Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Advances in Engineering and Information Sciences (AEIS) is committed to meeting the highest ethical standards in research publication. The contents of the journal will be available in open access through the journal’s website. AEIS, its publisher – Caraga State University (CSU), editors, staff, reviewers, and authors are guided by the following principles.

Review Process

All submitted manuscripts will undergo a pre-review process. Only those manuscripts that pass this stage will proceed to a double-blind peer-review process. Throughout the second process, the reviewers’ identity will remain unknown to the authors – the same case applies to the author’s identity to the reviewers.

Duties of Editors

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff 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

Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Publication decisions

The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the field. The Associate Editor-in-charge and the Editor-in-Chief are responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Duties of Reviewers

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review on a given timeline by the journal so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Associate Editor. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them to improve the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of the Authors

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism takes different forms, from literary copying to paraphrasing the work of another.

Authorship and Contributorship Declaration

Only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript, as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content. All authors of the paper should have permitted the revision of the paper and authorship changes.

The AEIS requires authors to indicate their contribution to the paper in the cover letter. The addition of authors is only allowed up to the final galley proof. After the authors have submitted their final corrections, no other changes to the list of authors will be accepted.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant, or concurrent submission/publication

Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit a manuscript that has already been published in another journal for consideration. A statement indicating that the submitted manuscript for review has not been submitted to another journal for publication should be indicated in the cover letter by the corresponding author.

Conflict of Interest

All authors should disclose any conflict of interest that might be perceived to influence the authors’ objectivity. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, state it explicitly in the manuscript under the section Conflicts of Interest.

Ethical Consideration

If the work involves the use of human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. The AEIS adheres to the regulations set by various Philippine laws and institutions such as the Data Privacy Act of the Philippines, or Republic Act No. 10173. Permits and consents should be stated in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Plagiarism, and Falsification of Data

If there is any question about whether research results reported in a submitted article are original to the purported author or authors, the editorial board shall make inquiries of the authors and their institutions.

Complaints, Appeals, and Allegations

Anyone may reach the journal office through our Contact Us page on our website. Any complaint, appeal, or allegation towards the journal staff, authors, editors, or reviewers will be investigated thoroughly. The identity of the reporter will not be disclosed unless the individual gives consent. Every party involved in the reported case shall be contacted, and the journal will not make any public statement until the responses have been received. If, on investigation, the ethical concern is well-founded, a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note as may be relevant will be published in the journal.