Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Introduction

Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria. The journal is committed to maintaining high standards of research integrity, transparency, and ethical publishing.

This statement outlines policies regarding authorship, peer review, conflicts of interest, research ethics, misconduct, and post-publication updates.

The policy follows internationally recognised standards including the COPE Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, and considers relevant guidance such as ICMJE recommendations.

Scope and applicability

These policies apply to all manuscripts submitted to the journal and to everyone involved in the editorial process, including authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial staff. By submitting or reviewing a manuscript, participants agree to follow these standards.

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are based solely on scholarly merit, originality, methodological quality, relevance to the journal’s scope, and contribution to the field. Commercial, institutional, or personal interests must not influence editorial decisions.

The journal maintains transparent governance through publicly listed editorial leadership and clear editorial responsibilities. Editors with conflicts of interest must recuse themselves from handling the manuscript.

Authorship and author responsibilities

Authorship is limited to individuals who made substantial contributions to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or drafting of the work. All authors must approve the final manuscript and accept responsibility for its accuracy and integrity.

The corresponding author ensures that all eligible contributors are included and that the author order is agreed before submission. An Author Contribution Statement describing each author’s role is required.

Individuals who contributed but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged. Practices such as gift, ghost, or coercive authorship are not permitted.

Changes to authorship after submission require written justification and agreement from all authors. Disputes may be referred to the relevant institutions.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose financial or non-financial interests that could influence the work, including employment, consultancies, grants, patents, personal relationships, or institutional affiliations. If no competing interests exist, authors must state this explicitly.

Editors and reviewers must also declare conflicts of interest and withdraw from the review process if impartiality could be affected.

Funding disclosure

All funding sources supporting the research must be disclosed, including grant numbers where applicable. Authors should also indicate whether funders had any role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or publication decision.

Research ethics

Research involving human participants must comply with relevant ethical standards and institutional regulations. Authors must state the name of the approving ethics committee, approval reference where applicable, and how informed consent was obtained.

Additional safeguards must be described for vulnerable populations. Where identifiable personal information or images are used, explicit consent for publication must be obtained.

Research involving animals must comply with institutional and national welfare regulations.

The journal may request supporting documentation, such as ethics approval letters.

Data availability and transparency

Research articles must include a Data Availability Statement indicating where underlying data, code, or materials can be accessed.

Where sharing is restricted for legal, ethical, or confidentiality reasons, authors must explain the restriction and provide a controlled access method where possible. Authors should retain original data for verification if required.

Plagiarism and originality

Manuscripts must be original and not under consideration elsewhere. Proper citation of sources is required.

The journal may use similarity-checking software to detect plagiarism, duplicate publication, or excessive text recycling.

Serious misconduct includes plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate submission, citation manipulation, and deceptive reporting.

Authors must disclose related manuscripts that substantially overlap with the submission.

Peer review

The journal uses double-masked peer review. Manuscripts may be rejected without external review if they are outside the journal’s scope or do not meet methodological or ethical standards.

Reviewers must provide objective and constructive evaluations and alert editors to possible ethical concerns.

All manuscripts and review materials are confidential. Reviewer identities remain confidential under the journal’s peer-review policy.

Image integrity

Images must not be manipulated in ways that could mislead readers. Any adjustments must apply to the entire image and must not alter interpretation. Editors may request original image files if concerns arise.

Clinical trials

Where applicable, clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry before participant enrolment, and the registration number must be included in the manuscript.

Copyright and licensing

All articles are published open access under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Authors retain copyright while granting the journal the right to publish the work.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reuse third-party copyrighted material.

Fees

The journal follows a diamond open access model and does not charge submission fees, article processing charges, or publication fees.

Privacy and confidentiality

Manuscripts, reviewer reports, and editorial correspondence are treated as confidential. Personal data of authors, reviewers, and editors are processed only for editorial and publication purposes and handled securely.

Complaints and misconduct

The journal maintains procedures for handling complaints, appeals, and allegations of misconduct. Appeals should include the manuscript ID and a clear explanation of the concern.

Allegations such as plagiarism, data falsification, authorship disputes, or peer-review manipulation are investigated following established ethical guidelines and may involve contacting authors or their institutions.

Post-publication updates

To maintain the integrity of the scholarly record, the journal may issue:

Corrections (Erratum or Corrigendum) – for errors that do not affect the main findings.
Editorial Expression of Concern – when serious issues are under investigation.
Retraction – when findings are unreliable due to major error, misconduct, plagiarism, unethical research, or duplicate publication.
Removal (rare) – only in exceptional legal or safety circumstances.

All notices are clearly labelled and linked to the original article.

Policy review

This policy is periodically reviewed and updated when necessary to reflect evolving publishing standards.

Contact

Email: [email protected]

Editorial Office:
Deputy Rector (Academics) Office
Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria

Editor-in-Chief:
Dr. Funmilayo Doherty
[email protected]