Ethical policies

Ethical policies are vital to maintain quality and integrity of research. The ethical policies of IJESPORTS have been adapted (with permission) from the guidelines adopted by the British Medical Association [1].

IJESPORTS duty of confidentiality to authors
Firstly, the editors and reviewers at IJESPORTS deem all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. This means that information contained in the manuscript will not be shared to anyone beyond those listed below without the permission of the author. During the review and publication process we would expect the following individuals to view and have access to the submitted content:

IJESPORTS editors and reviewers
Trusted third parties for the purpose of verifying or improving content such as statisticians
Third parties in the context of research misconduct
Third parties invited to publish an editorial on the submitted material

Published articles at IJESPORTS must follow the following policies:
All authors must have:

Substantially contributed to either the research design, obtaining of data, analysis or interpretation of data
Made changes or drafted the manuscript and agreed to submitted versions
Declared any conflicts of interest
Declared sources of funding for the research
Ensured all contributors the research are acknowledged in the manuscript either as an author or within the acknowledgments

Conflicts of interest
Authors must declare financial interests in an organisation that may gain from the publication of the content which include but not limited to:

Assets, stocks or shares in the company
Consultancy fees
Employment
Funding
Patent rights

We are aware that many of these conflicts of interest are not necessarily an issue and may indeed have enabled the research to occur. Regardless, from an ethical and academic standpoint, these relationships must be declared.
Funding sources must be disclosed in a clear fashion without the use of abbreviations and ideally with the associated grant number linked as presented in the Author Instructions document.

Ethical researching
IJESPORTS is committed to ensuring that published research meets international standards. Work involving humans or animals will be evaluated against relevant guidelines. Authors must include details of the ethical committee that approved the research with a date and approval number or code.
Human studies must include statements confirm informed written consent from participants or guardians was obtained in keeping with the Declaration of Helsinki. Similarly, work involving animals must include statements confirming that the methodology was approved by the relevant organisation or regulatory body.

On the occasion that ethical issues are raised, further details regarding the methodology will be requested from authors with the potential of an ethical review raised prior to publication. Results of this review are expected to be shared with the authors and potentially the author’s institution(s). Unsurprisingly, in the situation submitted work is deemed unethical, the manuscript will be rejected. It is also agreed that in cases of serious misconduct, some or all authors of the article will be banned from future publication with IJESPORTS.

Ethical publishing
IJESPORTS investigates submitted material for plagiarism or fabrication. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to:

Copied text or data from other published sources
Submissions to multiple journals
Lack of novelty
Ghost authorship - situations in which authorship is given to other individuals

Post-publication
It is possible that corrections could be required for published articles from a scientific or ethical standpoint. In this situation “Erratum” will be included in the title for clarity and indexing purposes. The reasoning for the errata will be included in the updated article with the original article linked and indexed.
Rarely and despite extensive peer review it may be that content within published material is fraudulent in some way. In this scenario the manuscript will be retracted with actions taken to inform the authors, the relevant organisations and the readers themselves. Retractions specifically will include “Retraction” in the title for clarity and indexing purposes.
There may be instances in which external organisations may request that IJESPORTS retracts or modifies published content. These requests will be taken on a case by case basis, often with an editorial board discussion. In situations when the retraction request is agreed, the article will include “Retraction” in the title for clarity and indexing purposes.

Appeals
Decisions made on manuscripts and ethical conduct is considered as final. It is possible to appeal decisions by contacting the Chief Editor via chiefeditor@ijesports.org. In this situation, the Chief Editor will be given all the submitted materials and communications for independent review to arrive at a conclusive decision.

Conflicts of interest and publication within IJESPORTS
IJESPORTS encourages submissions from all regardless of background. In situations when members of the editorial board or review panel submit articles, the work will never be reviewed by themselves. IJESPORTS boasts a double blind review process and also require members of the editorial board to disclose their competing interests annually.

References
1. BMJ. Resources for authors 2020 [07/04/2020]. Available from: https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors.