Publication Ethics

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must ensure that all submitted content is accurate, original, properly cited, and ethically prepared. All listed authors must have made meaningful scholarly contributions and must approve the final version of the manuscript before submission.

• Submit only original work.
• Provide accurate data and results.
• Disclose funding sources.
• Disclose conflicts of interest.
• Obtain ethical approvals where required.
• Provide accurate authorship information.
• Disclose significant AI use when applicable.
• Cooperate with editorial investigations.

Authorship and Contributor Responsibilities

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the research, manuscript preparation, data analysis, methodology development, interpretation, or study design. Guest authorship, honorary authorship, purchased authorship, ghost authorship, and authorship manipulation are unacceptable.

Changes to authorship after submission may require written agreement from all authors and editorial approval.

Plagiarism, Similarity and Duplicate Publication

IJMORA may screen submissions for plagiarism, duplicate publication, text recycling, excessive overlap, inappropriate paraphrasing, translated plagiarism, and unattributed content reuse.

Similarity reports are used as editorial guidance and are evaluated within context. Editorial decisions are based on the nature, extent, location, and significance of the overlap rather than a single percentage value.

• Direct plagiarism.
• Self-plagiarism.
• Duplicate publication.
• Translated plagiarism.
• Image plagiarism.
• Improper paraphrasing.
• Uncredited reuse of figures or tables.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Fabricating data, inventing experimental results, modifying observations, selectively removing results, altering statistical outcomes, or intentionally presenting misleading conclusions constitutes serious research misconduct.

Authors may be asked to provide raw data, laboratory records, survey records, source files, statistical outputs, or supporting evidence when concerns arise.

Image Manipulation Policy

Images, figures, microscopy results, gels, spectra, chromatograms, medical images, graphs, and visual data must accurately represent the original observations. Manipulation that changes scientific meaning, removes information, adds false information, or misrepresents results is prohibited.

Reasonable adjustments to brightness, contrast, color balance, labeling, and presentation may be acceptable if scientific interpretation is not affected.

Artificial Intelligence and AI Disclosure

Meaningful use of artificial intelligence tools for writing, translation, coding, data analysis, image preparation, literature summarization, or content generation must be disclosed where applicable. AI systems cannot be listed as authors.

Authors remain fully responsible for all AI-assisted content, including factual accuracy, originality, references, interpretations, calculations, images, and conclusions.

Peer Review Integrity

Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and avoid conflicts of interest. Review reports should be objective, evidence-based, respectful, and focused on improving manuscript quality.

• No reviewer identity manipulation.
• No fake reviewer accounts.
• No review trading arrangements.
• No confidential information disclosure.
• No use of manuscripts for personal advantage.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, editors, and guest editors must disclose financial, institutional, personal, academic, commercial, professional, or collaborative relationships that could influence decision making or interpretation.

Potential conflicts do not automatically prevent publication but must be disclosed and appropriately managed.

Citation Manipulation and Reference Ethics

Authors should cite relevant literature based on scholarly value rather than citation metrics. Excessive self-citation, citation cartels, coercive citation requests, citation padding, or irrelevant citations intended to influence metrics are not acceptable.

All references should be accurate, verifiable, and genuinely relevant to the manuscript.

Research Involving Humans, Animals, and Sensitive Data

Research involving human participants, clinical information, patient data, surveys, interviews, biological samples, animals, or sensitive personal information must comply with relevant ethical standards and approvals.

Authors must provide ethical approval details, informed consent information, and data-protection compliance statements where applicable.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

If significant errors, ethical concerns, unreliable findings, misconduct allegations, or serious publication issues are identified after publication, IJMORA may issue corrections, expressions of concern, editorial notices, or article retractions following investigation.

The journal aims to preserve the scholarly record while ensuring transparency regarding any post-publication changes.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal editorial decisions when supported by scientific evidence or procedural concerns. Complaints regarding peer review, editorial handling, publication ethics, authorship disputes, reviewer conduct, or publication decisions will be evaluated fairly and confidentially.

Editorial Investigations

IJMORA reserves the right to investigate allegations of misconduct before or after publication. Investigations may involve authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, funders, and other relevant parties when appropriate.

Possible outcomes include correction, rejection, withdrawal, retraction, account restrictions, institutional notification, publication bans, or other appropriate actions.

Final Ethics Statement

IJMORA believes that responsible scholarly publishing depends on honesty, transparency, fairness, accountability, and scientific integrity. All participants in the publication process share responsibility for maintaining trust in academic research and preserving the quality of the scholarly record.