Publication Ethics and Policy

Amity Journal of Training and Development (AJTD) Editors follow the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and support the development of consistent ethical standards among the global researchers. Amity Journal of Training and Development (AJTD) is an International, Indexed, Biannual, Double-blind Reviewed and Refereed Journal.

Publication Ethics are the guidelines for editors, reviewers and authors to maintain the integrity of the peer review and publication process. 

Ethical Guidelines for the Editors

• Editors should give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for publication and should judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
• Editors must keep the peer-review process confidential. They must not share information about a manuscript with anyone outside the peer-review process.
• Editors may reject a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if they consider it to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope.
• Editors must ensure that all manuscripts considered for review must be reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers.
• Editors must inform the researchers about steps taken to ensure that submission from editorial board members receives an objective and unbiased evaluation.
• Editors should make all reasonable effort to process submissions in time.
• Editors should not re-consider decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
• Editors should publish author’s guidelines so that the researcher is well aware of the journal standards and the requirements.
• Editors’ decision to accept or reject the manuscript for publication should be based on the manuscript importance, originality and clarity, managerial implication & societal implication and its relevance to the standards of the journal.
• If the editor receives a credible allegation of misconduct by an author, reviewer, or editorial board member, then the matter should be investigated.
• Any data or analysis presented in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor’s own research without the consent of the author.
• Editors should publish reviewer’s guidelines.
• Editors must provide new editorial board members with guidelines on their roles & responsibilities and should keep existing board members updated on new policies & developments.
• Editors must encourage reviewers to comment on the originality of the submissions and be alert of redundant publication & plagiarism.
• Editors should acknowledge the contribution of the reviewers in the journal.
• Editors must encourage academic institutions to recognize peer review activities as part of their scholarly process.
• Editors must monitor the performance of reviewers regularly.
• Editors must maintain a database of potential reviewers and add them to the Review Board on a continuous basis.
• Editors must remove reviewers from the Review Board who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality reviews or late reviews.
• Editors should actively seek the views of editorial board members, reviewers, readers & authors about the ways of improving the journal’s standards.
• Editors must take initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics.
• Editors must act if they suspect any misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. It extends to both published and unpublished papers.
• Editors must adopt systems to detect plagiarism in submitted manuscripts. 
• Editors should have systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.
• Editors should work to safeguard the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing reported or suspected misconduct (research, publication, reviewer & editorial) in conjunction with the publisher.

Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

• Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer review process by ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The peer review process depends to a large extent on the trust and willing participation of the scholarly community and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Reviewers are essential to the scholarly publishing process as the journal follows double blind review. Researchers rely on peer review to corroborate their research and add value to it through critical engagement, before publication. As specialists in a given area of research, reviewers are well placed to assess the soundness of another author's work and share their own knowledge, furthering the research.  Peer review assists the Editor in making editorial decisions and through editorial communications with the author may also assist in improving the paper. Journals have an obligation to provide transparent policies for peer review, and reviewers have an obligation to conduct reviews in an ethical and accountable manner. Clear communication between the journal and the reviewers is essential to facilitate consistent, fair and timely review. Reviewers are generally asked to observe good reviewing etiquette.
• Reviewer must be courteous to respond to an invitation to peer review within a reasonable time-frame, even if they cannot undertake the review. Reviewer should agree to review only if he/she is able to return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame. Reviewer must inform the journal promptly if the circumstances change and one cannot fulfil the original agreement or if one requires an extension. If one cannot review, it is helpful to make suggestions for alternative reviewers if relevant, based on their expertise and without any influence of personal considerations or any intention of the manuscript receiving a specific outcome (either positive or negative).
• Reviewers should provide accurate personal and professional information about their expertise, including verifiable and accurate contact information. It is important to recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct. When approached to review, reviewers must agree to review only if they have the necessary expertise to assess the manuscript and can be unbiased in their assessment. Reviewers must identify clearly any gaps in their expertise when asked to review.
• Reviewers must keep the peer-review process confidential and should not share information or correspondence about a manuscript with anyone outside the peer-review process unless otherwise authorized by the Editor.
• Unpublished information or material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.
• Reviewers must give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for consideration for publication. They should judge each manuscript on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).
• Reviewers must declare all potential competing, or conflicting interests and must raise if they are unsure about a potential competing interest that may prevent them from reviewing a manuscript. Competing interests may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature.
• Reviewer should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review, or agree to review a manuscript that is very similar to the one which is under preparation or under consideration in another journal.
• Reviewer must inform the Editor if misconduct occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript, or one may notice substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article. They should provide maximum details of such work. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
• Reviewer must inform the Editor if inaccurate, unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organizations or people in a submitted article or if it is considered that the article could be potentially libellous; clarification will be sought from the author.
• Reviewers must provide a constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and appropriately substantial peer-review report (as per the journal’s guidelines) and avoid making statements in their report which might be construed as impugning any person’s reputation.

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

• Authors must ensure that the manuscript submitted should be an original and unpublished work. Authors should ensure that their manuscript as submitted is not under consideration (or accepted for publication) elsewhere. Where sections of the manuscript overlap with published or submitted content, this should be acknowledged and cited.
• An author should not, in general publish, manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical behaviour.
• Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original manuscript and if the authors have used the manuscript and/or words of other researchers; they must ensure that this has been appropriately cited or quoted and necessary permission has been taken for the same. 
• Authors submitting articles/papers/cases for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright, infringement of proprietary right, invasion of privacy, or libel and will indemnify, defend, and hold Amity Journal of Training and Development (AJTD) or sponsor(s) harmless from any damages, expenses, and costs against any breach of such warranty. For ease of dissemination and to ensure proper policing of use, papers/articles/cases and contributions become the legal copyright of the AJTD unless otherwise agreed in writing.
• Authors must ensure that their contribution does not contain any libellous matter or infringe any copyright or other intellectual property rights or any other rights of any third party.
• Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the development of the manuscript. All those who have made substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author(s) must ensure that all appropriate co-author(s) and no inappropriate co-author(s) are included in the paper and that all co-author(s) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed in principle to its submission for publication.
• Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of original submission. Editor will consider only in exceptional circumstances the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript submission.
• Authors are collectively responsible for the submitted manuscript and each individual author is accountable for ensuring the accuracy or integrity of the manuscript.
• Authors must declare all sources of external research funding in their manuscript and a statement to this effect should appear in the acknowledgement section. Authors should describe the role of the funder in the entire research process, from study design to submission. 
• The listing of authors should accurately reflect who carried out the research and wrote the article, and the order of authorship should be jointly determined by all of the co-authors.
• All authors should be aware of the submission of their paper to the journal and agree to the main author signing a Copyright Form on their behalf.
• Authors should obtain permission to reproduce any content from third-party sources (text and images).Unfortunately, the Journal is unable to publish third-party content for which permission has not been obtained (excluding content covered by fair dealing).
• Authors should declare any potential conflicts of interest relating to a specific article.
• Authors should inform the editor or publisher if there is a significant error in their published piece, and work with the editor to publish an erratum, addendum or retraction where necessary.
• Authors have the right to appeal against editorial decisions.
• AJTD reserves the right to withdraw and rescind any acceptance, should a case of ethical misconduct be discovered prior to publication.