The ITU Journal supports the principles of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), following and referring to the COPE guidelines within the ethics practices of this scholarly publication.
Authorship and attribution
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| All papers submitted to the ITU Journal should list the names of every author, who made a significant contribution towards the research and the presentation of the academic paper. All such contributors are to be listed as authors and co-authors, in a manner determined and decided by the authors. Any changes to the list and its order should be communicated to the ITU Journal Team.
The practice of adopting “gift authors", who are individuals listed as authors despite making no significant contribution to the research, and “ghost authors", who have contributed to the research but are not listed as co-authors, is not permitted. Where an issue of authorship, including ghost and gift authors, is suspected, these matters will be handled accordingly by the editorial team.
All other contributors providing some assistance and support, but not deemed significant for the purposes of authorship, should be listed in the Acknowledgments section of the research paper.
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Redundant publications and plagiarism
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| Authors are to submit original research for publication; this requires that there be no previous or concurrent publication of the same article and its findings. As such, an author may not submit his or her research to multiple journals at the same time, and instead should wait for the final decision on the paper before submitting the research to another journal.
Authors may use works of their own that have been published previously, provided the previous article is properly cited, and differs in some way from the current study.
Authors should gain the appropriate permission prior to publication where the research paper incorporates various figures, tables and images.
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| This research publication relies on being an unbiased and fair resource for academic research. To this end, all contributors, authors, editors and reviewers are to disclose any potential conflict of interest that might hinder an honest and effective review and publication.
A conflict of interest may be deemed to exist where a party is unduly influenced to take action, or refrain from taking action, concerning the research, based on a personal or financial interest. A party unduly influenced may, for example, try to manipulate the research to produce a certain result, to ensure that the research receives a negative review and therefore is not published, or provide a positive review where it is not reasonable to do so.
For the author, conflicts of interest are to be disclosed when the paper is submitted to the ITU Journal, stating fully the personal, institutional and financial interests and support which might influence the research. This will be taken into account by the editorial team. A reviewer assigned to a paper should disclose any personal, financial or intellectual interests that would render him or her unable to fulfill his or her duties fairly and without undue influence. In this case, the editor will select an alternative reviewer for that paper.
Peer review and fair editing
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| This publication follows a single-blind review process, as stipulated in the ITU Journal’s review policy, with reviewers carefully selected based on their expertise in the research field. Reviewers play an essential part in the publication of academic research and therefore should conduct their review as timely as possible, while using respectful and academic language in their reviews and comments, providing reasons for their statements as well as refraining from personal attacks against authors.
Fair editing and review require that manuscripts be evaluated based on their contribution to the science, and without regard to personal differences. Where a reviewer has been assigned to a manuscript, but is unable to fulfill this obligation for any reason, the reviewer is required to notify the ITU Journal Team.
While reviewers may offer ideas and suggest a certain direction within the research, reviewers may not require an author to cite or refer to a certain publication as a condition for paper acceptance and thereby, publication.
Reviewers owe a duty of confidentiality in respect to the manuscripts they are assigned. They may not communicate their review comments to parties other than the ITU Journal Team. Reviewers are prohibited from using the manuscripts, and their findings, for their own personal use and research, without consulting with the relevant authors. Where a reviewer is found to have appropriated an author’s work, he or she thereby breaches the duty of confidentiality. |
Falsified data and manipulited images
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With the widespread use of images to display scientific research data, authors should ensure that such images are not distorted from the original. It is generally not permitted to change, add or remove elements from an image, nor to obscure these elements. Minor adjustments are accepted where they are made to allow for better visibility. In this case, the ITU Journal Team should be made aware of the changes, or they should be expressly noted in the paper itself.
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Complaints and concerns
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Where any of the ethical principles described above are disregarded, or are suspected to have been, complaints should be directed to the ITU Journal Team:
journal@itu.int.
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