Publication Ethics

1. Authorship

Authorship credit should be based on meeting the following criteria: 1) substantial contribution to the paper’s concept or design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or reviewing it and introducing fundamental changes; 3) final approval of the version to be published.

All persons designated as authors and co-authors should meet these criteria. All persons who have made significant scientific contributions to the reported work and who therefore share responsibility for its content and results should be identified as co-authors. Authors should also appropriately recognize the contributions of technical staff and data professionals. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship (e.g., those providing financial support) should be listed in the “Acknowledgements” section (financial disclosure). Editors retain the right to request written information about the contributions of each person to the article.

Authors should also be aware that the following are examples of scientific misconduct and must be avoided: ghostwriting and guest authorship.

A group of co-authors should jointly decide the order in which their names are listed. During manuscript submission, the submitting author must provide contact information (full name, email address, institutional affiliation, and mailing address) for all co-authors. The author who submits the manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for notifying all co-authors that the manuscript is being submitted. The corresponding author must complete and sign the Statement of Originality (if there are two or more authors), which should be submitted together with the manuscript.

All detected cases of scientific misconduct will be documented, and the appropriate institutions and entities will be notified.

2. Sources of Data and Ideas

Authors are required to faithfully acknowledge and identify the contributions of other persons to their reported work, as well as clearly identify the sources of both data and ideas. Authors should cite all publications that have been important in the development of the submitted study and that will guide readers to earlier research essential for understanding the present analysis.

Authors are required to make reasonable and diligent efforts to find and accurately cite original sources and publications. Authors should present scientific data and literature as reliable only when the sources have been personally verified or are peer-reviewed.

Authors must not engage in plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Plagiarism is the verbatim or near-verbatim copying, or paraphrasing without adequate modification, of text, data, or other material containing the results of another person’s work without explicitly identifying the source. Similarly, self-plagiarism is the reuse of an author’s own previously published text or results without acknowledging the source. By promoting the publication of original research, HRMARS editors are committed to deterring plagiarism and self-plagiarism and may use special software to screen submitted manuscripts for similarity to previously published material. Manuscripts may be screened throughout the editorial cycle, including during submission and up to final publication in online or print form.

3. Duplicate Publications

It is prohibited for an author to submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal for primary publication, unless the manuscript is being resubmitted after rejection or withdrawal from publication. An author is required to organize their paper so that it provides a well-rounded description of the issue being examined. Fragmentation of research reports excessively consumes journal space and unduly complicates literature searches; therefore, authors are expected to avoid it whenever possible.

4. Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest is a situation in which the research and publication process may be compromised, or its results may be biased, because of other interests held by its participants. It may concern any one or more participants in the research and publication process—the author, reviewer, or editor. Conflicts of interest may arise for financial reasons (e.g., employment opportunities, fees, other compensation arrangements, or beneficial ownership of stock) or other reasons (e.g., personal relationships, pursuit of an academic career, intellectual passion, or political involvement) that could reasonably be expected to influence the motivations or actions of participants in the publication process.

Conflicts of interest constitute a serious threat to the integrity and objectivity of scientific research and publishing. Therefore, the best practice for authors, reviewers, and editors alike is to avoid situations involving conflicts of interest whenever possible.

All participants in the publication process who are in a situation involving a conflict of interest must disclose this fact. Of particular importance, if the original research study reported in the manuscript or the preparation of the manuscript was supported by one or more grants, the title and number of the grant(s) and the name of the institution(s) that provided the grants or financial support to conduct, analyze, or write up the study must be specified in the manuscript.

Editors of HRMARS journals may use information disclosed in conflict-of-interest and financial-support statements as a basis for editorial decisions. The corresponding author must either notify the editor at the time of submission that there is no conflict of interest to declare or clearly and accurately disclose all conflicts of interest, which will then be acknowledged in the published article.

5. Reviewing and Editing

All HRMARS journals are peer-reviewed journals. Submitted papers and short communications are evaluated by independent referees or Editorial Board members specializing in the relevant field. Our reviewers evaluate the scientific significance and novelty of the submitted material, assess its conformity with the journal’s general profile, and scrutinize its content for compliance with the journal’s publication ethics. After the peer-review process is complete, the paper may be rejected, returned to the author for revisions, or accepted for publication.

The authors are responsible for the content of their papers or short communications. Editors may request authors, when considered necessary, to elaborate on the content or technical details of their papers. Scientific editing may involve changes to the format and corrections to the writing to ensure compliance with the journal’s editorial policy.

Pictures and graphs are subject to special editorial consideration, and their quantity should be appropriate and limited to what is necessary for the papers. Pictures, graphs, and textual content are all subject to ethical standards concerning authorship and integrity. Additionally, whenever images are included in accounts of the research process or results, or in data collections, the author must provide an accurate description of how the images originated.

6. Open Access Policy

HRMARS journals provide immediate open access to their content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Copyright in articles published in HRMARS journals is retained by the authors, with first-publication rights granted to the journal. HRMARS is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author’s responsibility to bring an infringement action if the author so desires.

7. Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered on our site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of our journals and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

8. Content license

HRMARS applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license for scholarly work it publishes. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.