Ethics

Publishing Ethics

Journal of Responsible Tourism Management (JRTM) is committed to the highest academic, professional, legal, and ethical standards in publishing work in this journal. To this end, we have adopted a set of guidelines, to which all submitting authors are expected to adhere, to assure integrity and ethical publishing for authors, reviewers, and editors.

In the submission process to JRTM, authors must compliance with following set of guidelines:

Case 1: Peer review process

All of a journal’s content, apart from any editorial material that is clearly marked as such, shall be subject to peer-review. Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers, expert in the field. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, are clearly described on the journal’s website. Therefore, all manuscripts submitted to JRTM are subject to editorial preliminary review and subsequently double-blind peer review. Double-blind review is defined as a review process wherein both the authors and the reviewers are anonymous. Peer review is defined as the evaluation of academic work by other academics of the same field. All JRTM reviewers are appointed based on their areas of expertise. They are invited to review and their performance is evaluated each time. Those who perform well and consistently will then be appointed as an Editorial Review Board member.

Case 2: Authorship

Every author listed on a journal article should have made a significant contribution to the work reported (in terms of research conception or design, or acquisition of data, or the analysis and interpretation of data). As an author or co-author, you share responsibility and accountability for the content of your article.

What to avoid

Gift (guest) authorship: where someone is added to the list of authors who has not been involved in writing the paper.
Ghost authorship: where someone has been involved in writing the paper but is not included in the list of authors.

Case 3: Plagiarism

“When somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgment.”
When citing others’ (or your own) previous work, please ensure you have:

Clearly marked quoted verbatim text from another source with quotation marks. Attributed and referenced the source of the quotation clearly within the text and in the Reference section.

Obtained permission from the original publisher and rights holder when using previously published figures or tables. published figures or tables.

Make sure you avoid self-plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism is the redundant reuse of your own work, usually without proper citation. It creates repetition in the academic literature and can skew meta-analyses if the same sets of data are published multiple times as “new” data. If you’re discussing your own previous work, make sure you cite it. JRTM uses Turnitin to screen for unoriginal material. Authors submitting to a JRTM should be aware that their paper may be submitted to Turnitin at any point during the peer-review or production process.

Any allegations of plagiarism or self-plagiarism made to a journal will be investigated by the editor of the journal. If the allegations appear to be founded, all named authors of the paper will be contacted and an explanation of the overlapping material will be requested. JRTM considers only those manuscripts which contain less than 15% plagiarism. If any manuscript contains more than the mentioned percentage, it will be reverted back to the author for removing the plagiarism. If author does not send revised manuscript with less than 15% plagiarism, the journal will reject his/her manuscript.

Case 4: Data fabrication / falsification

It is essential that all data is accurate, and representative of your research. Data sharing is more and more prevalent, increasing the transparency of raw data. Some journals request that raw data is uploaded as a supplemental file for publication (you can check the instruction for authors to see if this is the case on the journal you are submitting to). JRTM encourages you to submit your supplemental data with your article. Cases of data fabrication/falsification will be evaluated by the editor of the journal. Authors may be contacted to provide supporting raw data where required. Journal Editorial Board members may be contacted to assist in further evaluation of the paper and allegations. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the submission will be rejected, and no future submissions may be accepted (at our discretion).

Data has been carefully checked and any supplemental data required by the journal included.

Case 5: Conflicts of interest

It is very important to be honest about any conflicts of interest, whether sources of research funding, direct or indirect financial support, supply of equipment or materials, or other support. Remember to declare it when you submit your paper. If a conflict of interest is not declared to the journal upon submission, or during review, and it affects the actual or potential interpretation of the results, the paper may be rejected or retracted.

Ready to submit your paper? Your ethics checklist

Before you submit, make sure that:

-You have read the journal’s instructions for authors, and checked and followed any instructions regarding data sets, ethics approval, or statements.
-All authors have been named on the paper, and the online submission form.
-All material has been referenced in the text clearly and thoroughly.
-Data has been carefully checked and any supplemental data required by the journal included.
-Any relevant interests have been declared to the journal.
-You have obtained (written) permission to reuse any figures, tables, and data sets.
-You have only submitted the paper to one journal at a time.
-You’ve notified all the co-authors that the paper has been submitted.
-Author(s) must properly disclose and acknowledge all the sources of institutional, private and corporate financial and logistic support for the research within the manuscript.

Case 6: Ethic Approval

All authors have to follow the ethical guidelines for journal publication. The authors are dutybound to obtain prior permission from the officials of the Institution/ University, where the work is to be undertaken, for conducting the experiments on animals including human and the work reported should not violate the law. Animal related experiments, prior to their execution, should be got examined and approved by the professionals (Institutional Ethical Committee) with respect to the moral aspects. Research on human beings must comply with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for Experiments Involving Humans [https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for- medical-research-involving-human-subjects/]; EU Directive 2010/63/EU for Animal Experiments [http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm].

Human/animal details may be included only if they are essential for scientific purposes and the author(s) need to obtain written permission from the individual, parent, owners or guardian. All the manuscripts reporting the findings of experimental study involving human/animal subjects should provide a statement confirming that each subject or subject’s guardian obtains an informal consent, after the approval of experimental protocol by the ethics committee.