Publication Policies

For journals the following publication policies are applied by ScienceVier.

Peer Review

ScienceVier Publishers follows the single blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals, except for a selected number of patent journals where double blind review is followed.

All submitted articles are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal’s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three reviewers). All manuscripts assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief is then conveyed to the author(s).

Copyediting and Proofs

Articles must be written in good English in a clear and correct style in order to maintain uniformity throughout the text. Articles submitted are copyedited before they are published.

Reprints

High-quality, bound/unbound, print/e-prints can be purchased for all published articles

Editorial Policies

Articles must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer it to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal.complain@ScienceVier.com

Conflict of Interest

Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.

Plagiarism Prevention

ScienceVier uses software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. The software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. ScienceVier allows an overall similarity of 23% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view:

Low Text Similarity:

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in software. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from single source is 4%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

High Text Similarity:

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

Types of Plagiarism

We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:

  • Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.
  • Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgement of the original source.
  • Poor paraphrasing: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.
  • Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.
  • Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
  • Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.

Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts:

Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal’s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the particular journal.

Copyright (Subscription Journals)

Editors/Authors who contribute in a ScienceVier’s Journal will transfer copyright to their work to ScienceVier Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all editors/authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated in the Methods section.

Authors are encouraged to obtain patient consent when they use confidential case material. Consent is not necessary in the case of very brief case vignettes which do not contain identifying information or if the case material is disguised sufficiently to prevent identification of the patient.

In obtaining consent, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits to the patient and the patient’s right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s).

Article Withdrawal

Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be “Withdrawn” from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with ScienceVier Editorial Policies.

Article Retraction

Published articles (with volume/issue/page information) which may contain infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like are retracted.

  • A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the Editor-in-Chief is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
  • In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
  • The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
  • The original article is retained unchanged with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
  • The HTML version of the document is removed.

Redundant (multiple) publication/ Re-publication

Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.

Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and possible redundancy.

Disclaimer

Responsibility for the content published by ScienceVier in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, ScienceVier (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of ScienceVier’s journals.

GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS

Manuscripts submitted for publication in ScienceVier journals are subjected to single blind peer-review, except for a selected number of patent journals where double blind review is followed. Single blind reviewing maintains the identity of the reviewers, not disclosing their names to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by reviewers.

Reviewers are advised to consider the following important aspects of a manuscript when conducting the review.

  1. Reporting of Original Results:

The results reported in the manuscript must be original and authentic work of the authors. They should be devoid of any plagiarism and the material should not have been published earlier. Studies which report some reproduced results, for example a new clinical trial, may also be considered for publication.

  1. Experiments and Analyses:

Experiments and other analyses should meet the recognized technical standards and must be described systematically. The research presented in a manuscript should facilitate in reaching accurate conclusions from the statistics. Methods and experiments as well as reagents should be documented in detail.

  1. Interpretation of Results:

Authors should present and interpret the results and conclusions in an appropriate and comprehensive manner, clearly explaining the results and outcomes of their study. Incomplete interpretation of results may result in rejection of the manuscript.

  1. Language of Composition:

The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style, free from grammatical errors and other linguistic inconsistencies. All pages should be numbered sequentially, facilitating the reviewing and editing of the manuscript. Authors are advised to contact ScienceVier for any assistance, if needed, on the language editing of their manuscripts.

  1. Experiments involving Humans and Animals:

The research must meet the highest applicable international standards of the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. A brief description on ethical guidelines is given in the ‘Instructions for Authors’ of every journal published by ScienceVier.

  1. Reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and Community Standards for Data:

The manuscript should adhere to suitable reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and community standards for data availability. ScienceVier seeks to disseminate research and therefore stipulates that the public deposition of data is as per the followed standards (for example gene sequences, microarray expression data, and structural studies). Other similar standards that may be applicable should also be followed.

  1. Manuscript Evaluation:

Evaluation of manuscripts is carried out by the journal’s Editors and the invited external peer reviewers according to the following procedures.

EDITORIAL PROCESS:

The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors and Editorial Advisory Board Members (EABMs) who have expertise in their specific fields. The services of Senior Editors and Editorial Advisory Board Members are sought through invitations to organize and conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of Editors in view. Manuscripts are forwarded for evaluation to Editors and EABMs as well as external reviewers to check if the research work presented in the manuscript (a) falls within the scope of the journal and (b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham Science Publishers in terms of originality and quality. Editors/EABMs may recommend the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript by conducting the peer review themselves, based on their own knowledge and experience, or they may take assistance and advice from other experts in the field.

After review of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the views of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:

  • Accept without changes
  • Revisions Required
  • Reject

SELECTION OF REVIEWERS:

The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and Senior Editors of a journal have the right to select reviewers for a particular manuscript considering the knowledge and experience of the reviewers.

Before sending the manuscripts to a reviewer, ScienceVier seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness for review. The correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and reviewers is kept confidential.

PURPOSE OF A REVIEW:

A review report provides the Editor-in-Chief/Senior Editor with an expert opinion on the quality of the manuscript under consideration. It also supplies authors with explicit feedback on how to improve their papers to make them acceptable for publication in the journal. Although confidential comments to the editors are not relayed to authors, any remarks that may help improve the quality of the manuscript are forwarded to the authors for their consideration. A good review report answers the following important areas:

  • Is the work novel and of high standards?
  • What are the main findings of the paper? Is relevant work of other authors in the field appropriately acknowledged and references given to the previous literature?
  • Do the experimental data support the declarations? If not, what other evidence may prove fruitful?
  • What kind of readers would benefit from the manuscript and why?
  • In what further directions would it be feasible to take the current research?

IMPORTANT POINTS TO CONSIDER

Reviewers are expected to provide advice on the following points in their review reports:

  • Is the manuscript written comprehensively enough to be understandable? If not, how could it be improved?
  • Have adequate proofs been provided for the declarations?
  • Have the authors addressed the previous findings fairly?
  • Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology to reproduce the experiments?
  • Bentham Science encourages authors to publish detailed protocols as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such a protocol?

PRIVACY STATEMENT

The peer-review of a manuscript is a confidential process. Reviewers should keep the whole process completely confidential. They should consult the EiC/Senior Editor and obtain permission before consulting another colleague for help in the peer-review of the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers should not disclose any information whatsoever to anyone before publication of the manuscript.

PROMPT REVIEW

The reviewers should provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to the timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only for the authors but for the scientific community as well.

CHANGES IN REVIEW REPORTS

The Editorial staff relays the comments of the reviewers on behalf of the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor. The review reports are edited by Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if the comments contain confidential information or these are written in a language not suitable for scholarly communication. Reviewers should include such comments in the confidential section of the review form, which is intended to be read by the editors only.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

ScienceVier respects requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have a competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; we therefore expect that reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out a review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.