General duties and responsibilities of Editors for Decision Science Letters


In Growing Science Journals we adopt the COPE guidelines on publication ethics.

In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, editor-in-chief and editorial boards are held responsible for all published materials in their journals. They do their best

• to meet the necessary requirements of readers and authors;
• for continues improvement on the journal’s materials;
• to make sure about the quality of published materials;
• to ensure about freedom of expression;
• to keep the integrity of all academic record;
• to include all business requirements from compromising intellectual standards;
• and to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when they are necessary.


Relations with readers

Readers are always informed about the people who funded research and on the role of any funders in the research.


Relations with authors

In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, editors are held responsible to take any necessary actions to make sure the quality of published materials, recognizing that journals and sections within journals will have various objectives and standards.

All Growing Science Editors’ decisions to accept or reject any paper for publication are solely based on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the research’s relevance to the remit of the journal.

A description of peer review processes are published, and editors also constantly justify any important deviation from the described processes.

All Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against Editorial decisions and they could ask editors to reconsider their decision by providing necessary facts and reasons.

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, all editors publish guidance to authors on everything, which is expected. This guidance are also regularly updated.

Editors do not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are detected with the submission. In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, our new editors do not have the permission to overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are determined.

New Editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous Editor unless serious problems are identified.

Relations with reviewers

In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, editors are responsible to publish guidance to reviewers on everything, which is expected. This guidance are regularly updated and all interested parties are referred or related links.


In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, editors have appropriate systems to make sure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected.


The peer-review process

In all Growing Science journals including Decision Science Letters, editors have the access to appropriate systems to make sure that material submitted to their journal are kept confidential while they are under review process.

Complaints

In Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, Editors follow the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart. All editors respond to complaints quickly and make sure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further by sending an email to editor-in-chief of the journal. This mechanism are made clear in the Journal and include information on how to refer unresolved matters to COPE (Click here for more information) .


Encouraging debate

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, cogent criticisms of published works are welcome for publication unless editors have convincing reasons on why they are not entitled for publication. Authors of criticized material are also given the opportunity to respond.

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Lerrers, Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an especially sympathetic hearing.

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Lerrers, Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.



Encouraging academic integrity

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, editors should ensure that research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines,

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, Editors should seek assurances that all research has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board). However, Editors should recognise that such approval does not guarantee that the research is ethical.


Protecting individual data

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters, Editors should protect the confidentiality of individual information (e.g. that obtained through the doctor–patient relationship). It is therefore almost always essential to prepare written informed consent from patients described in case reports and for photographs of patients. It may be possible to publish without explicit consent if the report is important to public health (or is in some other way important); consent would be unusually burdensome to obtain; and a reasonable individual would be unlikely to object to publication (all three conditions must be met).

Pursuing misconduct

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters:

Editors are responsible to act if they suspect misconduct. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.

Editors do not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They are ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.

Editors have to first look for a response from those accused. If they are not satisfied with the response, they must ask the relevant employers or some appropriate body (perhaps a regulatory body) to investigate.

Editors have to follow the COPE flowcharts where applicable (Click Here).
Editors have to make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted; if this does not happen,

Editors have to make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem. This is an onerous but important duty

Ensuring the integrity of the academic record

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters:

Whenever it is recognised that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report has been published, we take the necesary actions to correct promptly and with due prominence.

If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction will be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.

Relations with journal owners and publishers.

The relationship of Editors to publishers and owners is based on the principle of Editorial independence. Notwithstanding the economic and political realities of their journals, Editors should make necessary decisions on which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for readers rather than for immediate financial or political gain.

Commercial considerations

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters:

Editors have declared policies on advertising in relation to the content of the journal and on processes for publishing supplements.

Misleading advertisements are refused, and Editors are willing to publish criticisms, according to the same criteria used for material in the rest of the journal.

Reprints are published as they appear in the journal unless a correction is to be added.

Conflict of interest

In all Growing Science Journals including Decision Science Letters:

Editors have appropriate systems for managing their own conflicts of interest as well as those of their staff, authors, reviewers and Editorial board members.

• A complaint may be referred to COPE by an author, reader, reviewer, Editor or publisher. Cases may only be referred if the Editor/journal in question is a member of COPE.

• In the first instance complaints against an Editor can be made directly to him or her in writing. If the complaint is not resolved satisfactorily, it should be passed to the Editor’s overseeing body or ombudsman or to the president of Growing Science at editor@growingscience.com.
Only complaints that have been through the journal’s complaint’s procedure can be referred to COPE. In referring a complaint to COPE, all relevant correspondence should be enclosed.

• COPE will accept referrals made within six months of the journal completing its own complaints procedure. COPE may consider cases outside this time period in exceptional circumstances.

