The Journal of Mechanical Engineering (JMechE) adheres to the practice of double-blind peer review, where the identities of both the reviewers and the authors are kept anonymous from each other.The final acceptance/rejection decision will be made by the Editor-in-Chief or the assigned section editor upon recommendation from the reviewers.
When publishing journals, publishers (Penerbit UiTM), editors, authors, and reviewers must conduct themselves in accordance with the highest level of professional ethics and standards. This commitment is not just a formality but a serious pledge that JMechE and Penerbit UiTM are dedicated to upholding.
The Ethics and Publication Unit (EPU) plays a crucial role in maintaining the quality of in-house UiTM journals. EPU provides essential editorial support services such as plagiarism checks using Turnitin, registration of Digital Object Identifier (DOI), consultation on the Open Journal Systems (OJS), journal management, publication ethics, and implementing the UiTM Journal Publication Guideline.
JMechE, in general, exercises a code of conduct that is in line with the codes stated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines by Elsevier for Journal Editors (http://publicationethics.org). The following are descriptions of the ethical guidelines for the editor, corresponding author, author, and reviewer:
The publisher has the following responsibilities:
- In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher will work closely with the editors to take all necessary actions to investigate the issue and make necessary corrections to the article. This may involve promptly publishing an erratum or clarification, or in the most serious cases, retracting the affected work.
- The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
- The publisher is committed to the availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organisations and maintaining our digital archive.
The editor has the following responsibilities:
- The editor should acknowledge receipt of submitted manuscripts and ensure an efficient, fair, and timely review process.
- The editor should ensure that submitted manuscripts are processed in a confidential manner and that no content of the manuscripts will be disclosed to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
- The editor should refrain from processing manuscripts if he or she has any conflict of interest with any authors or institutions related to the manuscripts.
- The editor has the right to make the final decision on whether to accept or reject a manuscript concerning its significance, originality, clarity and relevance to the journal.
- The editor should not use any part of any data or work submitted or unpublished articles for his or her research.
- The editor should respond promptly and take reasonable measures when an ethical complaint occurs concerning a submitted manuscript or a published paper. The editor should immediately contact and consult with the author.
The corresponding author has the following responsibilities:
- The corresponding author should be the primary contact between the journal and all the paper’s other authors.
- The corresponding author should upload the manuscript to the online submission site for peer review and distribute all the communications from the journal (reviewers’ comments, decision letters, etc.) to all authors.
- The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper.
- The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have agreed to the final version submission prior to publication.
The authors have the following responsibilities:
- The authors should not submit concurrent manuscripts (or manuscripts essentially describing the same subject matter) to multiple journals or any paper previously published in any journals for consideration.
- The authors should honestly gather and interpret their research data.
- The authors should guarantee that the works submitted are original. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, appropriate citations are required. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
- The authors should acknowledge all contributors to the research and list those who have contributed significantly as co-authors.
- The authors should promptly inform the journal editor of any obvious error(s) in the published paper and cooperate earnestly with the editor in retracting or correcting the paper. Suppose the editor is notified by any party other than the author that the published paper contains an obvious error. In that case, the authors should either write a retraction or make the correction based on the medium of publication.
- The authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects or for including case details or other personal information or images.
The reviewer has the following responsibilities:
- The reviewer who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or affirms that he or she cannot meet the deadline for completion of the review should immediately notify the editor and excuse himself or herself from reviewing this manuscript.
- The reviewer should inform the editor and recuse himself or herself from reviewing the manuscript if there is a conflict of interest.
- The reviewer must treat the manuscript confidentially and should not disclose or discuss it with others unless authorized by the editor.
- The reviewer should perform objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.
- The reviewer should not use any part of any data or work submitted or unpublished articles for his or her research.
- The reviewer should immediately notify the editor of any similarities between the manuscript under review and another paper either published or under consideration by another journal. The reviewer should immediately call to the editor’s attention a manuscript containing plagiarised material or falsified data.
