A)- General tasks, responsibilities, and standards for publisher:
1) - The publisher must protect intellectual property and copyright agreement submitted by the authors.
2) - The publisher must respect the privacy and personal data especially for authors and peer reviewers.
3) - The publisher must maintain close co-operation with the editors and peer reviewers for transparency and integrity of the peer-review process.
4) - The publisher must protect and maintain the independence of the decisions of the Editorial Board.
5) - The publisher must help the Editorial Board to sustain the whole quality of the journal.
6) - The publisher must deliver necessary logistic support to editors to maintain the publication ethics of the journal.
B)- General tasks, responsibilities, and standards for editorial board:
The editorial Board of Arab Univ. J. Agric. Sci. are committed to maintain independent editorial decisions and prevent being bargained across competing interests, terror, business, or political influence, or any other corporate. The Editorial Board is responsible for:
1) - Making an initial assessment of the manuscripts based on their intellectual merit, without regarding author(s)’ race, age, nationality, frailty, gender, religious certainty, sexual nature, ethnic source, political orientation or community class.
2) - Select the appropriate manuscripts to be sent to reviewers after the initial evaluation based on the MS value, following the “Guide for Authors”, plagiarism, ethical commitments and legal requirements concerning copyright agreement.
3) - Providing guidance to authors and reviewers about their responsibilities and ethical expectations in addition to providing description of the publication processes through the journal website.
4) - Select appropriate peer reviewers to assess the manuscripts and consider their evaluation before issuing the final decision.
5) - Guarantee an impartial and unbiased double-blind peer review of the manuscripts.
6) - Guarantee that all information concerning the manuscripts, authors and reviewers is maintained confidential and ensure both authors and peer reviewers’ identities are secured.
7) - Developing and maintaining a database of appropriate reviewers based on the reviewer’s competence, punctuality and responsiveness.
8) - Support submissions from researchers of various agricultural disciplines to meet the needs of readers and authors.
9) - Strive to the improvement of their journal quality and academic record's integrity.
10) - Cooperate with publisher to end up with high quality publication with valuable contents and respecting standard publication ethics.
C)- General tasks, responsibilities, and standards for reviewers:
Manuscripts are peer-reviewed by two or more experts in the fields. The journal protects the confidentiality of participants in the peer review process. Reviewers are expected to:
1) - Reviewer who feels that the MS is out of his/her interest or has any conflict of interest about the manuscript should inform the editor and decline reviewing the MS.
2) - Keep information linked to the manuscript confidential and should not be disclosed or multiplied in any form.
3) - Send a report to the editorial board for any information that may be a reason to reject the publication of a manuscript.
4) - Evaluate the manuscripts with clear logic and fairness based on their intellectual contents without imagining the author’s race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious certainty, citizenship, political orientation, or community class of the author(s).
5) - Evaluate the manuscripts for their creativity and importance to the field.
D)- General tasks, responsibilities, and standards for authors:
1) - Authors pledge that they have followed all standard ethics including those described here and in listed resources below; besides, they do not practice any act that may harm the trust of the journal. Authors also declare that they have no any conflict of interest among themselves or with other parties.
2) - All authors should make substantial scientific contribution to the work's conception, design, performance or interpretation.
3) - The corresponding author is the author responsible for collaborating with the journal for publication.
4) - The corresponding author should make sure that all co-authors are listed in the authors’ list appropriately in the manuscript.
5) - The corresponding author should sign and submit a written statement in the “Copyright Transfer Agreement & Declaration Form” on behalf of the other co-authors to confirm and declare that the paper is original and has not been published and are not currently under publication by another publisher.
6) - The corresponding author is accountable for manuscript correction, proofreading, handling the revisions, and re-submission of revised manuscript in due time up to receiving the acceptance of the manuscript in addition to the payment of the article processing charge when it is required.
7) - The corresponding author is accountable for confirming that all other co-authors have given their approval for the article to be published and inform them about the current status and any modification of the manuscript during the publication process.
8) - The corresponding author is accountable for confirming that the article originating from a certain institution is submitted with its agreement for publication.