• COPE will not consider complaints about the substance (rather than the process) of Editorial decisions, or criticisms about Editorial content.

• COPE will not consider referrals that relate to incidents that occurred before the publication of this code.


When a complaint is referred to COPE:

1. The referrer submits a complaint to the Administrator.

2. The COPE Administrator confirms that the complaint is: a. against a member of COPE

b. within the remit of the Code

c. unresolved after passing properly through the journal’s complaints procedure

d. relating to an incident that occurred after this code came into force (1 January 2005)

3. The referrer is asked to provide evidence, with all relevant supporting documents including correspondence relating to the hearing of the complaint by the journal, in confidence to the Chair of COPE.

4. The Chair of COPE informs the Editor of the journal in question that the complaint has been referred to COPE.

5. A number of potential scenarios may occur:

a. The Editor refuses to cooperate, in which case, the Chair of COPE informs the referrer and the owner of the journal.
b. The Editor replies stating his/her case:

i. The Chair of COPE, with one other nominated Council member, decides that the journal has dealt with the complaint satisfactorily and advises the referrer and Editor accordingly.

ii. The Chair of COPE, with one other nominated Council member, decides that there is a need for further investigation, advises the referrer and Editor accordingly, and reports this to an appropriately constituted sub committee of the COPE Council.

6. The sub-committee considering the complaint will consist of at least the Chair and three other members of COPE Council. Two of the members must not be Editors. None of the sub-committee members should belong to the same publishing group as the Editor in question.

7. If the Chair belongs to the same publishing group as the Editor in question, s/he will appoint an appropriate deputy to oversee the proceedings.

8. When the case comes to the sub-committee, the sub-committee either:

a. dismisses it, and the referrer and Editor are so advised and given reasons

b. reaches the view that a breach of the code has taken place.
When the sub-committee is of the view that a breach of the code has taken place it presents a report to the COPE Council explaining the nature of the breach and recommending a course of action.

9. The COPE Council considers the report and may modify the recommendations. The Council informs the referrer, the Editor and the owner of its final recommendations. These recommendations may include:

a. that the Editor apologise to the original complainant;

b. that the Editor publish a statement from COPE in his/her journal;

c. that the journal improve its processes;

d. that the Editor resigns from COPE membership for a period of time; or

e. any other action which the COPE Council feels is appropriate given the circumstances of the case.



Appeals procedure

Appeals against a COPE recommendation may be made to COPE’s ombudsperson, contact details for whom will be provided on request.



Appeals procedure

Appeals against a COPE recommendation may be made to COPE’s ombudsperson, contact details for whom will be provided on request.

Guidelines for disclosure of conflicts of interest (authors)

In Decision Science Letters, the journal follows the COPE guidelines on how to handle the potential acts of misconduct.

Authors have to refrain from misrepresenting research outcomes which may destroy the trust in the journal, the proficiency of scientific origination, and eventually the entire scientific attempts. Having an integrity of the research and its presentation is facilitated by following rules of outstanding scientific practice, including the following:

The article does not have to be submitted to more than one journal for concurrent consideration and must be original which was not previously published in part or complete elsewhere, unless the new work is considered as an expansion of the previous work. The research paper study cannot be split up into different parts to enlarge the number of submissions and be submitted to different journals or to one journal over time. Simultaneous publication is often justifiable, which may end up translations of a paper which is considered for a various group of readers. Results must be presented clearly and with no fabrication, falsification or unsuitable data manipulation. Authors ought to keep up discipline-specific disciplines for choosing and processing the necessary data. An appropriate acknowledgement has to be given to other works, summarized, quotation marks (to show words taken from other sources) are implemented for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

Authors have to make sure they have the necessary permissions to use the required software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in the accomplished studies (if appropriate). Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) ought to cite the relevant literature to support their claims. We discourage any inappropriate self-citation. Authors are advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all appropriate at submission. Adding and/or removing authors during the revision stages is only accepted under special circumstances.

Upon request authors have to be prepared to present the relevant documentations or data to verify the validity of the results given in the paper.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

If there is any misbehavior the Journal and/or Publisher may carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there is valid evidence, the author(s) concerned will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the circumstances, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

If the manuscript is still under review, it may be rejected and the case is closed. If the article is published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction: an erratum/correction may be executed. The reason will be available in the published erratum/correction, editorial expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction indicates that the paper is kepts on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the description for the retraction is given in a note associated with the article and the institution will also be informed about the issue.

Fundamental errors

Authors deserve an obligation to correct mistakes when they detect a significant error or their article. The author(s) is/are may contact the journal and describe in what sense the error is influencing the article. The article may be subject to correction or retraction.

Updated November, 2021