Publication Ethics

At Planta Animalia, we strongly believe in publication ethics. A peer-reviewed article after being published serves as a key component of curating a coherent and respectable knowledge network. It directly depicts the quality of work of the authors and their respective institutions. The scientific method is embodied in the form of peer-reviewed articles.

Planta Animalia is committed to excellence in scholar publishing and follows COPE guidance for the same by following COPE’s “Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing”. Planta Animalia recommends reviewers to follow COPE’s “Ethical Guidelines for Peer reviewers”. For ethically acceptable editing, editors at Planta Animalia follow the COPE’s “Guidelines for Ethical Editing” and “Editing Peer Review”. At Planta Animalia, we follow COPE guidance on “Editorial Board Participation” for the advice and participation of editorial advisory board members.

COPE links
“Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing” https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing

“Ethical Guidelines for Peer reviewers” https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers

“Guidelines for Ethical Editing” https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/short-guide-ethical-editing-new-editors

“Editing Peer Review”, https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/editing-peer-reviews

“Editorial Board Participation” https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/editorial-board-participation

It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher.

Publication decisions
The editor of the Planta Animalia will be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play
An editor will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The editor and editorial staff of Planta Animalia will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors, reviewers, editors, editorial advisory board members, and publisher are required to declare any conflict of interest/competing interest. All complains received to Planta Animalia related to conflict of interest/competing interests are addressed in light of the COPE guidelines, found here, by the Complaint Redressal & Appellate Committee”. Planta Animalia entertains such complains before, during and after publication of the article.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/competinginterests

Data Sharing & Reproducibility
Planta Animalia encourages authors to share the crude data where possible. Data sharing and reproducibility. Planta Animalia also encourages authors to use reporting guidelines and register clinical trials and adhere to standard ethical practice in their discipline. The journal follows COPE guidance in data sharing and reproducibility which are available here.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/data

Ethical Oversight
Planta Animalia policy of ethical oversight of the publications include but not limited to policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data, and ethical business/marketing practices. The journal makes sure that research described in the article follows standard ethical practices in the discipline, and follows COPE guidelines, available here.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/oversight

Intellectual Property
Planta Animalia has clearly defined policies on intellectual property including copyright and publication licenses. The journal also has a clear policy of accepting pre-prints to be considered for publication after proper peer review process. Planta Animalia does not allow plagiarized ‘Results” for publication. However, the journal allows a similarity of less than 20%, only for parts of the manuscript other than “Results”, such as introduction/background, materials and methods, discussion etc. The journal follows COPE guidance for intellectual property policies which are available here.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/intellectualproperty

Post Production Discussion & Corrections
Planta Animalia is open to and accepts discussions and critique of the articles appeared in the journal. Th journal is open to correspondence regarding correction, revising and retraction of articles after publication, if justified. Planta Animalia follows COPE guidance for post-production discussion of the articles, which is available here.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/postpublication

Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

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 manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

AUTHOR’S LIABILITIES
Corresponding Author’s Responsibilities
The corresponding (submitting) author is solely responsible for communicating with the Planta Animalia and for managing communication between co-authors. Before submission, the corresponding author ensures that all authors are included in the author list, its order has been agreed by all authors, and that all authors are aware that the paper was submitted.
After acceptance, the proof is sent to the corresponding author, who deals with Planta Animalia on the behalf of all co-authors; Planta Animalia will not necessarily correct errors after publication if they result from errors that were present on a proof that was not shown to co-authors before publication. The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all content in the proof, in particular, that names of co-authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.

Confidential Process
Planta Animalia treats the submitted manuscript and all communication with authors and referees as confidential. Authors must also treat communication with the journal as confidential: correspondence with the journal, referee reports and other confidential material must not be posted on any website or otherwise publicized without prior permission from the editorial office, regardless of whether or not the submission is eventually published.

Reporting Standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in other than Planta Animalia. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects.
If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When an 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 paper.

Referee suggestions
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent referees when they submit their manuscripts, but these suggestions may not be used by the editorial office. Authors may also request that the Planta Animalia excludes a few (usually not more than two) individuals or laboratories. The editorial office sympathetically considers such exclusion requests and usually honours them, but the decision of the Editorial Board Member on the choice of referees is final.

Complaints & Appeals
Planta Animalia has a clearly described process for handling complains against the journal, its staff, and/or its editorial advisory board members. All the complains and appeals received to the journal are sent to the “Complaint Redressal & Appellate Committee” which is required to address the resolve the issue usually within 4 weeks of receiving the complain/appeal. All complains and appeals are addressed in light of the guidance provided by the COPE, which is available here.
COPE link: https://publicationethics.org/appeals

Composition of Complaint Redressal & Appellate Committee
Editor-In-Chief
Managing Editor
Two relevant members of the Editorial Advisory Board from Planta Animalia
One relevant member of the Editorial Advisory Board from another journal.