Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Duties of Editors: Fair play and editorial independence require editors to evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively based on academic merit, quality, and its relevance to the NCGT Journal’s scope.

• Confidentiality: Editors and editorial board members will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other editorial advisors, and the publisher. Any manuscripts received for review are considered confidential documents and must be treated as such among the editorial board and their advisors.
• Publication decisions: The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by reviewers who are experts in the field.
• Involvement and cooperation in investigations: Editors will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised regarding a submitted manuscript or published paper.

Duties of reviewers:

• Contribution to editorial decisions from peer review: Assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts.
• Standards of objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations about manuscripts formulated clearly with supporting arguments.

Duties of the Authors:

• Reporting standards: Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work.
• Originality and plagiarism: Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited.
• Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publications: Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication.
• Fundamental errors in published works: When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper.

Acknowledgement of sources:

• Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
• Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors and can withhold publications based on improper reference.

Disclosure and conflict of interest:

• Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent.
• Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review.
• Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be misconstrued to influence the results or their interpretations in the manuscript.