Allegations of Misconduct

IJOHMN rigorously follows its ethical bonds and publication regulations to maintain neutral and unswayed actions. By adopting a zero-tolerance policy on publication misconduct, we promise to protect the rights of intellectual property. Appropriate action will be taken if we find publication misconduct like plagiarism, misrepresentation of authorship, data falsification, fabrication, manipulation in the citation but not limited to these. However, we do not include honest error or differences of opinion. IJOHMN tries to keep misconduct of any kind at bay and does not support unethical or unlawful deeds.

  1. Plagiarism Policy

What is plagiarism?

  • The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Ed.) defines plagiarism as “A piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work.”
  • The American Heritage Dictionary (2nd College Ed.) defines plagiarism as “to take and use as one’s own the writings or ideas of another.”
  • IJOHMN considers plagiarism as the re-use of someone else's research work or ideas or words without acknowledging the original author and source. 

What Constitutes Plagiarism?

  • Handing in someone else’s work as your own.
  • You are putting your name on another person’s research work.
  • Copying words and ideas from somewhere else without giving the citation.
  • Failing to put a quote in quotation marks.
  • Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation.
  • Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving the citation.

Our Policy

  • IJOHMN considers plagiarism as the re-use of someone else's research work or ideas or words without acknowledging the original author and source. It is important for all IJOHMN authors to recognise that plagiarism in any form, at any level, is not accepted and we will consider it as a breach of educational ethics.
  • IJOHMN will not accept any research paper which contains plagiarized, copied, or pirated material. The research work will be rejected.
  • Plagiarism before Publication: The IJOHMN will evaluate plagiarism on its own merits.  If plagiarism is found even after publication, we will have all the rights to retract the manuscript.

Plagiarism Software

  • From 11th July 2021, we are checking plagiarism with Similarity Check (A service provided by Crossref and powered by iThenticate) before that, we were checking plagiarism with Plagiarism Checker X software.

Anti-Plagiarism Declaration

By submitting the paper for publication at IJOHMN, all authors will certify that

    • They are fully aware that plagiarism is illegal & ethically wrong.  Authors must be aware of the fact that plagiarism is the use of another person’s intellectual property, idea, work or published work and pretending it is one’s own work.
    • They declare that each contribution to their article or project has been acknowledged and sources of information from other peoples’ published or unpublished works have been cited properly.
    • They certify that they are solely responsible for the text of the article and research work included in the article along with any incomplete reference.
  1. Misrepresentation of the Authorship

Misrepresentation of authorship is the practice of adding an author name who had not made a substantial effort in the research work.

Authorship provides credit for an individual’s contributions to a study and carries accountability. According to the guidelines for authorship established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), ‘All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.’

An author should meet the following criteria

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the research work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
  • Drafting the research work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
  • Final approval of the version to be published.
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the research work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. It is important to list everyone who made a substantial effort (study conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, drafting revising, approval of final version, including students or laboratory technicians) in completing the research paper, to avoid Ghost Publication.

 Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. It is the collective responsibility of the authors, not the journal to which the work is submitted, to determine that all people named as authors meet all four criteria; it is not the role of journal editors to determine who qualifies or does not qualify for authorship or to arbitrate authorship conflicts.

The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal.  The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication.

When two or three authors have written a research paper, all should decide who will be an author before the work is started and confirm who is an author before submitting the manuscript for publication. All members of the group named as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, including approval of the final manuscript.

Honorary authorship

Do not include your senior member, supervisor or any other person, if he or she has not have made a substantial contribution to your research paper and you include the name of an author along with you. It will be considered as Gift authorship or Honorary authorship.

The author is directed not to violate the above instructions and the author is also advised to check COPE guidelines to avoid anything which is considered unethical in COPE guidelines. If we found any violation of COPE guidelines is done by the author(s), the action will be taken according to COPE guidelines on case to case basis.

  1. Data Falsification

Data falsification is the practice of omitting or altering research materials, equipment, data, or processes in such a way that the results of the research are no longer accurately reflected in the research record.

  1. Data Fabrication

Data fabrication is the practice of inventing or constructing data or results and claim made on research paper on such assumed or incomplete data.

  1. Citation Manipulation

Citation manipulation is an unethical practice to increase citations which are followed by some authors, journals, editors, reviewers or the related persons who will benefit from this misconduct.

  1. Complaints and Appeals

The journal welcomes complaints as they provide an opportunity for improvement. We adhere to COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and we will follow and act according to COPE guidelines on case to case basis for any complains and appeals. The following points are only intended to give a broad overview and are not exhaustive. If there is any kind of allegation of misconduct or conflict of interest arises by authors, reviewers, editors, journals, publisher etc; the below process will be followed

  • To make a  complaint reach us at editor@ijohmn.com with clear identification of the complaint nature and source of an address.  All complaints will be acknowledged within five business days by email.
  • Concern or Issues will be taken seriously and required action will be taken against the complaint.
  • After receiving the response, the appropriate investigation will be initiated.
  • A committee or panel will be formed and a notice will be served by email to the concerned person in 30 days. After receiving the notice, the receiver will be liable to reply back with satisfactory reasons in the next 30 business days. 
  • Our panel will review the case in detail. An unbiased decision or action will be taken based on the final report.
  • For the unpublished manuscript, we will review the allegation and make a preliminary assessment. If our panel decides that there is merit to the allegation, the manuscript will be rejected and the author will be notified about the same.
  • Serious action will be taken like withdrawal, retraction or removal of the paper from publication (if published).
  • Unless there is an issue like plagiarism, misrepresentation of authorship, data falsification (fabrication), manipulation in the citation, the published paper will not be retracted.
  • If you have any complaint or appeal to make against the panel's decision, please address the mail to the publisher and explain clearly the basis for that appeal and submit an appeal to publisher@smartmovesonline.org and appropriate action will be taken.