Publication Ethics Statement
The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling believes that publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of work of the author and the institutions that support them. It is, therefore, important to agree upon standards of the expected ethical behavior. To ensure the highest level of scientific and editorial ethics, the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling follows the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) not-for-profit organizations which aim to support publishers and editors to achieve high standards in publishing ethics (https://publicationethics.org/). All parties involved in publishing in the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling, i.e., the Author, Editors, and Editorial Board Reviewers as well as the Publisher, are expected to observe the following standards of ethical behavior.
Duties of Authors
Originality and Acknowledging Sources: Authors should ensure that they have written an entirely original work, and if the authors have used the work and words of others, this needs to be properly cited and referenced. Proper acknowledgment of others’ work must always be given. The authors should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the scope of the reported work.
Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication: In general, authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research more than once. On certain conditions, the fact of multiple publication might be justified (see COPE Core Practices https://publicationethics.org/core-practices/), but it must always be disclosed and given under consideration to our Editors, who will consider a given case. When authors submit manuscripts to our journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity until the final decision is made by the Editor of the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling, unless a journal is explicit that it does not have an exclusive submission policy. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Declaration on Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure: Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest, including financial, consultant, institutional, and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. Authors are therefore required to provide a list of all relationships, conditions, or circumstances that present a potential conflict of interest, or if none exists, to provide a statement to that effect. This should appear on the title page of the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the conduct of the research and preparation of the manuscript should be disclosed on the title page. Additionally, the role of the funding source(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, then this should be stated on the title page of the manuscript.
Authorship of the Manuscript: The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations on authorship (see ICMJE Recommentations http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). Accordingly, all authors should have sufficiently participated in the work to take responsibility for the content, either all of it or a significant part of it. Substantial contributions must have been made in each of the \following four areas; 1) Conception and design of the work or interpretation of the data for the work; 2) Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) Approval of the version submitted for publication; 4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved. Anyone not meeting the four criteria should be acknowledged in the manuscript rather than be designated an author. 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 have agreed to its submission for publication. All activities associated with scientific unreliability, especially with “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” will be exposed and documented. In case of suspicion of such situations taking place, action will be taken in compliance with the rules prepared by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Reporting Standards: Authors of original articles should present an accurate account of the conducted research and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. The manuscript should contain sufficient details and references to allow others to replicate the study. The fabrication of results or making fraudulent or inaccurate statements is deemed unethical behavior and may result in rejection or retraction of a manuscript or a published article.
Institutional Review Board Statement: All research studies on humans (individuals, samples or data) must be performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. Prior to starting the study, ethical approval must be obtained for all protocols from the local Institutional Review Board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee to confirm that the study meets national and international guidelines for research on humans. A statement to confirm this must be included within the manuscript, which must provide details of the name of the ethics committee and reference/permit numbers where available. When a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee which provided this should also be included.
Informed Consent Statement: Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that the informed consent has been obtained from all human subjects involved in the research study.
Data and Supporting Evidence: We expect authors to maintain accurate records of supporting evidence necessary to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate new findings, and to supply or provide access to this supporting evidence, on reasonable request. Where appropriate and where allowed by their employer, funding body or others who might have an interest, we encourage authors to: 1) deposit evidence in a suitable repository or storage location, for sharing and further use by others; and 2) describe where the evidence may be found in a Data Availability Statement which authors should include in their publication.
Data Analysis: All sources and methods used to obtain and analyze data, including any electronic pre-processing, should be fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided for any exclusions. Methods of analysis must be explained in detail, and referenced, if they are not in common use. The Discussion section of the manuscript should mention any issues of bias which have been considered and explain how they have been dealt with in the design and interpretation of the study.
Image Integrity: It is not acceptable to enhance, obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Manipulating images for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes could be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly.
Plagiarism: The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling does not tolerate using other’s ideas, words, or work without acknowledgment. Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications, to submission under “new” authorship of a complete manuscript, sometimes in a different language. All sources should be disclosed, and if large amounts of other people’s written or illustrative material is to be used, permission must be sought. Submissions containing plagiarism in whole or part, duplicate and redundant publication or self-plagiarism will be rejected without review. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript through and after the evaluation and publication process with the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors. It is also unacceptable to submit manuscripts to the Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling hat have previously been published anywhere in any language.
Fundamental Errors in the Published Works: When the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the manuscript.
Duties of Reviewers
Confidentiality: Reviewers receive a blind copy of the manuscript, and they are not informed of the Author’s name and affiliation. All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except those authorized by the Editor.
Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively without any bias to the country in which the research has been conducted, the subjects’ race, age, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Personal criticism of the Author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers should identify the relevant published work that has not been cited by authors. Any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published article should be reported to the editor.
Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer reviews assist the editor in making editorial decisions and may help authors to improve the scientific value of their manuscript. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and recommendations.
Promptness: Reviewers should complete their reviews within a specified timeframe as requested by the Editor or Associate Editors. Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to assess the research reported in the manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should notify the editor immediately and excuse himself/herself from the review process.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider evaluating manuscripts in which they have (or suspect having) conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relations with any of the authors, companies, or institutions involved in writing the manuscript.
Duties of Editors
Monitoring the Ethical Standards: The editorial board monitors the ethical standards of scientific publication and takes all possible measures against any publication malpractices.
Publication Decisions: The Editor is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should or should not be published. The decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication is based on its importance, originality, clarity, and its relevance to the scope of the journal.
Fair Play: The submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual and scientific content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, citizenship, or political ideology. The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling ensures the publication process which is free from any bias.
Confidentiality: The Editor and Consulting Senior Editor must ensure that all materials submitted to the journal remain confidential while under review. They must not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript and the content of the research therein to anyone other than the Authors, Associate Editors, Other editorial advisers, and the Publisher.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in the submitted manuscript must not be used by the editor and the Editors or Reviewers in their own research without written consent of the Authors. Editors and Reviewers must not compromise intellectual and ethical standards in this respect. The Editor must not be involved in decisions about manuscripts which have been written by the Editor or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the Editor has an interest.
Investigations: Editors shall conduct a proper and fair investigation into ethical complaints.
Maintaining the Integrity of the Academic Record: The Editors will guard the integrity of the published academic record by issuing corrections, clarifications, apologies and retractions, as may be relevant when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. Plagiarism and fraudulent data are unacceptable. The Journal of Faith Integration in Counseling Editors will consider retracting a publication if: 1) they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or an honest error (e.g. miscalculation or an experimental error); 2) the article (or major parts of the article) has been published elsewhere despite the author’s declaration; 3) the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (cases of redundant publication); 4) it constitutes plagiarism or reports unethical research.
References
COPE Guidelines on Editors in Chief Sharing
Elsevier Policy on the Permanence of the Scientific Record
Elsevier Policy on Editorial Independence