Publishing Policy and Ethics

Openness

Authorship
All contributors who have made a significant contribution should be given chance to be cited as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the work should be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate.

Competing interests
All authors, referees and editors must declare any conflicting or competing interests relating to a given article. Competing interests through their potential influence on behaviour or content or perception may undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of publication.

Sources of funding
Funding received for the work described in the paper or for the publication itself, for all authors, must be declared within the publication.

Ethical Policy

Our World Scientific Publications adhere to the standards guided by the core practices and policies outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follow the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

WORLD SCIENTIFIC'S POSITION STATEMENT ON AUTHORSHIP AND AI TOOLS

Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is harmful for knowledge. It could mislead other researchers.

Research results
Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. The results of research should be recorded and maintained to allow for analysis and review. Following publication, the data should be retained for a reasonable period and made available upon request. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances in order to preserve privacy, to assure patent protection, or for similar reasons.

Research involving human and animals
For studies that involve human participants, authors must state that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. If in doubt the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. For experiments on animals, authors must indicate whether the international, national, or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution which the studies were conducted.

Plagiarism
Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. Exceptions are the review articles. Authors may not present results obtained by others as if they were their own. Authors should acknowledge the work of others used in their research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of their study.

World Scientific is a member of CrossCheck, a multi-publisher initiative to screen published and submitted content for originality. All manuscripts submitted will be checked for plagiarism (copying text or results from other sources) and self-plagiarism (duplicating substantial parts of authors' own published work without giving the appropriate references) using the CrossCheck database. Plagiarism is not tolerated. If plagiarism is discovered postpublication, we will follow our guidance outlined in the Corrections and retractions section.

Duplicate submission
Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated. The submitted article will be removed without consideration.

Corrections and retractions
All authors have an obligation to inform and corporate with journal editors to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works.

• The journal will issue retractions if:
• There are clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
• It constitutes plagiarism;
• It reports unethical research.

• The journal will issue errata if:
• A small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error);
• The author list is incorrect (i.e. a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Other forms of misconduct include failure to meet clear ethical and legal requirements such as misrepresentation of interests, breach of confidentiality, lack of informed consent and abuse of research subjects or materials. Misconduct also includes improper dealing with infringements, such as attempts to cover up misconduct and reprisals on whistleblowers.

The primary responsibility for handling research misconduct is in the hands of those who employ the researchers. If a possible misconduct is brought to our attention, we will seek advice from the referees and the Editorial Board. If there is the evidence, we will resolve the matter by appropriate corrections in the printed and online journal; by refusing to consider an author's future work, for a given period, and by contacting affected authors and editors of other journals.

Minor misdemeanours may not lead to formal investigations, but are just as damaging given their probable frequency, and should be corrected by teachers and mentors.

Peer Review Policy

Peer Review for Books
Please refer to Peer Review Process for books

Peer Review for Journals
We are committed to prompt evaluation and publication of fully accepted papers in all World Scientific publications. To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a rigorous review process. Characteristics of the peer review process are as follows:

• Simultaneous submissions of the same manuscript to different journals will not be tolerated.
• Manuscripts with contents outside the scope will not be considered for review.
• Papers will be refereed by at least 2 experts as suggested by the editorial board.
• In addition, Editors will have the option of seeking additional reviews when needed. Authors will be informed when Editors decide further review is required.
• All publication decisions are made by the journal's Editors-in-Chief on the basis of the referees' reports. Authors of papers that are not accepted are notified promptly.
• All submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. We expect our Board of Reviewing Editors and reviewers to treat manuscripts as confidential material as well.
• Editors and reviewers involved in the review process should disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and remove oneself from cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective evaluation. Privileged information or ideas that are obtained through peer review must not be used for competitive gain.
• If an Editor on the journal's Board submits to the journal, peer review will be conducted independently, and all efforts will be taken to minimise bias in the peer review process.
• Our peer review process is confidential and identities of reviewers cannot be revealed.

Recommended Citations in Peer Review
During the peer review process, or when authors have their work provisionally accepted for publication, they may encounter instances where Handling Editors or peer reviewers ask them to consider citing additional sources to ensure a more comprehensive discussion. These references may include papers published in the same journal. World Scientific strongly opposes the practice of demanding authors to include references solely to boost citation numbers without any scientific justification, commonly known as "coercive citation". Nevertheless, we acknowledge that there are situations where suggesting recent items for inclusion is valid, particularly when they guide readers to relevant discussions related to previous issues of the Journal. The decision to incorporate such references is solely left to the authors and must not be a prerequisite for manuscript acceptance. Authors who believe they are facing undue pressure to include such references are encouraged to contact ethics@wspc.com.

Content availability and open access

At World Scientific, we are committed to disseminating high quality research to as wide an audience as possible. We offer the following types of open and free access options to our publications:

Journals Gold Open Access
World Scientific currently publish more than 120 journals offering 'Gold' publishing options in either dedicated Open Access or hybrid journals.

Through WorldScientificOpen Journals, authors may have their final version of their papers published on an open access basis, granting on publication, immediate and unrestricted access to the final published version of the paper, by payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). This is made available using the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or (CC BY-NC) licence. It also allows immediate deposit of the final published version in other repositories without restriction on re-use.

Journal Green Open Access
Authors can post the preprints of their research papers anywhere at any time. Authors can also post the accepted author manuscripts of their research papers freely available at the end of an embargo period of 12 months following official publication or later, by placing them on personal websites, subject or institutional repositories or as stipulated by the Funding Agency.

For more details, please check out our Author Rights page.

Books Open Access
Through WorldScientificOpen Books, we provide authors with the option of publishing their work under the Gold Open Access model. All our usual publishing standards and services continue to apply, and the works are made freely available online through a Creative Commons Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license, so they can be reused and redistributed for non-commercial purposes as long as the original author is attributed.

Compatibility with funding body requirements
WorldScientificOpen is in full compliance with the latest open access mandates so authors can ensure their research is freely available online, freely redistributed and reused.

Advertising Policy

The acceptability of an advertisement for publication in WSPC publications or on the WSPC website is based upon legal, social, professional, and ethical considerations. In addition, an advertisement must be in keeping with the generally scholarly and professional nature of the publication

Long Term Electronic Archiving Policies

All journal articles and ebooks published by World Scientific are archived at Portico which provides long-term preservation.

How to raise a concern

We strive to adhere to the standards guided by the core practices and policies outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Anyone who believes that research published by World Scientific has not been carried out in line with these principles should raise their concerns with the relevant editor, or email ethics@wspc.com

Concerns will be addressed by following COPE guidelines where possible.

Ethics and Integrity Committee
Dr. Rick Lee (General Manager)
Dr. Sun Han (Journal Development Deputy Director)
Tone Lim, Tai (Deputy Director, E-Publishing)
Joanne Ratcliffe (Journal Commissioning Editor)
Nijia Liu (Editor)
Carmen Teo (Acquisition Editor)