Misconduct / Retraction Policy

KKG Publications strictly adhere to COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics) guidelines on code of conduct for Journal Editors. Researchers has obligation to follow best practices and a code of ethics of some relevant regularity authorities (national or international) before conducting their research and submitting their articles.

In publishing, research misconduct cases are rare. However, to encounter such situation and challenges KKG Publications has a comprehensive publishing ethics guide.

Ethical Issues and Dealing with Possible Misconduct

It must be noted that there are two different cases of misconduct: Complex Scientific Fraud and Errors. Therefore, it becomes important to treat such type of cases with great care to avoid risk. Following actions are taken by KKG Publications to treat any misconduct.

  1. Acting as neutral player and dealing misconduct with great confidentiality.
  2. Written communication regarding such issues is kept in record including complainant evidence and allegation.
  3. Issue of misconduct is raised with the suspected (co)author following a formal procedure.
  4. Facts and findings are collected against what actually happened and decision is taken ensuring transparency.

Following are the possible type of misconduct or ethical issues that can take place in research.

  1. Data Falsification
  2. Duplicate Publication
  3. Plagiarism
  4. Undeclared conflict of interest
  5. Authorship Issues

KKG publications has number of sanctions in its policies (ranked on the basis of severity) in which “Banning” decision by the editor is the most severe sanction.  The publication as well as dissemination of the corrective notice is very important act. The corrective notice recognizes that misconduct took place and pinpoints the acting party that was leading that misconduct.

KKG Publications has explained number of other potential sanctions which are in order of severity. These include:

  • Publication of erratum, corrigendum or a notice.
  • Formal removal in few cases like invasion of privacy (ensuring that scientific record is maintained for such misconduct issues).
  • The publication of a corrective notice (formal retraction) that has direct link to original article.
  • Publishing an editorial that discusses the issue

The editor-in-chief should carefully weigh and consider all these sanctions while dealing with ant type of misconduct.