Publication Ethics

The Lunarian follows guidelines from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in facing all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct. The Lunarian adopts COPE principle to meet high quality standard of ethics for publisher, editors, authors, and reviewers. As an essential issue, publication ethics need to be explained clearly to improve the quality of research worldwide. In this part, we explain the ethical responsibilities applied for authors, editors, and reviewers.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors should comply with the ethical guidelines adopted by The Lunarian when writing and submitting their reports. Authors must be aware that any unethical practices could lead to severe consequences including retraction of published article or even being banned from publishing in this journal.
Authors must be aware on the full contents of the submitted manuscripts. The presented data should be accurate and free from fabrication and fraud.
Authors must ensure the originality of the report. The Lunarian does not accept manuscript or any parts of the manuscript that has been previously published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Please see the journal’s policy regarding Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers.
Authors must ensure that their original report is free from plagiarism. Authors are advised to maintain the similarity index of their manuscript no more than 30%.
Authors should do their best to ensure the availability of the underlying data. Raw data may be requested to authors by editors or reviewers during the evaluation. Authors are encouraged to make their underlying data publicly available through institutional or subject-based data repository. Exception is made for private data of the research subjects which are meant to be kept confidential by the authors.
Authors should disclose any competing of interests and their funding sources in a separated sections (see Authors Guidelines). Authors must ensure that the funders do not have a role in designing the experiment and interpreting the results of the experiment.
Authors must notify editors regarding the incorrectness and inaccuracies of their manuscript prior to publication for immediate correction. However, authors also have responsibilities to report significant errors or inaccuracies in their own that are observed in post-publication to the Journal or the Editor-in-Chief. In response, the journal will release erratum for the correction(s) or retract the article following the consultation with editor-in-chief, handling editor, and reviewers.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors must comply with COPE practices in judging and making decisions of submitted manuscripts.
Editors shall judge the submitted manuscripts based on the academic merits (such as novelty, originality, scientific correctness, and readability) and its relevance to the Scope of The Lunarian. Discriminatory behaviours based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy, or institutional affiliation are not permissible during the editorial process.
Editors’ decision should not be affected by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. Decision to accept should be supported by the recommendations from reviewers.
Editors are responsible to inform authors regarding the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript.
Editors should treat the submitted manuscript with full confidentiality and prevent the information containing in the manuscript to be disclosed to parties having no role in the evaluation and publication processes.
Editors must respect the author’s request to not invite certain reviewers with objective considerations.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers hold a critical role in maintaining the quality of paper published in our journals. Prior to publication, each submitted manuscript should undergo a peer-review process by ideally two independent reviewers, invited by the editors based on their expertise suitability and professional track record in the subject area of the manuscript. Once reviewers are appointed, they are bind to the following ethical responsibilities:

The primary responsibility of reviewers is to perform objective adjudication on the submitted manuscript on the basis of scientific merits and publication standards.
Document sent to the reviewers for peer-review shall be treated as confidential.
Reviewers should respect the single-blind peer-review policy adopted by the journal. Reviewers must not disclose their identity to the authors during the evaluation process.
In making review reports, reviewers should give their best in explaining their suggestion point-by-point to authors.
Reviewers are expected to submit their reports in a timely manner and encouraged to reach handling editor if extra time is needed to evaluate the manuscript.
Reviewers must notify editors when any scientific and ethical misconducts are found in the experiment or in the manuscript. These include the indication of plagiarism and data fabrication or manipulation.

Conflicts of Interests

For all type of submission. Authors must indicate whether or not there is a financial relationship between them and the organization that sponsored the research. This note should be added in a separate section previous to the reference list. If no conflict exists, authors should state so. See the details in Authors Guidelines.
Conflict of interest may also emerge during the manuscript evaluation that may disrupt the fair play process. To anticipate, editors are prevented from handling manuscripts whose authors are from the same institution with them, or by research collaborators, or co-authors, or competitors. In such case, another editor will be appointed to handle the manuscript.
Similarly with the reviewers who are obliged to retain themselves from evaluating manuscripts authored by individuals from their own institution, or by research collaborators, or co-authors, or competitors. Reviewers should promptly notify handling editor on the possible conflict of interest and return the manuscript.

Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers

It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyright holder). Permission is required for:

Your own works published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.
Substantial extracts from anyone's works or a series of works.
Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.
Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.
Permission is not required for:
Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".
Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.
Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.

Obtaining Permission

In order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. If in any doubt about the copyright, apply for permission. Manuscript containing materials from other publications without permission cannot be published in The Lunarian.
The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgement to be followed; otherwise follow the style: "Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].' at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.

Publication Misconducts

Publication misconducts include data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and improper authorship. These terms are defined as follows:

Terms	Definition
Fabrication	Any activity involving the creation of false information about non-existing data or findings.
Falsification	Artificial manipulation of the research materials/equipment/process or random modification/deletion of data resulting in misleading interpretation.
Plagiarism	Any activity of pirating others’ ideas, research contents, and research results without obtaining justifiable approvals or giving proper credits.
Improper authorship	Inclusion of a person as an author who has contributed inadequately to research or manuscript writing.

In Case of Research and Publication Misconducts

Editors, in collaboration with reviewers, maintained the accuracy and integrity of the contents published in the journal. In addressing the misconduct allegation, editors will follow the COPE guidelines including investigation to the allegation. During the editorial or peer-review process, manuscript proven to commit the misconducts will be rejected. During post-publication, editors should retract papers proven to commit such misconducts by releasing a notification indicating the paper has been retracted along with the investigation results. Other sanction for committing scientific misconduct is the restriction from publishing in The Lunarian for a certain period of time the editorial board and the journal.
Any allegation will be entertained by the editorial board and investigated for validity, including its consistency with the definition of research misconduct. Investigation is also extended to seek possible presence of conflicts of interest from the individual(s) reporting the allegation.
If scientific misconduct or the presence of other substantial research irregularities is a possibility, the allegations are shared with the corresponding author, who, on behalf of all of the co-authors, is requested to provide a detailed response. After the response is received and evaluated, additional review and involvement of experts (such as statistical reviewers) may be obtained. For cases in which it is unlikely that misconduct has occurred, clarifications, additional analyses, or both, published as letters to the editor, and often including a correction notice and correction to the published article are sufficient.
Institutions authors have affiliation with should perform their own investigation on the allegations of scientific misconduct. The responsibility of maintaining and guaranteeing the accuracy of the scientific contents of published articles is shared among the authors, journals, and institutions. Actions taken by the journal includes corrections, retractions with replacement, and retractions of the alleged article. Through this action, The Lunarian continues to uphold the responsibilities of ensuring the validity and integrity of the scientific record.