Publication Ethics

Complaints Policy

This procedure applies to complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of the Tehseel editorial staff. We welcome complaints as they provide an opportunity and a spur for improvement, and we aim to respond quickly, courteously, and constructively. Please write your complaint indicating the journal title, vol. no., issue no., paper title, page no., etc.

Our definition of a complaint is as follows:

  • The complainant defines his or her expression of unhappiness as a complaint.
  • We infer that the complainant is not simply disagreeing with a decision we have made or something we have published (which happens every day) but thinks that there has been a failure of process – for example, a long delay or a rude response – or a severe misjudgement.
  • The complaint must be about something that is within the responsibility of Tehseel, its contents and the Managerial or Editorial process.

We are aware of the types of complaints stated below:

  • Authorship complaints
  • Plagiarism complaints
  • Multiple, duplicate, concurrent publication/Simultaneous submission.
  • Undisclosed conflicts of interest
  • Reviewer bias or competitive harmful acts by reviewers.

Policy for Handling Complaints:

If Tehseel receives a complaint that any contribution to the Journal violates intellectual property rights or contains material inaccuracies or otherwise unlawful materials:

  • Investigation may include a request that the parties involved substantiate their claims.
  • The Journal will make a good faith determination whether to remove the allegedly wrongful material.
  • All the investigations and decisions in relation to the case are to be documented by the Journal.
  • We strive to ensure that journal maintains the highest quality and is free from errors. However, we accept that occasionally mistakes might occur.

Editorial Complaints Policy

The Editor and the Assistant Editors will make every efforts to put matters right as soon as possible in the most appropriate way, offering the right of reply where necessary. As far as possible, we will investigate complaints in a blame-free manner, investigating how systems can be improved to prevent further mistakes occurring.

 

How to Make a Complaint

Complaints about editorial content should be made as soon as possible after publication, preferably in writing by email to: tehseel.irak@gmail.com

Appeals

The Editor and Assistant Editors of Tehseel have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor or Assistant Editors with a detailed written description of the error they believe to have occurred. If no error has occurred, the Editor decision to reject is final.

 Post Publication Decision

Sometimes the Editor, in line with guidance published, will determine that a published article needs to be retracted or that other corrective action or notification needs to be made to the published article. As referenced in the authorship agreement, Tehseel reserves the right to take corrective action as they deem necessary in the interest of their responsibility for maintaining a transparent and accurate academic record. If an author has concerns about a retraction or other action on their published paper, they may contact the Editor at with a detailed written description of their concern and any supporting materials where applicable.

The author will be advised of the outcome in writing. We aim to resolve issues as swiftly as possible, though it may please be noted that sometimes investigations can take several weeks or more depending on the nature of the concern or complaint, the availability of relevant data and information, whether multiple authors and papers are involved, and possible involvement of the author’s institution or other external parties.

In the interest of allowing due process to take place, and investigations to proceed without prejudice, we respectfully request that anyone raising a concern or complaint allow the process to conclude before publicly commenting on the case.

Conflict of Interest/Competing Interests

Tehseel defines a conflict of interest as arising from any relationship authors, reviewers or editors might have which interferes with the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of a manuscript.

Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial, professional or personal, and can arise in relation to an organization or an individual. Tehseel requires full disclosure by authors of all conflicts of interest relevant to a submitted manuscript, which is integral to the transparent reporting of research.

Reviewers

To ensure that the review process is free of conflicts:

  • Editor should ensure that reviewers are free of conflict of interest with respect to an author.
  • Reviewers should contact the editorial office to declare any potential conflicts of interest in advance of refereeing an article (e.g. being a co-worker or collaborator with one of the authors, or being in a position which precludes giving an objective opinion of the work).
  • Minor conflicts do not disqualify a reviewer from reporting on an article but will be taken into account when considering the referees’ recommendations.

Authors

  • All authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting their article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licenses, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc.). If the article is subsequently accepted for publication, this information should be included in the end section.

