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Ethical Principles and Malpractice

The editor-in-chief and members of the editorial board are responsible for ensuring adherence to ethical principles and practices and procedures in cases of malpractice.
  1. Publications
  2. Cairo Papers in Social Science
  3. Ethical Principles and Malpractice

Authors

Cairo Papers in Social Science defines an author as the person responsible for conceptualizing, designing, organizing, and structuring the monograph/paper under consideration. The author is accountable for the content of the material published. All those who made substantial contributions to the monograph/paper should be listed as co-authors. 

Cairo Papers publishes mostly sole-authored monographs. In cases of one or more authors, they all must follow the definition/criteria of authors provided above. The listing of names of multiple authors is based on a clear identification of the contribution of the different authors to the monograph/paper. This listing should be conducted in agreement among the co-authors. Only one of the contributors will be responsible for corresponding with the editorial of Cairo Papers in the submission, review, revision, and final approval of the monograph/paper.

Authors must submit monographs/papers that are based on original research and not submitted for review by other publication venues. When authors use the work/words/images/sound recordings or others, authors must appropriately cite or quote such works and permission must be obtained when necessary. Once a monograph/paper is submitted the author is committed to Cairo Papers and cannot withdraw the manuscript without prior notification of the editor of Cairo Papers. Authors are expected to respond to peer reviews seriously and meticulously. 

Malpractice includes plagiarism; research results not being original to purported author; allegations about authorship of contributions; duplicate submission. 

Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work (typically the work of another author) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment, the author benefits from the skill and judgment of the original author. These include: literal copying, paraphrasing, and substantial copying.

An author submitting an article is required to identify all co-authors and any other contributors (and to obtain consent from them for the publication of the article).

Articles submitted for publication must be original and must not have been submitted to any other Publication.

Duplicate submission may take several forms: literal duplication, partial but substantial duplication, or even duplication by paraphrasing. 

An author may publish a paper in a language in a journal, and the same paper with different language in another journal. Cairo Papers would agree to publish the paper provided that

  • full disclosure has been made to the editor of all previous publications of the paper in any language. 
  • A full and reasonably prominent note, usually in the form of a footnote on the title page that records the prior publication, accompanies the English-language version of the paper. 
  • All necessary consents have been obtained from the previous publisher of the paper in any other language and from any other person who might own rights in the paper

In cases of an ethics violation (either suspicion in relation to an article submitted or when the publication receives an allegation concerning a submitted article), the following steps will be undertaken: 

1. Raising the issue with the corresponding author and co-author(s) whose actions are complained about, and seeking an explanation and, where necessary, the provision of evidence supporting that explanation. 

2. Seeking an explanation from and the views of any complainant with evidence supporting that explanation. 

If satisfaction is gained that no ethical violation has taken place, then the case is closed. If not the Cairo Papers will continue to investigate the matter. The depth of the investigation will vary from case to case. In carrying out any investigation, the Cairo Papers you should take great care to act fairly and objectively and not to defame any author (or complainant) in any way. 

If there is no issue, publication may take place or continue in the normal way.

If there has been unethical practice, the paper is rejected.

If unethical practice is discovered after the article has been published, the article is either retracted or in very exceptional cases removed.

  1. Publication Decisions: the editorial board is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published.

  2. Peer Review: the editorial board shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must be reviewed by at least two external and independent reviewers. In most cases three external anonymous reviewers are asked to review submitted manuscripts. 

  3. Fair Play: the editorial board evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

  4. Journal Metrics: the editorial board will not influence the journal's ranking by artificially increasing any journal metric or include references to the editor's own articles.

  5. Confidentiality: the editorial board commits to protecting the confidentiality of all material submitted to the Cairo Papers and all communications with reviewers. The editor commits to safeguarding the integrity of the published record by reviewing and assessing reported or suspected misconduct.

  6. Conflict of Interest: conflict of interest is defined as any situation that has the potential to influence people’s judgment. Any potential conflict of interest must be disclosed, and necessary steps be taken to remove such conflict, including but not limited to, recusing self from making judgments or decisions about reviewing and deciding on publications; disclosing funding and roles of funders; disclosing competing interests and relations to authors, reviewers, other publishers.

  1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions: peer reviewers are selected based on expertise in a specific field of scholarship. They assist the editor in making editorial decisions.

  2. Confidentiality: any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor.

  3. Ethical Issues: a reviewer should be alert to potential ethical issues in the paper and should bring these to the attention of the editor.

  4. Standards of Objectivity and Conflict of Interest: reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias they may have and take this into account when reviewing a paper.

Copyrights

 

Copyright of all published material (print and electronic) is held by the Cairo Papers in Social Science, as an entity at the American University in Cairo. Monographs, articles, and extracts from Cairo Papers may not be reproduced in any form of print or electronic publication without the written permission of the Editors. Once accepted for publication, the author agrees that the copyright for her/his article is transferred to Cairo Papers. Apart from what is academically accepted to be cited or translated in scholarly articles with proper reference to the source, Cairo Papers will seek permission for longer copyrighted material. Cairo Papers abides by the AUC copyright policies here.