Publishing Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice

NDU Scientific Journal strictly adheres to the standards set by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). All stakeholders in the publishing process — authors, reviewers, and editors — are expected to follow code of ethics guidelines.

1. Authorship Criteria

Authorship must be restricted to individuals who have made a **substantial contribution** to the concept, design, execution, analysis, or interpretation of the study. All contributors who do not meet these criteria should be listed in the "Acknowledgements" section. Gift or guest authorship is strictly prohibited.

2. Plagiarism Policy

Every submitted manuscript is screened using **Turnitin** or **iThenticate** plagiarism detection software prior to review. Manuscripts showing a similarity index of **more than 15%** (excluding references) are rejected immediately. Copying ideas or text without proper citation constitutes plagiarism.

3. Multiple Submission & Duplication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. Similarly, publishing translations or papers based on identical datasets without prior disclosure is considered an ethical violation.

4. Data Fabrication & Falsification

Data fabrication (inventing fake data) or falsifying results (modifying data to support a hypothesis) are severe scientific misconducts. The editorial board reserves the right to request the raw research data from authors for inspection.

5. Conflict of Interest

• Authors: Must declare any financial, personal, or organizational relationships that could bias their research.
• Reviewers: Must decline reviewing a manuscript if they share any conflict of interest (co-authorship, shared department, or ongoing collaborations).
• Editors: Must delegate processing a manuscript to other board members if a conflict of interest exists.

6. Corrections and Retractions

If genuine errors are found after publication, an **Erratum / Correction** will be issued. If severe ethics breaches or plagiarism are proven, the paper will be **Retracted**. Retracted papers are not deleted from the site but are clearly marked with a "RETRACTED" watermark.

7. Human and Animal Subjects

Research involving human participants or animal models must obtain prior **Ethical Committee Approval**. This approval must be stated in the methodology section, along with statements of informed consent from participants.

8. Use of Generative AI

Generative AI platforms must only be used to improve the readability and language style of the text. AI cannot be listed as an author, and its use in generating scientific results or conclusions must be declared transparently.

9. Complaints & Allegations

Any complaints or reports of publishing misconduct can be sent directly to the Editor-in-Chief at jurnal@ndu.edu.az. The investigation will follow COPE guidelines confidentially.

10. Data Availability Policy

We support transparency, reproducibility, and open science. All research manuscripts submitted to the journal must adhere to the following data sharing principles:

• Authors must include a "Data Availability Statement" specifying where the research data can be accessed.
• We recommend archiving data and code in public repositories (such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, etc.) with a registered DOI.
• If the data cannot be shared due to ethical, privacy, or legal restrictions, authors must state this clearly with a valid explanation.