 
Open Access Statement 
Conflict of interests 
License and Copyright statement 
Peer-Review and Quality Control 
Policy and Ethics 
Guidelines for Authors 
Guidelines for Reviewers 
Guidelines for Editors 
Conference Ethics and Quality Control