Allegations of misconduct
Essachess’ process and policies for identification of/dealing with allegations of misconduct
Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies through his Ethics Committee is vigilant in upholding the ethical standards of research conduct and publishing, and takes appropriate actions on forms of misconduct such as (the list is not exhaustive):
- Falsification and fabrication of data (i.e. manipulative or willful suppression and/or misrepresentation of data, omission, contradictory data, etc.);
- Plagiarism and/or misuse of intellectual property (i.e. using language, ideas, and/or thoughts of existing or previously published articles/papers/materials without appropriate reference to the original source, etc.);
- Non-compliance with common research practices (i.e. failure to comply with accepted and ethical practices regarding research design, manipulating procedures or results to obtain pre-determined results, etc.);
- Non-conformity to research guidelines (i.e. conformity with recognized guidelines, laws and standards, non-violation of regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, drugs, biological or chemical materials, etc.);
- Authorship (i.e. submitting multi-author drafts without the consent of all authors, improper attribution of author credits, etc.).
Suspected cases of misconduct should be reported to Essachess’ Ethics Committee respecting confidentiality and international established standards and guidelines. Essachess’ Ethics Committee is consisted of the Essachess Editor-in-Chief, and associate editors. The Editor-in-Chief chairs it. Its role is to respond to the complaints received by the editorial staff. If necessary, the Editor-in-Chief will include Essachess’ reviewers or/and advice from the advisory board in the process to obtain their opinion.
Concerns of any form of publication misconduct, as described above or in other established standards, laws, and guidelines, should be e-mailed to Essachess Editorial Office at essachess@gmail.com.
The form letter bellow could be used.
Form letter: To Editor regarding a suspected case of misconduct
Any letter should include all of the following:
- First Name and Last Name
- Title of article and elements of identification
- Allegation of misconduct (suspected case of misconduct) – please clearly specify which violation is suspected
- Original documents or materials (i.e. articles, papers with plagiarized passages and copy of sources not quoted, non-compliance with common research practices, falsification, authorship, etc.)
Form letter: To author regarding a published article
Date
Title of article and date of publication
To the attention of (the author)
Dear author,
Information about the existence of concerns.
Description of the nature of concern based on the communication raising the concern (which would violate the publishing policies)
Answer request within 30 days.
Further actions and measures depending on the nature of corresponding author’s response (inform or/and involve research institution, funding agency, etc.).
Sincerely,
Editor name
Journal will publish errata/corrections, clarifications, or retractions of any materials where appropriate.