Academic Journal of Art and Design (AJAD) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. The journal follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects all parties involved in the publication process to adhere to these standards.
Duties of Editors
- Make publication decisions on fair, scientific grounds.
- Ensure manuscript confidentiality and fairness of review.
- Investigate any allegation of malpractice, before or after publication.
- Take appropriate corrective action when misconduct is confirmed.
- Preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
- Avoid conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members.
Duties of Reviewers
- Provide objective, confidential, and timely assessments.
- Disclose any conflict of interest and decline when lacking competence or time.
- Not use privileged information from the manuscript for personal advantage.
- Identify relevant published work not cited by the author.
- Call the editors’ attention to any substantial similarity or overlap with other published work.
Duties of Authors
- Ensure the originality of the work.
- Disclose funding sources and conflicts of interest.
- Avoid concurrent submission to more than one journal.
- Promptly report any significant error in published work and cooperate in its correction or retraction.
- Certify that the manuscript has not been previously published elsewhere.
Research Misconduct
Misconduct includes, but is not limited to:
- Fabrication: Inventing data or results.
- Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes.
- Plagiarism: Using another’s work without acknowledgement.
- Duplicate or redundant publication: Submitting the same work to multiple venues.
- Ghost or gift authorship: Including authors who did not contribute, or omitting those who did.
- Citation manipulation: Intentionally inflating citations to specific authors, journals, or publications.
- Undisclosed use of AI: Failing to reveal the use of generative AI tools for producing text, images, or data.
Confirmed cases of misconduct will be handled according to COPE flowcharts. Actions may include rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, and notification of the author’s institution and funders where appropriate.
Corrections and Retractions
- Corrections (Erratum/Corrigendum) are issued when errors affect interpretation but not the validity of the work.
- Retractions are issued when results are proven unreliable due to error, misconduct, or data manipulation; when the work was previously published elsewhere; when plagiarism is detected; when authorship is fraudulent; or when the peer-review process has been compromised.
- Retracted articles remain freely accessible with a “Retraction” watermark and an official retraction notice with its own DOI.
Plagiarism Policy
All submissions are checked through appropriate plagiarism detection tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or in part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered post-publication, the journal will issue a retraction.
Complaints and Appeals
Any concerns regarding the editorial process or published content should be directed to the editorial office. The journal will investigate all complaints thoroughly and in a timely manner.