Editors

  • Editors should not make any editorial decisions or get involved in the editorial process if they have any COI (financial or otherwise) for a submitted manuscript. If editors have any such COI with respect to the authors or their work, the editors should recuse themselves from the decision-making process.  
  • An editor may have COI if a manuscript is submitted from their own academic department or from their institution in such situations, they should have explicit policies for managing it.  
  • When editors submit their own work to their journal, a colleague in the editorial office should manage the manuscript and the editor/author should recuse himself or herself from discussion and decisions about it.

Journal Action

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared by the authors’ in the section given in copyright form. In cases where no conflicts of interests exist, authors should state that “The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article”. Otherwise, they should mention any conflict of interest at the end of the manuscript.

Data Sharing and Reproduction

Tehseel is committed to a more open research landscape, facilitating faster and more effective research discovery by enabling reproducibility and verification of data, methodology and reporting standards. We encourage authors of articles published in our journals to share their research data including, but not limited to: raw data, processed data, protocols, methods, materials.

Ethical Oversight

The policy of Tehseel concerning the oversight on how the ethical principles are observed is built on mutual trust of the publication process participants and hope for compulsory observance of all the publication ethics principles, described in the "Publishing policies" and "Editorial policies".

“Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication and ethical conduct of research”. Based on this definition, the editorial staff of the journals works under the issue of observing the ethical principles.

The journals will be bound to consider the appeals concerning the non-observance of the ethical principles by our authors. We are also ready to consider other appeals in case they are not anonymous but fully substantiated.

Intellectual Property

Copyright is just one of a bundle of rights which make up Intellectual Property (IP). IP rights (IPR) help to ensure that a work is not used without the permission of the rights holder. In most cases the first copyright holder is the author of the work. All forms of intellectual property that do not require registration, such as copyright in literary works and software, belong to the creator, subject to any ownership or licensing or publication provisions in agreements the creator may have agreed to previously, e.g. in research grants or sponsorships or collaboration agreements, or if the copyright works have been created for the administrative or managerial purposes.

The moral rights of an author

  • the right of integrity (for the author to prevent any derogatory treatment of their work)
  • the right to object to false attribution (not to have something they did not create attributed to them)
  • the right to privacy (to be able to withhold certain films or photographs)

The author of the work retains the moral rights but may choose to give away the economic rights, for example by publishing in a journal. At this point the author typically signs a publishing agreement which transfers the economic rights to the publisher. This is an important issue to consider when it comes to making work available via open access in compliance with certain funder’s requirements.

Post Publication and Corrections

An erratum comprises an error that affects the veracity of the published paper, and may affect the reputation of the authors. Errata are published as a distinct article or as a separate part of the article . An erratum should be published in the case of a serious mistake or a factual error or omission in the methods, results, or conclusions. To warrant an erratum the error must be serious enough to affect the replication and interpretation of results.

Cases that warrant an erratum

  • A figure was not explained correctly.
  • Incorrect results were included in a table.
  • An author is accidentally missed out.

A notice of correction will be issued by Tehseel to article and correct considerable errors that appear in online articles when these errors considerably affect the content or understanding of the work reported (e.g., error in data presentation) or when the error affects the publication’s metadata (e.g., misspelling of an author’s name). In these cases, Tehseel will publish a correction that will be linked to the original article.
We expect authors to inform the journal’s office of any errors they have observed (or have been informed of) in their article once published.

Removal of Published Content 

In exceptional circumstances, Tehseel reserves the right to remove a paper from online platforms.

This may happen when:
(i) Tehseel has been advised that the content is defamatory;
(ii) Infringes a third party’s intellectual property right, right to privacy or another legal right;
(iii) It poses an immediate and serious risk if acted upon.

Criteria for the Emergency Takedown

The emergency takedown will be invoked if:
(i) The publication of a paper contains a photograph in which a particular individual [not of historical interest and with the right of personal privacy] can be identified;
(ii) The paper includes the personal identifying information of a private individual that may lead to an individual being easily identified.

Addenda

 An addendum is a notification to add information to a published paper. It should be noted that the addenda do not contradict the original publication and are not used to fix the error. For errors, Tehseel will publish a correction notice as and when necessary. Actually, if the author needs to update or add some key information then, they can publish an addendum. The addenda may be peer-reviewed and are normally subject to editorial approval.