Ethics & Malpractice Statement

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The International Journal of Agriculture and Animal Production (IJAAP) is committed to the highest academic, professional, legal, and ethical standards in scholarly publishing. IJAAP is guided by the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Council of Science Editors (CSE). All authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to observe the standards set out below; failure to do so may result in rejection of the manuscript, retraction of a published article, or, in serious cases, institutional notification.

  1. Authorship

IJAAP follows the ICMJE authorship criteria. To be listed as an author, an individual must (i) have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; (ii) have drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; (iii) have approved the version to be published; and (iv) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Every submission must include a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement specifying each author's contribution. The corresponding author is responsible for confirming that all listed authors meet the ICMJE criteria and that no eligible contributor has been omitted. Changes to authorship after submission require signed consent from all authors and are considered by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis in line with COPE flowcharts.

  1. Originality, Plagiarism, and Text Overlap

Submitted manuscripts must be original and must not be under consideration by any other journal. All submissions are screened using iThenticate (Turnitin) upon receipt. The acceptable similarity thresholds are: overall similarity ≤ 15%, and any single-source overlap ≤ 3% (excluding references, standard methods, and properly quoted text). Manuscripts exceeding these thresholds are returned for revision or desk-rejected. Text recycling from the authors' own previous work must be declared and quoted where appropriate; undisclosed self-plagiarism is treated as misconduct.

  1. Reporting Standards and Data Integrity

Authors must present accurate, verifiable accounts of the work performed and provide sufficient detail to permit independent replication. Fabrication, falsification, and inappropriate image manipulation (including inappropriate splicing, contrast adjustment that obscures signal, or duplication of images across figures) constitute research misconduct.

Manuscripts must comply with the reporting guideline appropriate to their design, including but not limited to: ARRIVE 2.0 for in-vivo animal studies; CONSORT for randomised trials; STROBE for observational studies; PRISMA 2020 for systematic reviews and meta-analyses; STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies; and REFLECT for livestock trials. A completed checklist must be uploaded as a supplementary file at submission.

  1. Research Ethics — Animals, Humans, and Fieldwork

Studies involving vertebrate animals must be approved by a recognised Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC) or equivalent (e.g. CPCSEA in India, IACUC internationally). The approval number, date, and issuing committee must appear in the Methods section. Studies involving human subjects require Institutional Review Board / Ethics Committee approval and evidence of written informed consent, in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. Field studies affecting protected wildlife, protected areas, or genetic resources must state the forestry / biodiversity permit numbers and, where applicable, Nagoya Protocol compliance.

  1. Conflicts of Interest and Funding

All authors must disclose any financial, personal, or professional relationships that could be perceived to influence the work. Every article must carry a Funding Statement (or the standard "This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors" if none applies) and a Conflict of Interest Statement.

  1. Data Availability and Reproducibility

IJAAP follows a "data available on reasonable request" minimum standard; authors are encouraged to deposit datasets in a FAIR-compliant repository (e.g. Zenodo, Dryad, Figshare, ICAR Krishi, GBIF) and cite the dataset DOI in the manuscript. A Data Availability Statement is required for every article.

  1. AI / Generative Tools

Use of Large Language Models or other generative AI tools in the preparation of a manuscript must be declared in the Acknowledgements or Methods section, specifying the tool, version, and the parts of the manuscript to which it was applied. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot be responsible for the accuracy or integrity of the work.

  1. Duties of Peer Reviewers

Reviewers agree to keep the manuscript strictly confidential; not to use it for personal or competitive advantage; to declare any conflict of interest before accepting; to review objectively and constructively; to identify relevant published work the authors have not cited; and to flag any suspected misconduct to the Editor-in-Chief. IJAAP follows COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

  1. Duties of Editors

Editors take publication decisions solely on the basis of scholarly merit and fit with the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. Editors do not handle submissions in which they have a competing interest; such manuscripts are delegated to another editor. Editors are guided by COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected misconduct.

  1. Misconduct — Investigation and Sanctions

Allegations of research or publication misconduct are investigated in line with COPE flowcharts. The process is: (i) confidential written notification to the corresponding author with an opportunity to respond within 21 days; (ii) consultation with the authors' institution if warranted; (iii) decision by the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with the Ethics Editor. Outcomes may include: an erratum, corrigendum, expression of concern, retraction (per COPE Retraction Guidelines), a temporary ban on future submissions by the authors involved (2–5 years), and, in the most serious cases, notification of the authors' institution and funders.

  1. Corrections and Retractions

Substantive errors are corrected through an Erratum (publisher error) or Corrigendum (author error), each linked bidirectionally to the original article via Crossmark and Crossref's update-service. Retractions follow COPE Retraction Guidelines; the retraction notice remains freely accessible in perpetuity, and the original article is preserved with a "RETRACTED" watermark.

  1. Complaints and Appeals

Complaints about editorial handling, peer review, or publication decisions should be sent to editor.ijaap@hmjournals.com. Appeals are considered by the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with an independent Ethics Editor. Unresolved complaints may be escalated to COPE.

Contact

Editor-in-Chief: editor.ijaap@hmjournals.com