9) - The corresponding author is liable for ensuring that all of the journal's ethical considerations are met.
10) - The corresponding author should give clear information about of funder and should list all sources of funding support in the acknowledgment section.
11) - Non-authors who contributed to the work should be acknowledged, and their contributions should be specified.
13) - Authors are responsible for the originality and accuracy of the contents of their publications as well as indicating any dangerous or harm may result from applying the reported experiments.
14) - Authors should archive all data that support the results in an appropriate public repository, as supplementary materials or being ready to submit them when needed before or after publication.
15) - Authors should display their data analysis clearly and describe their works appropriately and in sufficient details to guarantee the reproducibility of the work by other researchers.
16) - Authors should present the results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication or falsification.
17) - Authors should cite publications that are relevant to the submitted work only and represent them correctly and precisely.
18) - Authors should not copy references from other publications if they are not accessible.
19) - Authors should respect the fact that all plagiarism forms, including self-plagiarism, are unethical publishing behavior and not acceptable.
20) - Authors should check their manuscript accurately at all stages to ensure that all its parts are reported accurately.
21) - The journal is freely available online. All Authors should approve the policy of open access which allows unlimited access and reuse of all published articles.
22) - Authors should make sure that images present in the manuscript (e.g. pictures, micrographs, X-rays,) are original, high quality and not modified misleadingly (image-biased manipulation is not accepted).
23) - Any changes to the author list (adding or deleting) throughout the revision phases is mostly not acceptable but, in some circumstances, may be accepted with conditioning the approval by all authors including the ones who have been added or removed from the list.
24) - Any conflict of interest needs to be declared (If no conflicts exist, the authors should state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest”.
25) - Using commercial products should be avoided during the conduction of the experiments. When they are used, the name and location of the manufacturer must be mentioned.
26) - If the manuscript is based on a thesis, the editor should be informed in the cover letter.
E) - Plagiarism:
All articles submitted to the journal are subjected to plagiarism test (online plagiarism detection software). Cross-Check is applied across the web-based iThenticate system (http://www.ithenticate.com/content) by uploading a document and operating a similarity check in opposition to the Cross-Check database and the Internet. Editors preserve the right to check all submissions for plagiarism including self-plagiarism. In case unacceptable plagiarism is observed, the manuscript will not be considered for publication.
F) - General tasks, responsibilities, and standards for animal studies, welfare and feed legislation
Upon submission of a new manuscript containing animal studies, the corresponding author will be asked to confirm that the manuscript meets all the requirements for animal protection and/or feed legislation. Manuscripts that do not meet these standards will not be considered for publication; only investigations that follow high standards for animal welfare in research will be considered. Research involving animals should contain general duties, responsibilities, and international standards that include:
1) - Authors Authors must provide an “Animal Welfare Statement” in the Materials and Methods section confirms that the animal experiment followed the animal care guide and resources in the journal “Ethical Practices” and/or approved by specific committee e.g. “Animal Welfare Committee” of Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University.
2) - Justifying the purpose of the experiment and its impotence to human and advances of scientific knowledge.
3) - Protocol should use appropriate husbandry and minimize unwanted discomfort, stress and pain to the animals by employing proper treatments, animal management and laboratory practices.
4) - Methods used in scarifying experimental animals should be clarified in the text.
5) - Surgical procedures as well as type and amount of the sedation, analgesia, or anesthesia agents must be identified.
6) - Authors should state the sex of animals and the influence (or association) of sex on obtained results.
7) - Validate using living animals rather than other techniques e.g. using separated organs, tissue or cell culture or computer simulation programs.
8) - Using minimum number of animals e.g. avoid unnecessary duplication of experiments or excessive replicates.
9) - Involving experienced persons in performing animal experiments under the supervision of qualified scientist.
10) - Post-treatment care of still-living animals
In addition, if humans are involved in sensory panel for food evaluation, members must be informed by the detailed experiment as well as the food ingredients and recipe or any side effect may arise.
Resources:
1) - The Code of Conduct and Practice Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE. https://publicationethics.org/
2) - Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the council of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes https://eur lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2010/63/oj
3) - The US National Research Council's "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf