Publication Ethics Ethical Standards and Publication Integrity of NADI: Journal of Health Sciences

Core Principles of Publication Ethics

✓ Research integrity ✓ Responsible authorship ✓ Independent peer review ✓ Editorial independence ✓ Ethical oversight ✓ Confidentiality and privacy ✓ Transparency and accountability ✓ Post-publication integrity

1. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted manuscripts represent original, accurate, and ethically conducted research. All data, analyses, results, and conclusions must be reported honestly and must not be fabricated, falsified, manipulated, or intentionally misrepresented.

• The manuscript must represent original scholarly work.
• The manuscript must not be simultaneously submitted to another journal.
• All sources and previous studies must be properly cited and acknowledged.
• All listed authors must have made legitimate scholarly contributions.
• Research funding and potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed.
• Required ethical approval and informed consent must be obtained where applicable.
• Authors must cooperate with correction, clarification, investigation, or retraction procedures when necessary.

2. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the conception, design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, or preparation of the research manuscript. All authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission and publication.

3. Originality and Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted to NADI: Journal of Health Sciences must be original. Plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, unattributed copying, translation plagiarism, duplicate publication, or substantial reuse of previously published material without appropriate acknowledgement is prohibited.

Manuscripts may undergo similarity screening before peer review. Similarity reports are evaluated substantively by the editorial team and are not interpreted solely on the basis of an overall percentage.

4. Fabrication and Falsification

Fabrication	Creating, inventing, or reporting data, observations, results, or information that did not genuinely result from the research.
Falsification	Manipulating research materials, instruments, processes, images, data, or results so that they no longer accurately represent the research conducted.

5. Ethical Approval and Ethical Clearance

Research involving human participants, animals, identifiable health information, biological materials, or other activities requiring ethical oversight must comply with applicable ethical standards and institutional requirements.

6. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants must respect the dignity, safety, privacy, confidentiality, autonomy, and rights of participants. Authors must ensure that research procedures comply with applicable ethical requirements and have received appropriate ethical approval when required.

Research involving vulnerable populations requires particular attention to participant protection, informed consent procedures, confidentiality, and ethical oversight.

7. Informed Consent

Authors must obtain appropriate informed consent from research participants when required. Participants should be adequately informed about the nature and purpose of the research, relevant procedures, potential risks or benefits, confidentiality arrangements, and their rights as research participants.

When identifiable patient information, photographs, case descriptions, or other potentially identifiable materials are included, appropriate consent for publication must be obtained where required.

8. Patient Privacy and Confidentiality

Authors must protect the confidentiality and privacy of patients and research participants. Personally identifiable information should not be published unless it is scientifically essential and appropriate consent has been obtained.

Names, initials, medical record numbers, photographs, institutional identifiers, or other information that may reveal participant identity must be appropriately removed, anonymized, or protected unless disclosure is ethically and legally justified.

9. Animal Research Ethics

Studies involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and disciplinary standards for animal welfare and ethical research. Authors should provide relevant ethical approval information and describe appropriate measures used to minimize unnecessary suffering or harm.

10. Clinical Trials and Health Research Registration

Where registration of a clinical trial or other health research is required by applicable standards, authors should provide the registration platform, registration number, and other relevant information within the manuscript.

The reporting of clinical and health research should be sufficiently transparent to permit readers to understand the study design, participants, interventions, outcomes, analysis, and limitations.

11. Duplicate and Multiple Submission

Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. A manuscript that has already been published must not be resubmitted as a new work merely by changing its title, wording, author order, or other superficial elements.

Redundant or overlapping publication must be transparently disclosed and appropriately referenced.

12. Conflict of Interest and Competing Interests

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, institutional, academic, professional, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably influence, or appear to influence, the research, interpretation of results, peer review, or editorial decision.

Editors and reviewers must withdraw from handling manuscripts where a significant conflict of interest may compromise independence or impartiality.

13. Funding Disclosure

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support, research grants, sponsorship, institutional funding, or other material support related to the research.

Where no specific funding was received, authors should provide an appropriate statement indicating that the research received no specific financial support.

14. Research Data and Reproducibility

Authors are responsible for maintaining accurate research records and preserving relevant supporting data. Where appropriate and ethically permissible, authors are encouraged to make research data sufficiently available to support verification, replication, and further scholarly investigation.

Data sharing must respect participant confidentiality, informed consent, ethical approval requirements, intellectual property rights, and legitimate institutional or legal restrictions.

15. Peer Review Ethics

Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial assessment are evaluated through the journal's peer-review process. Reviewers are expected to provide objective, independent, constructive, evidence-based, and academically relevant evaluations.

• Review only manuscripts within their area of competence.
• Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts and review materials.
• Declare potential conflicts of interest.
• Avoid discriminatory, personal, or inappropriate criticism.
• Provide constructive comments supported by scholarly reasoning.
• Never use unpublished information obtained during review for personal or professional advantage.

16. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for maintaining the fairness, independence, confidentiality, quality, and integrity of the editorial process.

• Editorial decisions must be based on scholarly merit and relevance to the journal's scope.
• Editors must select reviewers with appropriate competence.
• Editors must maintain confidentiality throughout the editorial process.
• Editors must evaluate reviewer recommendations critically.
• Editors must avoid conflicts of interest.
• Editors must take reasonable action when credible allegations of misconduct are received.

17. Use of Artificial Intelligence

18. Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

NADI: Journal of Health Sciences takes allegations of misconduct seriously whether identified before or after publication.

Fabrication	Falsification	Plagiarism
Improper authorship	Duplicate submission	Undisclosed conflicts
Data manipulation	Citation manipulation	Peer-review manipulation

When credible concerns arise, the Editor may request explanations, original data, ethical approval records, informed consent documentation, research protocols, or other relevant evidence. Appropriate actions will depend on the nature and severity of the case.

19. Corrections, Erratum, Corrigendum, and Retraction

The journal is committed to preserving the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. Errors or ethical concerns identified after publication will be addressed transparently and proportionately.

Action	Purpose
Erratum	Correction of errors introduced during journal production.
Corrigendum	Correction of author-originated errors that do not invalidate the entire article.
Retraction	Used when findings are seriously unreliable or serious misconduct compromises the integrity of the article.

A retracted article will not simply be deleted from the journal archive. The publication record and relevant metadata will be preserved, while the article will be clearly identified as retracted and linked to an appropriate retraction notice.

20. Post-Publication Discussion

The journal supports responsible scholarly discussion after publication. Readers, authors, researchers, or other stakeholders may submit legitimate concerns regarding published articles to the editorial office.

Where appropriate, the journal may facilitate clarification, author responses, corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other corrective measures.

21. Complaints and Appeals

Authors and other stakeholders may submit legitimate complaints or appeals concerning editorial procedures, peer review, ethical issues, editorial conduct, or publication decisions.

Complaints and appeals will be considered fairly, confidentially, and without retaliation. Where appropriate, the matter may be evaluated by an editor or responsible party who was not directly involved in the original decision.

22. Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, unpublished data, ethical documentation, and other information obtained during the editorial process must be treated as confidential.

Such information may only be disclosed to individuals who are legitimately involved in the editorial, review, publication, or ethical investigation process.

23. Intellectual Property

Authors must respect intellectual property rights and appropriately acknowledge copyrighted or previously published materials. Permission must be obtained where required for reuse of figures, tables, photographs, questionnaires, instruments, or other protected materials.

Copyright ownership and licensing arrangements are described separately in the journal's Copyright and License policy.

24. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal's scope, and contribution to health sciences.

Editorial decisions must remain independent from inappropriate commercial influence, sponsorship, institutional pressure, personal relationships, or other interests unrelated to scholarly merit.

Publication Integrity Commitment

NADI: Journal of Health Sciences does not compromise scientific and ethical standards for administrative, financial, promotional, or publication-speed considerations. The journal does not guarantee manuscript acceptance. All accepted research articles must complete the required editorial process. Peer review must not be bypassed for non-academic reasons. Letters of Acceptance are issued only after formal editorial acceptance. Publication schedules must not compromise editorial integrity or scientific quality.

Summary of Ethical Responsibilities

Party	Primary Ethical Responsibility
Authors	Originality, accurate reporting, legitimate authorship, ethical compliance, informed consent, disclosure, and correction of errors.
Reviewers	Independent assessment, confidentiality, competence, constructive review, and disclosure of conflicts.
Editors	Fair decisions, appropriate peer review, confidentiality, independence, research integrity, and misconduct handling.
Publisher	Protecting editorial independence, supporting ethical procedures, maintaining the scholarly record, and preserving publication integrity.

Ethical Reference

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/