Red Flower Publications takes all necessary measures to ensure that the highest standards of ethical publication are maintained and takes all forms of misconduct seriously. Red Flower Publications will take all necessary measures in accordance with COPE guidelines to protect the integrity of academic records. Authors should be aware of the issue of misconduct before submitting the articles for publication. Examples of misconduct include (but not limited to):
Plagiarism
This applies to data, images, words or ideas that are not properly attributed from electronic or printed materials. These include abstracts, seminar presentations, laboratory reports, thesis or dissertations, research proposals, computer programs, online posts, grey literature, and unpublished or published manuscripts.
In all cases, the use of such material must be properly acknowledged directly or indirectly and the source of the content must always be cited.
Red Flower Publications uses the plagiarism detection software ‘Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate’ to screen all manuscripts submitted and deal with plagiarism cases according to COPE guidelines. Any manuscript containing a plagiarized material will not be considered for publication.
Duplicate submission/publication
Authors are obliged to declare that the manuscript is not considered elsewhere when submitted, so detecting a duplicate submission or publication is usually considered a deliberate act. These include articles previously published in other languages. In accordance with ICMJE guidelines, in acceptable forms of secondary submissions and publications (such as English-language articles), the author must obtain permission from the publisher and copyright owner of the original article and inform the editor of the receiving journal of the origin of the original article. It is also important that readers are informed that the article is a translated version and that the original citation is provided.
Red Flower Publications accepts unpublished works from the author's thesis, but the thesis must be acknowledged as the source of the work and properly cited in the manuscript. It is recalled that the manuscript submitted contains unique aspects that are not included in the thesis. If the work of a thesis has already been published, it will not be considered an original work and will not be considered for publication. See COPE guidelines for more details on the publication of thesis.
If you have uploaded your manuscript to a non-commercial pre-printed server, you can still submit the manuscript to the Red Flower Publications journal. We do not consider posting on a pre-printed server to be a duplicate publication and this does not jeopardize publication consideration. We require that you acknowledge in the disclosure section of your manuscript that your manuscript is also available on (name of non-commercial preprint server).
- If you submit a manuscript to a pre-printed server, you must acknowledge that the manuscript has been accepted for publication in the following manner upon acceptance.
“This article has been accepted for publication in [JOURNAL TITLE], published by Red Flower Publications.”
- After publication, update your preprint and add the following text to encourage others to read and cite your final published version:
“This is an original manuscript of an article published by Red Flower Publications in [JOURNAL TITLE] on [date of publication], available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.21088/cphn.2455.8621.9224.3/[Article DOI].”
Text-recycling/self-plagiarism
Although it is expected that the authors will refer to their published works, the re-use of a large part of their previous works is considered unacceptable in some cases. In cases where this is inevitable, authors must be transparent about their previously published work by providing appropriate citations. Authors must also ensure that re-use conforms to copyright policies. Red Flower Publications will deal with text recycling cases in accordance with the COPE guidelines.
Authorship
The authors must provide an honest explanation of the authorship, and each listed author must meet the author's criteria in order to provide transparency and credit to those who have contributed substantially to the work. However, if the author deliberately does not comply with this requirement, it is considered to be a form of misconduct. Particularly concern are:
Red Flower Publications will deal with the misconduct of the author according to COPE guidelines. In some cases, Red Flower Publications may have to refer cases to the author's institution(s) for adjudication.
Affiliation misrepresentation
Associations must accurately reflect the place where research was approved, supported, and conducted. For non-research articles, affiliation should be listed as the place where the author(s) were based at the time of submission. A false representation of affiliation is a form of misconduct, and the Red Flower Publications will deal with such cases by contacting all the relevant agencies to help us in our investigation.
Undisclosed competing interests
Competing interests may influence or bias someone's opinion or view. They arise when personal judgments about primary interests (e.g. patient welfare or research results) are influenced by secondary interests (e.g. financial gain). When an author, editor, or reviewer does not declare a conflicting interest, it is deemed that this may influence the opinion or evaluation of the research or non-research article. Editors and reviewers should refrain from participating in any submissions against which they have a competing interest.
Red Flower Publications will not consider manuscripts that are suspected of being of an undisclosed competing interest.
Image manipulation
Where deliberate actions have been taken to manipulate or otherwise fabricate an image. This is a serious form of misconduct that deceives others and damages the integrity of scholarly records with significant and long-term consequences.
Red Flower Publications expects that all images contained in the manuscript are accurate and without manipulation. Specific functions in an image cannot be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced without proper notice of the change. Adjustments to the brightness, contrast, or color balance of images are acceptable if they do not obscure, eliminate, or mislead the information present in the original. The grouping of images from different parts of the gel, Western stripes, or microscope must be clearly indicated in the arrangement of the figure or in the text of the figure legend.
If the original, not edited image cannot be reproduced on request, the rejection of a manuscript or paper may be rejected or withdrawn.
Data falsification/fabrication
If deliberate measures have been taken to manipulate or fabricate the data inappropriately. This is considered a serious form of misconduct, aimed at misrepresenting others and damaging the integrity of scholarly records, with extensive and long-term consequences.
When submitting a manuscript to Red Flower Publications, the author must ensure that all data contained in the manuscript are accurate and reflect their work correctly. To help Red Flower Publications evaluate manuscripts, authors are expected to retain all raw data in their manuscripts.
If original data is not available on request, the acceptance of a manuscript or published paper can be rejected or withdrawn.
Peer review manipulation
Where authors or agencies, on behalf of authors, have taken deliberate measures to influence peer review processes in their favour, or when editors make decisions based on biased peer review reports. If there is evidence that the integrity of the peer-review process has been compromised, the necessary steps will be taken to correct the scholarly record.
In very rare cases, peer reviewers can use the work they were assigned to review. Red Flower Publications recognizes the damage that such actions would cause to the peer review process. All peer reviewers of Red Flower Publications should read and consider the COPE ethical guidelines for peer reviewers before accepting a manuscript and are expected to treat any articles and materials received during the review as confidential. Any reviewer found to be guilty of misconduct by appropriating others' work will be permanently removed from the peer review database and reported to the institution.
Citation manipulation
If authors cite themselves too often or inappropriately, or enter into arrangements between authors to cite others' works inappropriately, or if editors or reviewers force authors to cite papers from their own previously published papers, or from specific journals, without justification of why these papers should be cited.
Unethical research
In the event of non-compliance with local, national or international legislative and regulatory requirements, or in the event of insufficient protection of the safety and privacy of human subjects or the welfare of animals used in research, researchers have not taken sufficient measures.
Red Flower Publications takes the role of ensuring that all publications comply with ethical standards seriously. Unless evidence exists that the study has not been adequately approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or the Ethics Committee, manuscripts will not be considered for publication. Similarly, submissions will not be considered when editors or peer reviewers raise concerns about lack of patient consent, improper protection of patient identification, or lack of animal ethical approval.
“Ethics dumping”
In cases where researchers conducting studies intentionally establish cooperation in regions where recruitment of participants and research interventions can circumvent international standards of research ethics control.
Breaches in copyright and use of third-party material without prior authorization
If the author contains material, which is a copyright and has not obtained appropriate permission, as instructed by the copyright owner.
