Publishing Ethics

Rivera Publications is committed to promoting ethical publication practices across all our journals. Publisher is adamant on competent and efficient publication of information by exercising systematic and comprehensive processes. Following are some of the essential publishing ethics exercised by the publisher for all its journals:

• Publisher should work in coordination with Editors and Reviewers to ensure publication flow
  
• Publisher should encourage Editors to follow code of conduct
  
• Publisher should respect author’s identity and integrity of their research
  
• Publisher should maintain research confidentiality during the entire publication process
  
• Since publisher follows open access model, it should protect intellectual property and copyrights
  
• Publisher should take care of the issues related to publication misconduct and should resolve adhering to the publication ethics after consulting with Journal Editors and/or Editor-in-Chief
  
• Publisher should distribute content in a timely manner and should provide immediate open access to readers upon publication
  
• Publisher should ensure that commercial issues should not affect editorial decision, which could lead to acceptance/rejection of manuscripts
  
• Publisher should have a well-defined article retraction policy for authors
  

Author Misconduct

Rivera Publications expects authors, reviewers, editors and others involved in publication process to safeguard the integrity of its publication process and to alert appropriate officials to possible misconduct.

Rivera Publications expects authors submitting to and publishing in our journals to adhere to ethical standards of scholarship and to ensure that the work they submit for publication is free of scientific and publication misconduct. The list of authors of the work should accurately reflect who carried out the research, contributing authors, and others who made substantive contributions to the work. All authors of articles submitted for publication assume individual and shared responsibility, within the limits of their professional competence, for the accuracy and integrity of their work.

Types

• Republishing one's own work that has previously been published elsewhere in the primary literature without citing the earlier publication
  
• Failing to specify any conflict of interest to the editor and/or publisher that might be perceived by a reasonable person to influence one’s work
  
• Fabricating a research report or suppressing or manipulating research data
  
• Using materials and/or content from another's work and submitting it as own without properly attributing the source
  
• Providing dishonest information during or after the publication process
  
• Submitting same, or substantially the same, article in more than one journal
  
• Omitting contributing authors, those who should be otherwise included as co-authors
  

Courses of Actions in case of Author Misconduct

• Withdraw the manuscript pending correction to eliminate the misconduct
  
• Reject the manuscript and deny its publication in Rivera Publications
  
• Notify the author(s) home institution(s) of the misconduct
  
• If a paper has already been published, officially retract the paper and flag any electronic version as a retracted paper
  
• Prohibit the author(s) from publishing in Rivera Publications for a specified period of time, depending upon the severity of the case
  
• Such other action as may be determined necessary and appropriate under the circumstances of the misconduct, provided that any report or disclosure of a finding of misconduct or imposition of discipline shall not be undertaken without prior consultation with legal counsel
  

Actions appropriate in particular circumstances may vary depending on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: the severity of the misconduct, identified prior misconduct, and the stage of the publication process at which the misconduct is discovered.

Additional Considerations and Appeals

All parties directly involved in a case of author misconduct shall have the right to appeal a determination of author misconduct to the Publications Council.

Corrections and Retraction

Correction Policy

In order to maintain the integrity of the scholarly publication, Rivera follows a very transparent article correction policy and reserves the right to retract articles at any stage of the process, given the nature of the correction.

Articles are retracted during one or all of the following instances:

• breach one of the scholarly publishing policies
  
• fraudulent in nature
  
• associated with deception in terms of ethical codes, fake authorship claims, or duplicate submissions
  
• breach one of the Rivera's publishing policies, or are fraudulent in terms of or pertaining to data representation or manipulation
  

While Rivera reserves the right to retract articles, the final decision lies with the handling Editor or the Editor-in-Chief, who will look into the matter to understand its nature and will ultimately make the decision. Thus, we do not guarantee that an article after correcting the errors will be reconsidered for publication in any of our journals.

Corrections

For significant errors, the corrections will be published following consent of the author and the Editor. However, for minor errors, such as grammatical errors, which do not significantly affect the integrity, the article will not be considered for correction.

When the corrections are related to the article following the peer-review, they come under the following categories:

Erratum

Refers to the errors made by the Publisher during editing/typesetting or production of the article, which significantly affects the quality and the integrity of the article or author/publisher.

Corrigendum

Refers to the notification of the errors made by the author. These errors significantly affect the content of the article and/or the reputation of the journal and authors. While submitting the corrigendum, all authors must sign the corrigendum or Letter to the Editor, informing about the corrections and its impact on the article. However, if one or more of the co-authors do not agree, the Editor holds the power of implementing an amendment following consultation with the concerned reviewers.

Retraction

All authors must sign the retraction, highlighting the errors and the consequence on the article or any specific section of the article. However, if one or more of the coauthors disagree, the Editor will then implement the amendment after consulting with the concerned reviewers, stating the dissenting coauthor.

Addendum

Refers to the notification by authors of addition of peer-reviewed materials to the article. Addenda are published when the author omits any significant information that might have clarified the content of the paper to reader or addition of any section following any or some of the reader's requests. Addendum is published following the peer-review of the article and the Editor's consent. 

Plagiarism