In order to standardize the publishing process for Journal of Ceramics and ensure quality of the journal, according to the “Ethical Standards for the Publication of Scientific and Technological Journals of China” issued by the Association for Science and Technology, as well as those of International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Elsevier, etc., the Editorial Office formulates publication Ethical Standards for all the Authors, Reviewers and Editors.
1. Ethics for Authors
All manuscripts (except for review articles) must be based on the Authors’ original works, while the contents should be scientifically accurate, without data fabrication, misrepresentation and plagiarizing. Otherwise, it will be dealt with seriously as academic misconduct.
All manuscripts must not contain national secrets and infringements, while literatures must be cited by clearly indicating their sources.
The Authors must make sure that their manuscript is not submitted to other journals simultaneously and will only be submitted to other journals after rejection. Meanwhile, manuscripts must not be repeatedly published or split into multiple ones. If the Authors wish to publish their manuscript in foreign language (e.g., English), they should grant approval of the Editorial Office.
Authors in the author list of the manuscripts shall not be added or deleted at will, while all the Authors have their contributions in one way or other.
The Authors must state conflict of interest if any, by clearly describing the interest relationships and potential impact on the research results.
The Authors should cooperate with the Editorial Office, by providing with original data and original figures, while they are also responsible for corrections of their manuscript.
The Authors should revise manuscript strictly accordance to the Reviewers’ comments or suggestions. If the Authors have any objection, they should appeal to the Editorial Office.
2. Ethics for Reviewers
Reviewers should have strong responsibility and high scientific literacy and respect the Authors’ efforts, without prejudice or discrimination due to the difference in race, society status, religion or research field.
The Reviewers should objectively and fairly evaluate all the manuscripts, in terms of innovation, science, rationality and readability, while clearly indicating the problems and putting forward useful suggestions, in order for the authors to improve the manuscript.
The Reviewer should submit their review reports in time, without unreasonable delay. If the Reviewers cannot finish the review timely, they should inform the Editorial Office of the reason and time for the delay, so the Editorial Office will decide whether to change the Reviewer.
When a Reviewer is assigned a manuscript from his/her acquaintance or a manuscript with conflict of interest, he/she should turn down the review invitation or inform the Editorial Office to invite other Reviewers.
The Reviewers must keep the manuscript confidential, should not disclose the contents in any way and should not plagiarize data, ideas and conclusions of the manuscript. At the same time, the Reviewers must review the manuscript in person, instead of entrusting others to review, without the consent of the Editorial Office.
When a previously reviewed manuscript is encountered or academic misconduct is found in the manuscript, the Reviewer should report to the Editorial Office in time.
3. Ethics for Editors
Editors should treat all the manuscripts fairly, justly and timely, with accept or rejection only according to the innovation, importance, practicability and authenticity of the manuscript, as well as the purpose of the journal and the scope of the reporting fields.
If an Editor has conflict of interest or cooperation with the Authors of a manuscript, he/she should not deal with the manuscript, so that the Editor-in-Chief or other Editors could take over the manuscript.
Editors shall keep the manuscript confidential and shall not plagiarize data, ideas and conclusions of any manuscript. At the same time, the Editors are obliged to keep the identities of the Authors, the Reviewer and the Editors confidential.
Editors should respect the originality of all manuscripts. If the key points of a manuscript must be modified, the Authors’ consent should be obtained. Throughout the manuscript processing, the Editor should keep full communication with the Authors and the Reviewers, so as to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Editors should abide by Publishing Ethics, by scrutinizing all the manuscripts to prevent multiple submission or academic misconduct. From the submission to publication, a manuscript should be carefully checked for at least two times.
The Editors should not select Reviewers that are colleagues of the Authors and must not invite any Author to review his/her manuscript. Meanwhile, they should invite experts familiar with or close to the research field to review the manuscript. The Reviewers recommended by the Authors should be carefully examined in order to avoid any conflict of interest. Also, the Editors should respect the Authors when they wish to avoid specific experts if any.
The Editor should not interfere the Reviewers in the reviewing process for any personal reasons. They should respect the comments of the Reviewers. At the same time, they should also carefully consider the Authors’ appeals regarding to research contents or academic ethics. If necessary, the Editors should review the manuscript through collective discussion or invite experts in the fields to independently review the manuscript.
Editors should encourage academic debate and allow a hundred of thoughts to strive. Scientifically rigorous works should be published, even though they are negatively commented by the Reviewers, so as for others to learn from.
4. Peer review statement
All submissions will be preliminarily assessed, according to the scopes of our journal. Generally, at least one reviewer will be invited to evaluate quality of the manuscripts that have passed the preliminary screening, in the form of double-blind peer review. The Editor-in-Chief will make a final decision of accept or reject.
5. Copyright and Permission
To implement the national copyright laws and regulations and regulate the rights and obligations of both the publisher and the authors, the journal has the following agreements with the authors.
(1) The authors take sole responsibility for their manuscripts, without political mistakes, involving state secrets, infringing upon any copyright and other rights of others. In case of infringement or disclosure, the authors shall bear all responsibilities and compensate all losses caused to the journal and publisher. No manuscripts of the authors will be accepted in two years.
(2) The authors should guarantee that their manuscript is not been submitted to other journals at the same time. The journal or publisher has the right to ask for compensation, if the manuscript is submitted to other journals simultaneously. The authors will be banned to submit their manuscripts to the journal.
(3) The authors are willing to transfer the rights of compilation (part or whole manuscript), translation, reproduction of printed and electronic versions, network communication and distribution to the journal and publisher.
(4) The rights in (3) cannot be transferred to others in any form, but the authors may use their papers (part or whole) as citation or translation. The papers can also be used to compile non-journal collected works.
(5) This agreement is automatically terminated as the authors receive the notification that their manuscript has been rejected. If the authors haven’t received any notification from the journal after submission for 60 days, they have right to process their manuscript with a notification to the journal.
(6) The authors shall pay publication fees to the journal, according to the publisher’s charging standard. There are no publication fees if the manuscript is published in other forms by the journal or publisher.
(7) After the manuscript is published in the journal, the authors will be paid remuneration according to the publisher’s standard.
(8) Other matters that are not covered, in case of any dispute, will be resolved by the two parties through negotiation. If the negotiation fails, the dispute will be dealt with according to the “Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China” and relevant laws and regulations.
(9) All contributors to the journal are assumed to have fully understood the contents of the agreement and accept the rights and obligations conferred in the agreement.
6. Plagiarism check
There are many types of academic misconduct, and all the unethical behaviors in the form of plagiarism, falsification, ghostwriting, etc. are unacceptable. The Editorial Office will put the submitted papers on the CNKI (China National Knowledge Internet) platform for academic misconduct check to prevent academic misconduct papers from being published. Only papers that pass the academic misconduct check can enter the preliminary review stage. Under any circumstances, the editors would not encourage such misconduct, or deliberately allow such misconduct to occur. If Editorial Office learns of any allegations of research misconduct on a paper, we will first verify it. If the paper does have academic misconduct, the editorial department will withdraw the manuscript on the official website as soon as possible and issue a withdrawal statement. The Editorial Office will issue corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies as necessary.
Editorial Office
Journal of Ceramics