RESEARCH INTEGRITY

Publication Best Practices and Publication Ethics

Editorial Board structure

The Editorial Board of the TARE  journal comprises of Editor-in-Chief, National Editorial Board, and International Editorial Advisory Board. Editor-in-Chief remains the chairperson of the board, hence allowed to take the final decision in any regard.

The formation of the Editorial Board and the International Editorial Advisory Board is done through incorporating global experts with excellent academic track record and expertise in the journal subject. There is no restriction on the number of the Editorial Board members and the International Editorial Advisory Board. The Editorial Board and the International Editorial Advisory Board members must qualify the following major facts:

• Should a PhD degree in the relevant subject.

• Must have a good publication record.

• Should hold some academic position in Universities, Research Institutes or other such organizations.

Editorial Board Responsibilities

All Editorial Board members must obey the direction provided by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

Once the plagiarism check is completed every article will be assigned to an Editorial Board Member according to their expertise to check the suitability for publication and further improvement before sending to reviewers. It is expected that the assigned member will take up the assignment at the earliest possible time. If he or she wants to deny the assignment due to some personal reason, that should also be informed to the Editor-in-Chief at the earliest possible convenience.

The assigned member should not have any conflict of interest with any assignment, if so then he or she should decline the assignment stating the proper reason to the Editor-in-Chief.

• Every member must treat each author with proper dignity, courtesy, fair behaviour irrespective of considering the matter and fate of the article.

• Honesty and transparency are a must to become an Editorial Board member, where Editorial Board members should judge every submission equally and transparently.

• Editor-in-Chief can take the final decision for any publication oriented issue.

• If required Editorial Board member may provide the necessary guidelines and dictate the process of submission to the author.

• Editorial Board member should not reveal any information regarding the author, reviewer or article information to anyone, complete confidentiality maintenance is mandatory.

• Editorial Board member should be responsible for a fast and transparent peer review process, if required Editorial Board member may take support from the Editorial board.

• Providing the final judgment on the articles assigned within the allotted time with proper reason and clarification should be done by the Editorial Board member.

• Editorial Board member should remember the policy of fast and effective peer review and further process, therefore, should communicate with the reviewers or authors depending on the stage of article processing in case of any delay.

• Editorial Board member should be responsible for any query regarding reconsideration of editorial decisions and should provide the decision quickly and clearly with proper reasons.

• Along with the publisher, the Editorial Board is responsible for timely publishing the accepted articles.

• Editorial Board is responsible for selecting potential reviewers with the assistance of considering their expertise in particular subject areas and keeps monitoring the review process.

• It is Editorial Board Member’s responsibility to inform the selected reviewers that reviewers are not entitled to use any part of the work in any form provided in the article they are reviewing. Reviewers should be also informed about the complete confidentiality of the assignments they are undertaking.

• Editorial Board Member will be responsible to convey the expectations of the journal to the reviewers with the review scope, quality and timeliness for an effective, fair and constructive review for the assigned submission.

• Every Editorial Board Member should keep in mind the time required for reviewing articles before sending any reminder to the reviewer so that the assigned reviewer should get the appropriate time he or she requires.

• Editorial Board Members may attend the Editorial Board meetings occasionally scheduled by the Editorial Office for taking part in the discussion for the improvement of the Journal.

• Being an integral part of the Journal, Editorial Board Members are responsible to coordinate and manage the critical decisions along with the cooperation of the Editorial Office, such as retraction issues or similar matters.

• The Editorial Board should ensure the smooth functioning of the whole process of the journal.

Responsibilities of authors of manuscripts submitted for publication

Authorship offers credit for the contributions of a researcher to a study and carries accountability. Authors are expected to fulfil the criteria below

(adapted from McNutt et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2018, 201715374; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715374115; licensed under CC BY 4.0):

An author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, or the creation of new software used in the work, or have drafted the work or substantively revised it;

AND to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author's contribution to the study);

AND to have agreed on both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature, to ensure that questions related to the accuracy and/or integrity of any part of the work.

TARE encourages collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted, and expect their inclusion as co-authors when they fulfil all authorship criteria as described above. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

TARE does not require all the contributing authors of a research paper to sign the cover letter upon the submission, nor do they impose an order on the list of authors.

Submission to TARE is taken by the publication to mean that all the listed authors have agreed to all of the contents. The corresponding (submitting) author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached, and for managing all communication between the publication and all co-authors, before and after publication.

Responsibilities of team members on collaborations

TARE assumes that at least one member of each collaboration, of each submitting group or team, has accepted responsibility for the contributions to the manuscript from that team. This responsibility includes, but is not limited to: (1) ensuring that original data upon which the submission is based is preserved and retrievable for reanalysis; (2) approving data presentation as representative of the original data; and (3) foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data, materials, or reagents described in the work.

Corresponding author responsibilities

The corresponding author is solely responsible for communicating with TARE and for managing/maintaining communication between co-authors. Before submission, the corresponding author should ensure that all authors are included in the author list, the order of authors has been agreed by all authors and that all authors are aware that the paper was submitted. After acceptance, the proof is sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all content in the proof, names of co-authors (all present and correctly spelt), and that addresses and affiliations are correct and current.

A confidential process

TARE treats the submitted manuscript and all communication with authors and referees as confidential. Authors must also treat communication with TARE as confidential. Referee reports and other confidential material must not be posted on any website or otherwise publicized without prior permission from the TARE.

License agreement and author copyright

TARE requires authors to assign the copyright of their published original research papers to the journal.

Ethical clearance in use of experimental animals, and human participants

For articles in TARE reporting experiments on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, the methods section must include a statement, confirming that all experiments were performed following relevant ethical guidelines and regulations.

Conflicts of interest policy

In the interests of transparency and to help readers to form their judgments of potential bias, authors must declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interests to the work described.

Data citation

Authors should cite any datasets stored in external repositories that are mentioned within their manuscript. For previously published datasets, we ask authors to cite both the related research articles and the datasets themselves. For more information on how to cite datasets in submitted manuscripts, please see our submission guidelines.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is unacknowledged copying or an attempt to misattribute original authorship, whether of ideas or text. Plagiarism can include, “theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work” (Office of Research Integrity, USA). Plagiarism occurs when large portions of the text have been cut-and-pasted without appropriate and unambiguous attribution, or when an author re-uses substantial parts of his/her published work without providing the appropriate references. This ranges from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to 'salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication in TARE.

Due credit for others' work

When discussing the published work of others, authors must properly describe the contribution of the earlier work. Both intellectual contributions and technical developments must be acknowledged as such and appropriately cited.

Responsibilities of reviewers of manuscripts

Reviewers evaluate article submissions to the journal based on the requirements of the journal, predefined criteria, and the quality, completeness and accuracy of the research presented. They provide feedback on the paper, suggest improvements and make a recommendation to the editor about whether to accept, reject or request changes to the article. The ultimate decision always rests with the editor but reviewers play a significant role in determining the outcome. Reviewing is a time-intensive process, writing a review report can be almost as much work as writing a manuscript, but it is very worthwhile for the reviewer as well as for the community. The fairness in judgment and expertise in the field, reviewers have significant responsibilities toward authors, editors, and readers.

• Providing written, unbiased, constructive feedback on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the work, together with the documented basis for the reviewer’s opinion

• Indicating whether the writing is clear, concise, and relevant and rating the work’s composition, scientific accuracy, originality, and interest to the journal’s readers

• Avoiding personal comments or criticism

• Maintaining the confidentiality of the review process: not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed paper

• Notifying the editor immediately if unable to review on time and, if able, providing the names of alternative reviewers

• Alerting the editor about any potential personal, financial or perceived conflict of interest and declining to review when a conflict exists

• Complying with the editor’s written instructions on the journal’s expectations for the scope, content, and quality of the review

• Providing a thoughtful, fair, constructive, and informative critique of the submitted work, which may include supplementary material provided to the journal by the author

• Determining scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work; indicating ways to improve it; and, if requested, recommending acceptance or rejection using whatever rating scale the editor deems most useful

• Noting any ethical concerns, such as any violation of accepted norms of ethical treatment of animal or human subjects or substantial similarity between the reviewed manuscript and any published paper or any manuscript concurrently submitted to another journal that may be known to the reviewer

• Refraining from direct author contact

Double-blind peer review

TARE uses double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.

To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity. To help with this preparation please ensure the following when submitting manuscripts to TARE:

• Include author details only to the Title Page

• Remove names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript.

• Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have shown before” with “… has been shown before [Anonymous, 2007]”.

• Make sure figures do not contain any affiliation related identifier.

• Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those reviewing the submitted paper.

• Remove any identifying information, including author names, from file names and ensure document properties are also anonymized.

Confidentiality

Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Unless otherwise declared as a part of open peer review, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; the identities of reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts. Regardless of whether a submitted manuscript is eventually published, correspondence with the journal, referees' reports and other confidential material must not be published, disclosed or otherwise publicized without prior written consent. Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. We cannot, however, guarantee to maintain this confidentiality in the face of a successful legal action to disclose identity. TARE reserves the right to contact funders, regulatory bodies, journals and the authors’ institutions in cases of suspected research or publishing misconduct.

