Authors are considered partners seeking common research excellence goals, which are facilitated through a constructive peer review and communication system built on trust and long-term collaboration. QU Press is committed to apply and maintain scientific standards recognized by international academic institutions and thus applies the below shown measurement in order to maintain high-quality research output.
Authors checklist
Authors are required to ensure the following before submitting their manuscript (book or article):
- for articles: the manuscript follows the writing style guide of the journal;
- for books: the manuscript follows a common writing style guide in the whole book content;
- check if the facts and data presented in the manuscript are accurate and error-free;
- ensure that the publication has been approved by all the co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute or organization where the work has been carried out;
- confirm that the work has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis);
- ensure that the work is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Originality and plagiarism
Books and articles are screened by editors working at and for QU Press with iThenticate plagiarism system and based on their knowledge of the area in question, as well as through the use of widely available internet tools.
Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted non-plagiarized and original works only. Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing off” another’s paper as the author’s own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable and penalized.
If any of the book’s content or article has been published previously in any form, the author should notify QU Press, which reserves the right to accept or reject the manuscript. The author guarantees that permission has been obtained, and any fee required has been paid. For any copyrighted material included in the book or article whose reproduction cannot be justified as “fair use”, the author must obtain permission from the copyright owner for its reproduction, pay any fee required, and furnish QU Press with a copy of all documents granting the required permission. The author agrees to indemnify and hold QU Press exempt from any claim or proceeding undertaken on any of the aforementioned grounds.
For article publishing: upon request of the author, QU Press shall grant to the author a non-exclusive license to republish the article in the same or revised form in any language in a written or edited book by the author after the publication of the journal issue. This is subject only to the condition that a credit line, to be supplied by QU Press, will be printed in the author’s book to indicate the first publication of the article in the journal.
Handling of unethical publishing behavior
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, QU Press will perform all the required procedures to amend the book or article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the work in question.
Editors, in coordination with QU Press, will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.
Charges for manuscript withdrawal by the author
Withdrawal of a manuscript will be permitted only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons. For withdrawal of a manuscript, the author shall submit an “Article withdrawal Form” signed by all authors and mentioning the reason for withdrawal to the editor in charge. Author(s) must not assume that their manuscript has been withdrawn until they have received a written notification to this effect.
If the author(s) request(s) the withdrawal of his/her manuscript after the peer review process or in the production stage (early release or ahead of publishing), the author(s) shall clarify the reason of withdrawal and may pay a withdrawal penalty.
Withdrawal of journal articles for misconduct
QU Press follows the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the COPE Flowcharts for Resolving Cases of Suspected Misconduct, available through the following link: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts.
This is only used for “Article in Press”, which represents the early version of the accepted articles. If any article at the stage of “Article in Press”, by any means, represents infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or similar incidences, the article may be withdrawn depending on the editor’s discretion. In this regard, QU Press’s decision must be considered as final following the deep assessment and analysis of the situations, on a case-by-case basis.
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, sham claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and similar claims will lead to the retraction of an article. Occasionally, a retraction may be considered to correct errors in submission or publication.
Books and articles published under an Open Access license are made freely available online immediately upon publication, without subscription barriers to access. For journals, authors do not pay any fee to have their papers freely available online. For books, the author will be asked to sign an agreement.
QU Press open access journals implement the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use of the material, appropriate credit, and indication if changes in the material were made. You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format as well as remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited.