Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Editorial Policies

Nigerian Journal of Technology (NIJOTECH) upholds international best practice and the integrity of scientific and technological records. Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for Journal Editors.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using another person's words, ideas, or expressions as though it is one's own; especially without due recognition of the original author by reference citation and listing. This could happen with or without the permission of the original author. The Nigerian Journal of Technology considers “self-plagiarism” as a form of plagiarism. An example of self-plagiarism is a case where an author borrows an idea from his or her previously published work without properly citing it in the newly submitted manuscript. Editors of NIJOTECH use Turnitin software for checking manuscripts from authors to ensure compliance to acceptable similarity index level of not more than 15%.

Peer Review

Nigerian Journal of Technology uses double-blind peer review to evaluate the quality of manuscripts submitted for publication. Independent researchers and experts in the relevant research fields assess manuscripts submitted to NIJOTECH for originality, validity, and significance to enable editors decide whether a manuscript should be published in the journal or not. NIJOTECH follows a double-blind review process, in which the authors’ identities are  not disclosed to the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process and COPE’s guideline is followed for the peer review process.

Conflicts of Interest

NIJOTECH requires that authors should sign a disclosure form at the time of manuscript submission. Authors are expected to disclose any conflict of interest affecting the outcome of the study in which authors or any employment, consultation, ownership, honorarium, patent application, etc. are involved. Any project funded by an industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder’s involvement; otherwise it should be stated clearly if the industry has no role in the design, execution, recognition, or writing of the study. If the manuscript is accepted, the Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a published statement according to COPE guidelines on Conflict of interest/Competing interests.

Retraction Policy

NIJOTECH requires that retracted articles be clearly identified, including the title and authors in the retraction heading or citing the retracted article, according to COPE’s guidelines on retraction.

Manuscript Submissions by any Editorial Board Member

Manuscript submission process containing the work of any editorial board member, are not allowed to be reviewed by that editorial board member and all decisions regarding this manuscript are carried out by an independent editor. In addition, these manuscripts are reviewed by external reviewers in the normal procedure. NIJOTECH follows the latest Core Practices applicable in publishing scholarly articles for editors, journal publishers and institutions as contained in COPE’s Core Practices (https://publicationethics.org/misconduct)

The Responsibilities of Editors

Publication Decisions: NIJOTECH editors shall be responsible for taking decisions to accept, reject or make modification on a manuscript; including editing, clarification, reducing the length of a manuscript. In some cases, there may be need for many rounds of reviews and modifications on the manuscript. Editors shall communicate results of reviews to the respective authors in good time, also publish corrected manuscripts or other modifications while maintaining the integrity of academic record.

Fair Review Process: Editors shall base their judgement for accepting or rejecting a manuscript on their relevance to NIJOTECH, as well as their originality, importance and clarity of the manuscript. Editors shall ensure that review of manuscripts are unbiased and focuses on just their intellectual value.

Confidentiality: The editorial team shall ensure that the content of manuscripts submitted to the journal remain confidential.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: No member of the editorial team shall use any content of an unpublished manuscript disclosed to the journal during submission for personal research without a written consent of the original author.

Relationship with Authors: Editors shall make all necessary efforts to ensure high quality of manuscripts to be published. Journal guidelines should be reviewed and updated from time to time. After accepting a manuscript, editors shall not reverse the decision, except if very serious problems are discovered.

 Responsibilities of Authors

Publication guidelines: Authors are required to follow the guidelines provided by NIJOTECH on submission. Every co-author listed in a manuscript must have made substantial contribution to the work. Furthermore, authors shall ensure that the manuscript they want to submit is original to them,  no breach of copyright, and should certify that the article has not been submitted or published elsewhere. Authors shall ensure that other people’s works are adequately recognized by proper reference citation and listing. Submitting the same article to more than one place at same time is unethical. It is required that authors should notify the editors of any conflicts of interest that may affect  the manuscript. Authors should provide retractions or corrections of mistakes whenever they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in a manuscript already submitted.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Confidentiality: Reviewers are required to take and keep all manuscripts received confidential. Such manuscripts should not be shown to or discussed with others.

Objectives and Standards: Manuscript reviews shall be conducted objectively, and personal criticism of the author is inappropriate and hence shall be avoided.

Conflicts of Interest: It is required that reviewers shall not undertake the review of a manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative and other relationships or connections with any of the authors, associated institutions and companies with the paper(s).

Promptness: In a case where a reviewer is not able to complete review of a manuscript within the given time, the reviewer should notify the editor on time and withdraw from the review process.

Acknowledgement of sources: It is the duty of reviewers to check and ensure that authors have cited all related published works referred to in their paper. In any case where this is not followed, reviewers are required to bring to the editors’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and any other published or unpublished content. Authors are  not to use any information gotten in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, except with a written permission of the original author(s) of the work.

Review evaluation: Reviewers are required to evaluate each manuscripts based on their individual merits and content. The review should be unbiased and not based on  authors’ race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.

Responsibilities of the Publisher

Publishers are required to provide practical support to the editors, editor-in-chief and entire editorial team, to enable them easily follow the COPE’s code of conduct for Journals;  and ensure the autonomy of editorial decisions and protect intellectual property copyright.

Publishers shall always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies whenever needed. Publishers shall maintain the integrity of academic records and preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

Publishers shall be committed to being available always and preserve scholarly research and ensure easy access by partnering with organizations and maintaining NIJOTECH’s digital archives. Also they shall ensure that good practice is maintained according to the standards already stated.

All research and other types of manuscripts shall be subjected to good peer-review, by at least two external peer-reviewers. After preliminary checks by the journal editors for suitability in the journal, the editor shall invite relevant independent reviewers with sufficient experience and expertise. Editors’ decision shall be based on the expert reviewer reports, which should be made available to the authors upon decision. Where an editor of the journal is an author in a particular submission, adequate steps shall be taken to ensure blinding the editor from the submission during peer-review.

Penalty

Duplicate Submission: In a case where editors find out and confirm that a particular submission was also submitted to other journals or other sources, the editorial board shall terminate the review process, and the reason should be communicated to reviewers, editorial board, authors and corresponding authors and all the names of those authors shall be black-listed, and these authors cannot submit any manuscript to NIJOTECH for another two years.

Duplicate Publication: When a duplicate publication is discovered from other sources, the editorial board shall check the status. If the duplicate publication is confirmed as intentional, then, this shall be reported to editors, authors etc.