Publication Ethics & Malpractice | Belitung Nursing Journal

The Editor-in-chief is responsible for setting the tone and editorial direction of the content and ensuring that all publications adhere to internal policies. Acting as a quality control manager, she maintains established measures to ensure consistency across every issue. Additionally, the Editor-in-Chief is responsible for budgeting, strategic planning, and Public Relations (PR) duties. In collaboration with the publisher and/or society, the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor are responsible for taking responsive measures to address any ethical concerns related to submitted or published papers. Any reported instances of unethical publishing behavior, even those discovered years after publication, will be thoroughly investigated.

The Managing Editor is a front-line supervisor who oversees the day-to-day operations of Belitung Nursing Journal and normally reports to the Editor-in-Chief. The Managing Editor guides the development, policies, standards and editorial scope of the journal. The Managing Editor also oversees the entire review, editing and publishing process. In the editorial process, the Managing Editor assigns Editorial Board Member(s) to see through submission review and submission editing. In addition, the Managing Editor keeps an eye on the submission's progress and assists with any difficulties. Once review is completed, the Managing Editor typically sees the submission through the Editing process (including copyediting, layout editing, and proofreading). The Managing Editor also creates journal issues, schedules submission for publication, arranges the Table of Contents, and publishes the issue as part of the publishing process. Also, the Managing Editor can restore archived submissions to the active In Review or In Editing lists.

Another portion of the managing editor’s job involves hiring, training and supervising assistant editors, editorial board members, and reviewers (Please note that the editorial board members are appointed out based on the contract, availability, and performance. If their contract is expired or they are not available, e.g., to review articles based on the contract, their name will be removed without a further notice. Many members are asked to be an editorial board just to publish articles easily. This is to ensure that we are very serious in this matter).

The list of editorial board members are updated every six months or per volume. But for being reviewers, every scholar can register freely and voluntarily to the system, and the Managing Editor will check their bio whether they are eligible to review articles or not. The list of reviewers is continuously updated every six months.

The Managing Editor, with Editor-in-Chief, are responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal will be published. The Managing Editor will evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decision will be based on the paper’s importance, novelty, originality, and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the journal's scope. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

The roles of International editorial advisory board members are providing an advisory body for the Editor-in-Chief in issues related to strategic direction for BNJ, contributing editorials articles, suggesting theme(s) for special issue(s) of BNJ, consolidating the journal’s international reputation, encouraging the submission of high-quality manuscripts for BNJ by personally contacting authors and assisting with outreach, and identifying reviewers to become part of BNJ's reviewer database. The international editorial advisory board has no review and editorial decision role.

The main responsibility of the Editorial Board Members is to evaluate manuscripts, identify appropriate reviewers who meet the journal's criteria, and make initial recommendations based on the peer review reports and their own evaluation while complying with the journal's editorial guidelines. Additionally, the Editorial Board Members may contribute to editorial articles.

Confidentiality
Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, International Editorial Advisory Board Members, and Editorial Board Members must 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
Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, International Editorial Advisory Board, and Editorial Board Members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ 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.

Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, International Editorial Advisory Board members, and Editorial Board Members act as ambassadors for the journal and assist the in-house editorial team in an advisory capacity as and when required.

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

Contribution to editorial decisions
The peer-reviewing process assists the editors in making editorial decisions and may also serve 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 immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) 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 associated with the papers.

Originality, plagiarism and acknowledgment of sources
Authors will submit only entirely original works, and will appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work should also be cited.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Hazards and human or animal subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animals or 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.

Informed consent
Every research study should ensure that all patients and participants receive comprehensive information regarding the study's objectives and any potential adverse effects associated with the medications and interventions. Obtaining written informed consent from participants or their legal guardians is a mandatory requirement for all such research endeavors. The Journal retains the authority to request relevant documentation in this regard. It is also noted that authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.

Reporting standards
Authors of original research reports 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 behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
In general, papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and unacceptable. The publication of some kinds of articles (such as clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authorship of the manuscript
Starting from 4 January 2023, despite the pros and cons in the maximum number of authors, Belitung Nursing Journal limits the number of authors in one article to only eight persons. Unless the study is an extensive research project in multi-settings or multi-countries, more authors may be applicable. Each authorship will be seen per article basis.

It is also noted that 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: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication.

All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) but who do not meet the whole criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgments" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

In addition, BNJ reviews the authorship according to the author’s declaration in the Title Page; thus, it is the authors responsibility to send the final order of the complete author names. Requests in the change of authorship (e.g. removal/addition of the authors, change in the order etc.) after submission are subject to editorial approval. Editorial Board will investigate this kind of cases and act following COPE flowcharts.

Change of authorship requests should be submitted to the Editorial Office with an official letter stating the reasons of the change. The letter must be signed by all authors and include their approval on the change in authorship.

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 to cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper in form of an erratum or a corrigendum.

Peer review
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions required" or "resubmit", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

Decalaration of the use of AI in scientific writing
If authors decide to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies during the writing process, they should only do so to enhance the work's readability and language. The use of these technologies should be supervised and controlled by humans, and authors must carefully review and edit the output because it can be incomplete, incorrect, or biased. Ultimately, the authors are responsible and accountable for the content of their work. To disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors must add a statement to the end of their manuscript in a new section titled "Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process" before the References list. Check the policy here.

Handling of unethical publishing behavior
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Endogeny should also be minimised in BNJ. The proportion of published papers where at least one of the authors is an editor, editorial board member or reviewer, or affiliated to the journal's institution must not exceed 20%, based on the research content of the latest two issues (According to DOAJ criteria).

Access to journal content
The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.

The Journal Manager is responsible for all production-related matters and ensures articles are typeset, corrected, and published in a timely fashion, as well as provides you with support throughout the production process. The Journal Manager also enrolls the Editors, Editorial Board Members, Copyeditors, Layout Editors, Proofreaders, Authors, and Reviewers. He also has access to the journal's other management features, and can create new sections for the journal, set up review forms, edit the default emails, manage the reading tools, view statistics and reports.

The Technical Manager is responsible for setting up the journal web site, configuring the system options, and managing the user accounts. This does not involve any advanced technical skills, but entails filling out web-based forms and uploading files.