IGI Global Statement on Ethical Publication Practices

IGI Global is committed to publishing original scholarly materials of the highest quality that provide comprehensive insight into all aspects of information science, business science, medical information science and engineering science. As an internationally-recognized publisher, IGI Global’s goal is to facilitate the availability of academic excellence and disseminate innovative knowledge worldwide.

IGI Global book and journal editors and authors are provided written guidelines and checklists that must be followed to maintain the high value that IGI Global places on the work it publishes. IGI Global reviewers are an important component of the scholarly process and therefore are instructed to provide comprehensive, detailed appraisals of work that they are reviewing to assist the author in improving the quality and usability of the presented research.

IGI Global affirms that ethical publication practices are critical to the successful development of knowledge. Therefore, it is the policy of IGI Global to maintain high ethical standards in all publications. These standards pertain to all books, journals, chapters, and articles accepted for publication. This is in accordance with standard scientific principles and IGI Global’s position as a source of scientific knowledge.

Plagiarism
IGI Global defines plagiarism as the intentional or unintentional use of another individual’s, or collection of individuals’, ideas, theories, models, equations, conclusions, research (intellectual property), and/or verbatim or paraphrased words without proper attribution to the original source. As plagiarism is considered to be one of the most serious breaches in publication ethics, all allegations of plagiarism shall be investigated with the utmost diligence. Furthermore, all submitted manuscripts will be reviewed with the goal of determining if plagiarism has taken place and, if so, to what extent. If it is determined that a manuscript contains plagiarism the authors(s) will be notified promptly of the rejection of their submitted work and may be barred from consideration for future publication with IGI Global for an allotted period or indefinitely, at the publisher’s discretion. Further action may be taken as deemed necessary by the publisher based on the severity and quantity of the plagiarism.

Allegations of plagiarism in which the work has already been published by IGI Global will be investigated immediately upon receipt of the initial complaint. Work which has been found to contain plagiarism will be removed from all IGI Global electronic database products. A statement of notification and retraction will be included at the electronic database link providing the citation for the original work. The authors of the work that contains the plagiarism will be notified of the findings, and any work currently under review will be returned. Authors of work containing plagiarism will be prohibited from publishing with IGI Global for an allotted period or indefinitely, at the publisher’s discretion. Any submissions accepted for review after the allotted period may be subject to further review by the publisher to satisfy the publisher that no plagiarism is included. Further action may be taken as deemed necessary by the publisher based on the severity and quantity of the plagiarism.

Simultaneous Submission (Self-plagiarism)
Simultaneous submission is defined as a work submitted to IGI Global for publication that is under review, has been previously published, or has been accepted for publication elsewhere in whole or in part. Although IGI Global acknowledges the importance of the use of previously published work to the evolving research process, work submitted for publication must show significant advances in the research conducted and should appropriately quote, cite, and attribute the earlier work for any prior research mentioned. The failure to disclose previously published work upon which the current work is based may be considered cause for investigation into allegations of plagiarism.

Below are two articles that explain the dangers of plagiarism and self-plagiarism in greater depth:

Download a free whitepaper from iThenticate on self-plagiarism:
http://www.ithenticate.com/resources/papers/ethics-of-self-plagiarism

A Q&A; forum, also provided by iThenticate:
http://www.ithenticate.com/resources/webcasts/self-plagiarism/q-and-a

The 10 types of plagiarism and how to avoid them, provided by Turnitin:
http://www.turnitin.com/assets/en_us/media/plagiarism_spectrum.php

Unethical Research Practices
All research is to be conducted according to the general standards of practice, which include proper protection of any subjects, whether they are individuals or organizations. Defamatory or intentionally false information is considered a serious offense, and any work including unethical research will be rejected and the authors barred from publishing with all IGI Global publications. All identities of private organizations and individuals should be removed from any proposed work, unless proper written consent has been gained prior to publication.

Furthermore, research and data being presented for publication must be complete and whole. Falsification of one’s research through intentional data suppression or misrepresentation is considered unethical and will result in the rejection of the submitted work and may be cause for other action. This pertains only to cases in which data is misconstrued with the author’s knowledge.

Academic Peer Review
All chapters and articles published in IGI Global publications must undergo a rigorous double-blind academic peer review process. Allegations of improperly or unethically conducted peer review can be very damaging to the success of a publication, as well as to the careers of any scholars affiliated with the questioned work.

The double-blind peer review process should be fully conducted within the eEditorial Discovery^TM online submission manager, and as such, the reviews should be easily accessible to the IGI Global editorial staff. The IGI Global development team may also at times, request that reviewer evaluations be submitted with the final version of any manuscript accepted for publication. This is to ensure that should accusations of fraudulent peer review arise, IGI Global will be able to support its published authors and editors in dismissing these claims and ensuring the continued success of the corresponding publications.

Copyright Infringement
IGI Global follows United States copyright law for all published books and journals. Additional information on US copyright law can be found here: http://copyright.gov/title17/

Copyright infringement is the reuse of materials for which the author does not have ownership without the express permission of the copyright holder. IGI Global recognizes that transfer of copyright to a publisher is a standard practice in the industry and that large quantities of quoted text, images, layouts, and formats, which may or may not be the creation of the author, may be owned by a third party. IGI Global also recognizes that all models, equations, conclusions, theories, algorithms, mathematical definitions, and computer code are the intellectual property of the author and that ownership of these elements belongs solely to that author, unless otherwise agreed upon with a third party. In cases in which an author is allegedly infringing upon the copyright of a third party prior to the publication of the work in question, IGI Global will return the work to the author(s) and request revision to remove all copyrighted materials.

Images taken from a third party source are protected under United States copyright law, and permission must be obtained before any such image or figure may be included in a manuscript published under an IGI Global imprint. Please see Part 4 of the IGI Global Image Formatting Guidelines for more information. A sample image permission form can be downloaded from http://www.igi-global.com/publish/resources/image-permission-form.doc.

Allegations of copyright infringement in which the work has already been published by IGI Global will be investigated immediately upon receipt of the initial complaint. Work which has been found to be in breach of a third party copyright will be removed from circulation and a retraction and notification of the infringement will be published at the corresponding link in all IGI Global electronic database products. The author(s) of the infringing work may be prohibited from publishing with IGI Global for an allotted period of time or indefinitely, at the discretion of the publisher. Any submissions accepted for review after an allotted period may be subject to further review by the publisher to satisfy the publisher that no copyrighted material is included in the manuscript and that all legal stipulations within the publisher’s Author’s Warranty and Transfer of Copyright are met. Further action may be taken as deemed necessary by the publisher based on the severity and quantity of the infringement.

IGI Global acknowledges that in some cases copyright infringement can also be classified as plagiarism. In these cases, IGI Global will also undertake a review for plagiarism within the text as well as implement any further actions necessary to satisfy the requirements of the publisher’s own copyright as well as the copyright of the third party.