Recently, there have been many issues related to academic misconduct, such as multiple submissions, paper mills, and so on. Rahmitasari (2024) summarized several academic violations in her review on The Conversation Indonesia page. Here are five points of violations that are often committed, and the policies taken by IAES:
- Plagiarism: this involves the intentional or unintentional use of another person’s work, words, or ideas without proper citation or permission. As part of IAES’ commitment to protecting the integrity of the scientific record, IAES has a strong obligation to support the scientific community in all aspects of research and publishing ethics. All submitted manuscripts must be free of plagiarized content. All authors are advised to use plagiarism detection software to perform a similarity check before submitting their manuscript to the journal (use iThenticate or Turnitin to check similarity). The editors will also check manuscripts in this journal for similarity using Turnitin or iThenticate software. Manuscripts will be rejected immediately if plagiarism is indicated or detected. Manuscripts that are ready for printing will also be checked again for similarity. The similarity rate of the whole manuscript should not exceed 25 percent, and the similarity rate with a single source should not exceed 10 percent.
- Unauthorized authorship (Ghostwriting): This involves someone who contributed significantly to a research or writing project but was not given credit for it. The IAES policy is that authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the conception, design, conduct, or interpretation of the reported study. All people who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. If others have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the manuscript and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and approved submission of the manuscript for publication.
- Fabrication and falsification: This involves fabricating or falsifying research data and results. This could include manipulating materials, equipment, or research processes. IAES implements a conventional single-blind review policy where the names of the reviewers are always concealed from the authors submitting the manuscript. Authors must present their papers honestly without fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or inappropriate data manipulation.
- Multiple submissions involving submitting the same research paper to multiple journals simultaneously are considered unethical and not accepted. Authors should only submit original work that has not been published or is under review for another referenced publication. IAES does not allow manuscripts currently under review for a journal or conference to be simultaneously reviewed for other publications. Multiple submissions can lead to copyright infringement, conflict of interest, and waste of resources. In addition, it can also lead to confusing citation and indexing. Therefore, multiple submissions should be carefully avoided.
- Conflict of interest: This involves publishing research influenced by personal interests or conflicts. All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that could be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project must be disclosed.
In the pursuit of excellence in academic publishing, it is important to avoid violating the principles of ethics and scientific integrity. This article has discussed five points that are often overlooked in academic publications, such as plagiarism, contributor acknowledgment, and data honesty. Hopefully, this article will help raise awareness of the importance of integrity in every aspect of academic life.
By: I. Busthomi
