The publication of a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher, and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

A respected network of knowledge can only be developed if the research paper is published in an open peer-reviewed journal. It maintains transparency among the authors and institutions that support the particular paper. Since it is an open platform, it is important for all the parties including the author, the publisher, the journal editor, sponsored journals, and the peer reviewer to agree with the paper before its publication. The content has to abide by the pre-decided ethical policies and standards.

Duties of Editors
Decision on the Publication of Articles
The Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies and Innovative Research (IJMSIR) is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Editor in Chief is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and subjected to such legal requirements regarding copyright and plagiarism. The Editor in Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this final decision.

Fair play
Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to the author's race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, or citizenship.

Confidentiality
The Editor in Chief and any editorial staff 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.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.

Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decision
Peer review assists the Editor in Chief and the editorial board in making editorial decisions while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or unable to provide a prompt review should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
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 in Chief. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor in Chief/Editorial Board member'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 Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers should not review 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.

Duties of Authors
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.

Data Access and Retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

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

Multiple and Concurrent Publications
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Proper acknowledgment 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.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict 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.

Duties of the Publisher

Editorial decisions are independent of the advertising, reprint, and other commercial revenue. Besides that, we help our editors in communications with other publishers or journals wherever required. Our networking with other publishers and industry associations allows us to set standards for the practices on ethical matters, errors, and renunciations which help us to provide expert legal reviews if and when required.

Principles of Transparency

1. Peer review process: IJMSIR is a multi-disciplinary journal with a focus on education, management, health, and technology. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, is clearly described on the journal’s Web site 
2. Governing Body: IJMSIR has a very strong editorial board, whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors are provided on the journal’s Web site 
3. Contact information: Journal provided the contact information for the editorial office of IJMSIR 
4. Author fees / Access: The Journal database is fully open access and the full text of published articles is available for everyone who can get access to the Journal website free of cost. Besides, the authors never pay any submission charges.
5. Copyright: Journals made clear the type of copyright under which the author's work will be published.  Upon acceptance of the manuscript, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement.
6. Identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct: Editor-in-Chief takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.
7. Web site: A journal’s Web site (https://ijmsirjournal.com/index.php/ojs) contains that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and professional standards.
8. Name of journal: The International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies and Innovative Research (IJMSIR) has unique and not be one that is easily confused with another journal
9. Conflicts of interest: Authors are requested to be evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist while submitting their articles to IJMSIR through the Conflict of Interest Disclosure form.
10. Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which a journal publishes is clearly indicated on the journal home page in the notice board in the sidebar (https://ijmsirjournal.com/index.php/ojs)
11. Archiving: A journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content is clearly indicated (https://ijmsirjournal.com/index.php/ojs)

Violation of Publication Ethics

1. Plagiarism:  The building block of the success of scientific publishing is the peer-review process. IJMSIR promises its authors to deliver plagiarism-free content thus ensuring and abiding by all the ethical aspects of publishing. The IJMSIR uses Turnitin plagiarism software for its similarities test
2. Data Fabrication and Falsification: Data fabrication and falsification means the researcher did not really carry out the study, but made up data or results and recorded or reported the fabricated information. Data falsification means the researcher did the experiment, but manipulated, changed, or omitted data or results from the research findings.
3. Simultaneous Submission: Simultaneous submission occurs when a manuscript (or substantial sections from a manuscript) is submitted to a journal when it is already under consideration by another journal.
4. Duplicate Publication: Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross-referencing, share essentially the same hypotheses, data, discussion points, and conclusions.
5. Redundant Publications: Redundant publications involve the inappropriate division of study outcomes into several articles, most often consequent to the desire to plump academic vitae.
6. Improper Author Contribution or Attribution: All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Don’t forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.
7. Citation Manipulation: Citation Manipulation is including excessive citations, in the submitted manuscript, that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely to increase citations to a given author’s work, or articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.
8. Sanctions: If there are documented violations of any of the above-mentioned policies in any journal, regardless of whether or not the violations occurred in a journal, the following sanctions will be applied: (i) Immediate rejection of the infringing manuscript, (ii)Immediate rejection of every other manuscript submitted to any journal published by any of the authors of the infringing manuscript, (iii) Prohibition will be imposed for a minimum of 36 months against all of the authors for any new submissions to any journal, either individually or in combination with other authors of the infringing manuscript, and (iv) Prohibition against all of the authors from serving on the Editorial Board of any journal.

Handling Cases of Misconduct

Once IJMSIR confirms a violation against IJMSIR’s publication ethics, IJMSIR addresses ethical concerns diligently following an issue-specific standard practice as summarized below.

1. The first action of the journal The editor is to inform the Editorial Office of IJMSIR by supplying copies of the relevant material and a draft letter to the corresponding author asking for an explanation in a nonjudgmental manner.
2. If the author’s explanation is unacceptable and it seems that serious unethical conduct has taken place, the matter is referred to the Publication Committee via Editorial Office.  After deliberation, the Committee will decide whether the case is sufficiently serious to warrant a ban on future submissions. 
3. If the infraction is less severe, the Editor, upon the advice of the Publication Committee, sends the author a letter of reprimand and reminds the author of IJMSIR publication policies; if the manuscript has been published, the Editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
4. Notification will be sent to the corresponding author and any work by the author responsible for the violation of any work these persons coauthored that is under review by IJMSIR the journal will be rejected immediately.
5. The authors are prohibited from serving on the IJMSIR editorial board and serving as a reviewer for IJMSIR Journal. IJMSIR reserves the right to take more action.
6. In extreme cases, notifications will be sent to the affiliations of the authors, and the authors are prohibited from submitting their work to IJMSIR for 5 years.
7. In serious fraud cases that result in the retraction of the article, a retraction notice will be published in the journal and linked to the article in the online version. The online version will also be marked “retracted” with the retraction date.