Ethical Consideration

RMR Publishers acknowledges, honors and applies all standards of Publication Ethics.

Publication Ethics

RMR Publishers acknowledges, honors and applies all standards of publication ethics in accordance with general consensus as promulgated in HEC‘s Code of Conduct for Journals, and other catalogs of ethical standards. RMR Publishers refuse plagiarism of any kind.

By the very act of submitting articles to RMR Publishers, authors affirm that their contents are original and their article had neither been published elsewhere, nor it is under review for publication anywhere. The following duties are obligatory for authors, editors and reviewers associated with the RMR Publishers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards: Authors of research studies should present an accurate account of their original research, whether theoretical or empirical, as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are unacceptable.

Originality and plagiarism: Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works and they appropriately refer to works and/or words of other authors.

Remember; By submitting a manuscript to the journal, it is understood that it is an original manuscript, unpublished work and is not submitted elsewhere. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author’s own work, in whole or in part without proper citation is not tolerated by the journal. Plagiarism appears in various forms such as copying the same content from the other source; most commonly from the internet, copying elements of another author’s paper such as figures, tables or illustrations that cannot be considered as common knowledge.

Self-plagiarism is also not allowed. Journal defines self-plagiarism as the intentional or unintentional reuse of one’s own copyrighted work without citing the original source. However, this policy doesn’t apply to the manuscripts presented/appeared in any conference proceeding from the author’s side and an explicit reference is made.

Plagiarism Check

Firstly, Journal checks plagiarism with the software recommended by HEC Pakistan. Secondly, it is checked manually by the team IMSTS. If plagiarism is detected by the editorial/advisory board member, reviewer etc., at any stage of article process- before or after acceptance, during editing or at a proofreading stage, we will inform the same to the author(s) and will ask them to reconsider the content or to cite the references from where the content has been taken. HEC Pakistan has already set the acceptable limit of similarity index produced by the TURNITIN i.e. 19%. If the similarity with different sources is more than 19% but less than 25% (With single-source not exceeding 5%), we prefer to send back the manuscript to the author and ask him to resubmit the paper after fixing that problem. But, if more than 25% of the paper is plagiarized, the article may be rejected and the same is notified to the author.

Plagiarism Detected after Publishing

Sometimes, TURNITIN appears not very much efficient regarding the detection of plagiarism from the papers written in Urdu. In that case, if the plagiarism is detected manually and reported with proof after publishing, IMSTS will conduct an investigation. In case if plagiarism is found, the paper may be formally retracted. The editor will write to the author(s), author(s)’ institute and/or funding agencies about that and the paper containing the plagiarism will be marked “Plagiarism Detected after Publishing” (or similar statement) on each page of the PDF Copy. Moreover, author(s) will be banned for the next issues of IMSTS as well as for the other journals published under Rehmat and Maryam Researches until resolving this issue.

Plagiarism Undertaking

The authors must declare that their work is original at the time of submission. For this, an undertaking/acknowledgment form has been given in the Article Submission Form, stating that author(s) has not plagiarized any material and if found guilty he/they shall be solely responsible and IMSTS reserve the right to take action against him/them. Author(s) is required to submit that form duly signed and stamped at the time of manuscript submission by Email to the IMSTS. It’s clearly stated that in IMSTS Plagiarism Policy, if a paper has multiple authors, not only the principal author but also all the authors would be bound to take the responsibility of the plagiarism so they all would be required to submit the said undertaking/acknowledgment. While, in case of plagiarism found, author(s) would not only be blacklisted or banned from the journal but their names will also be displayed publicly on the journal website.

Procedure for Appeal

Author(s) may appeal to the editor in case of;

  • The rejection of a research paper during a blind peer review process.
  • Notifying plagiarism in the paper and blacklist or banned the author(s)
  • Someone’s report of misquoting him/her in a paper.
  • Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
  • Infringement of Ethical boundaries in any manner.
  • Extracting any part of the research from someone’s thesis/dissertation without provable permission.
  • The objection of someone other than the author(s) as he/she was also part of this research/project but his/her name is not mentioned in the author(s) list.
  • Research traces as the part of someone’s already finalized work, academic achievement or similar.
  • Misuse of any reference until it is not interpretation, discourse analysis, or personal assessment drawn from the referred material.

Remember; author(s) have 20 days to address any objection, concern, report, or complaint. Otherwise, or however, Unsatisfied and/or unjustified answers authorize the editorial board regarding taking a decision to

  • Notify traced issues/plagiarism on each page of your paper.
  • Published a note about issue along with the title of your paper.
  • Blacklist or banned the author(s) involved in violation of publication ethics and other policies defined by the journal, and publicized their names on the journal website.

Data access and retention: In case of research studies of empirical nature authors should provide raw data related to their manuscripts for editorial review, and they also must retain such data.

Multiple publications: Manuscripts based on the same research are usually published exclusively in only one journal. In case of an update or extension of a previously published article, a reference to the original publication ought to be explicitly acknowledged.

In justified cases, the Editorial Team may decide to publish a manuscript that had been previously published in another media, either in its original or modified form. Such cases include, for instance, an extraordinary contribution to human understanding of the matter provided by the article. Then an explicit reference to the original publication is made in the re-published paper along with copyright acknowledgements.

Acknowledgment of sources: Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in their articles and refer to all publications they had been working with.

Authorship of the paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study.

Disclosure of financial support and conflicts of interest: Authors should disclose any conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results of their manuscript. Sources of financial support for the article should be also disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works: If at any point of time, authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript or published work, then the error or inaccuracy must be reported to the Editor-in-Chief without delay.