Publishing ethics issues

Members of the Editorial Board ensure the monitoring and safeguarding of the publishing ethics. This comprises the strict policy on plagiarism, fraudulent data, fraud and malpractice the strong commitment to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed, and the strict preclusion that will be taken from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

Whenever it is recognized that a published paper contains a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report, it will be corrected promptly. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, the journal will contact the author's institute and funding agencies. Depending on the extent of the malpractice, the paper may also be formally retracted. TARE follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for retraction.

Competing interests policy of the TARE journal

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their judgements of potential bias, The journal of TARE require authors to declare all potential competing interests with the work described. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting a competing interests' statement on behalf of all authors of the paper. Failure to declare competing interests can result in the immediate rejection of a manuscript. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, TARE will take action following the COPE guidelines and issue a public notification to the community.

Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relation to an institution, organization, or another person. For this policy, competing interests are defined as financial and non-financial interests that could directly undermine, or be perceived to undermine the objectivity, integrity and value of a publication, through a potential influence on the judgements and actions of authors with regard to objective data presentation, analysis and interpretation.

Financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

• Ownership of stocks or shares that may gain or lose financially through publication.

• Paid employment or consultancy: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication.

• Board membership

• Patent applications (pending or actual), including individual applications or those belonging to the institution to which the authors are affiliated and from which the authors may benefit. For patents and patent applications, disclosure of the following information is requested: patent applicant (whether author or institution), name of the inventor(s), application number, the status of the application, specific aspect of manuscript covered in the patent application.

• Research grants (including salaries, equipment, supplies, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication

• Travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings that may gain or lose financially

• Gifts

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant. Therefore journal offers one possible practical alternative guideline: "Any undeclared competing financial interests that could embarrass you were they to become publicly known after your work was published."

We do not consider diversified mutual funds or investment trusts to constitute a competing financial interest.

Non-financial competing interests

Non-financial competing interests can take different forms, including personal or professional relations with organizations and individuals. We would encourage authors and referees to declare any unpaid roles or relationships that might have a bearing on the publication process. Examples of non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

• Acting as an expert witness

• Membership in a government or non-government organization

• Relationship (paid or unpaid) with organizations and funding bodies including nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, or charities

• Membership in lobbying or advocacy organizations

• Writing or consulting for an educational company

• Personal relationships (e.g. friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper.

• Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that might interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication)

Application to authors

Authors must disclose and specify any competing interest during the submission process, via declarations in the manuscript submission system. The corresponding author is responsible for providing a declaration on behalf of all authors.

At the time of submission, authors must list all competing interests relevant to the submitted research. Examples may include but are not limited to:

• Names of all funding sources

• Description of funder’s role in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the paper; and/or decision to submit for publication

• Whether they have served or currently serve on the editorial board of the TARE journal.

• Whether they have acted as an expert witness in relevant legal proceedings

• Whether they have sat or currently sit on a committee for an organization that may benefit from the publication of the paper

Application to reviewers

The TARE  journal invite peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. We ask peer-reviewers to inform the editors of any related interests, including financial interests as defined above, that might be perceived as relevant. Editors will consider these statements when weighing reviewers' recommendations.

Application to editors

All editorial staff of the TARE  journal are required to declare to their employer (Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna) any interests, financial or otherwise that might influence, or be perceived to influence, their editorial practices. Failure to do so is a disciplinary offence.

Application to external editors and editorial board members

These editorial board members and external editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists.

In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include but is not limited to having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors.

Where an editorial board member or external editor is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, a member of the editorial board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the same review process as any other manuscript.

Editorial board members and external editors are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and editorial board member or external editor status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Process for complaints by authors

The authors have the right to complain and ask explanation if they perceive any misconduct in any applicable policies and ethical guidelines. The authors can raise their complaints by submitting a letter to tare.agricc@gmail.com

All the complaints regarding delinquencies in the work processes are investigated according to the prevailing publication ethics practices.

Policy for dealing with complaints

Once a complaint is received, at first, an acknowledgement is sent by the Editor-in-Chief to the complainant with the assurance that appropriate action will be taken on the complaint.

The investigation process is initiated by the Journal Editorial Board. After the investigation is over, a decision is taken in and the same is forwarded to the concerned author/scholar through his/her submitted email. We consider complaints as an opportunity to enhance our existing Manuscript Processing System. All the received complaints are dealt with in a polite, impartial and timely manner.

Archiving policy

The journal of Tropical Agricultural Research and Extension is available for LOCKSS harvesting through the SLJOL platform (https://tare.sljol.info/, to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

See: LOCKSS harvesting start page

Research data policy

The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers and to provide a statement of Data availability in their article. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.

Data Availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

• The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]

• The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

• The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

• Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

• All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].