Zeal Press strives to fully adhere to Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Zeal Press implements a publication process strictly adhering to its ethical policies and standards. This is done to ensure that only high-quality scientific studies are being added to the existing research pool. In case any ethical issue comes up, we are committed to investigate it and take actions as deemed required for maintaining the integrity of the literature while simultaneously ensuring the safety of research participants.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS:

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Zeal Press journals must follow the below Ethics guidelines:

• Any possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be clearly disclosed in the paper prior to submission.

• Any change to the author list including the order of names during the editorial process or after acceptance for publication should be approved by all authors, including any who have been removed. Zeal Press reserves the right to request evidence of authorship, and changes to authorship after acceptance will be made under its vigilance.

• Data and methods used in the research article should be presented in sufficient detail unless there is compelling justifications otherwise.
• Simultaneous/concurrent submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not permitted.

• There is absolutely no room for any form of plagiarized work. Submitting an article to Zeal Press journals for publication means the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take necessary action in case any plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered.
• If the submitting author wishes to publish translations of the previously published articles by some other publisher he/she should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), clearly indicating that the material has been translated and re-published, and provide the primary source of the material. If the Editor-in-Chief senses some overlap he/she may request the related publications to be provided to the publisher.

• Authors should not recommend collaborators or colleagues who work in the same institution as themselves as peer reviewers. Recommended reviewers should have no conflicts of interest that may include (but not limited to) the below:

1. The reviewer should not be aware of your submission
2. There must be no recent collaboration between suggested reviewer and any of the authors.

The suggested reviewer’s institutional email address and ORCID or Scopus ID will be required to help the Editor verify the identity and expertise of the reviewer.

• For any previously published content (including quotations, figures or tables), necessary permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder and provided to the publisher.
• If any of the authors finds any error/ inaccuracy in the manuscript after publication, it must be promptly communicated to the Editorial Office through corresponding author.

The above list is expandable; and all authors are advised to keep them abreast with local regulations and accepted criteria practiced in academic publishing.

 ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS:

• Peer reviewers should give their reports in English language.
• Reviewers are instructed that a constructive critical evaluation of the authors’ work must be provided, particularly regarding the appropriateness of methods used, accuracy of the results, and whether the conclusions are supported by the results presented in the article.
• Short, superficial peer reviewer reports which do not provide a good rationale are highly discouraged.
• Reviewers should identify any published work that has not been cited by the authors and mention it in their report.
• Reviewers are requested to inform the journal editor in case of any possible conflict of interests that may positively or negatively prejudice the review report. Usually the Editorial Office keeps an utmost check over this before inviting the reviewers; however, in case of any overlook we appreciate the cooperation of reviewers in this matter. Conversely, if reviewers had previously reviewed manuscript for another journal and they are invited to do so for Zeal Press it is not considered as a conflict of interest per se.
• Reviewers must keep all contents of the manuscript confidential. If they like a student or colleague to complete the review on their behalf, they are obliged to inform the editorial office.
• All Zeal Press journals function with double-blind peer reviews. Reviewers should practice caution not to reveal their identity to the authors in any way in their comments.
• All reviews should be objectively and professionally conducted without any sort of personal criticism to the author. Reviewers are requested to express their academically proficient views clearly with supporting arguments.

For further assistance in reviewing the articles please see, https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers-cope.pdf

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR EDITORS:

The Editorial Office, along with the Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, and Guest Editors is responsible for maintaining the integrity of Zeal Press journals. Below is a brief description of particular ethical aspects of their roles.

• The editor assigned with the responsibility of evaluating a manuscript should make all possible efforts to make sure that the manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without any discrimination based on the authors’ race, gender, religious belief, ethnicity, nationality, or political philosophy.
• If the editor feels ethical reservations regarding the review or acceptance decision of a manuscript, or finds concrete evidence about any ethical violation after its publication, he is supposed to inform the editorial office immediately.
• The editors are responsible to check that the ethical approval and permissions for research has been appropriately obtained if it involves human subjects, animals or cell lines.
• Any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than those involved in the potential review, editorial advisers, and the publishing team members.
• The editor must be vigilant that no piece of unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must be used by anyone who has sighted the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the explicitly written consent of the author.
• When making a final acceptance decision on a manuscript, editors should consider that facts likely to be supposed as a conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the manuscript prior to its submission.
• Editorial decisions should be based on peer reviewer comments that meet these criteria rather than on recommendations made by short, superficial peer reviewer reports which do not provide a rationale for the recommendations.
• Editors are suggested to go through https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/recognising-peer-review-manipulation-cope-infographic.pdf COPE’s directives for ensuring an unbiased and transparent peer review process.