Ethical guidelines
 
Submission of a manuscript to the Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content, and that any experimental research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the approval of an appropriate ethics committee. Any experimental research on animals must follow internationally recognized guidelines. A statement to this effect must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript, including the name of the body which gave approval, with a reference number where appropriate. Informed consent must also be documented. Manuscripts may be rejected if the editorial office considers that the research has not been carried out within an ethical framework, e.g. if the severity of the experimental procedure is not justified by the value of the knowledge gained.

The Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research publisher, Scienceweb Publishing, has a legal responsibility to ensure that its journals do not publish material that infringes copyright, or that includes libellous or defamatory content. If, on review, your manuscript is perceived to contain potentially libellous content the journal Editors, with assistance from the publisher if required, will work with authors to ensure an appropriate outcome is reached. The involvement of scientific writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged.


Data and materials release

Submission of a manuscript to the Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research implies that readily reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes. Nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences, and atomic coordinates should be deposited in an appropriate database in time for the accession number to be included in the published article. In computational studies where the sequence information is unacceptable for inclusion in databases because of lack of experimental validation, the sequences must be published as an additional file with the article.Any 'in press' articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if requested by the editorial office. 


Editorial Policies

The Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research expect the highest ethical standards from their authors, reviewers and editors when conducting research, submitting papers and throughout the peer-review process.


Peer Review/Processing of Papers

The Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research journals employ a double-blind review process, in which the author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.

The Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research lay emphasis on the quality of the articles they publish. Therefore, submitted articles are put through a full blind-review refereeing process. Each manuscript is subjected first to a preliminary examination by the journal to establish that it fits the scope of the Journal. In a positive case, the manuscript is reviewed by two or three independent referees with expertise which matches that of the manuscript title. The reviewers' recommendations determine whether an article will be: accepted accepted subject to minor changes accepted subject to resubmission with significant changes rejected. For articles which require changes, the same reviewers may be used to ensure that the quality of the revised article is acceptable. On the basis of their critical remarks; the Editor-in-Chief decides to return the manuscript to the author within two (2) weeks for revision with specified reviewer’s critical remarks or to reject it. As a rule, the receipt of the manuscript by the Editorial Office, the outcome of the reviewing, and the acceptation of the manuscript are communicated to the author. All the communication between the Editorial Office and the author is realized via e-mail. The manuscript is accepted either immediately following the reviewing or after acceptable revision as it is the goal of the journal to publish manuscripts within four (4) weeks after submission. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to refuse any article, and to make suggestions and/or modifications before publication. The galley proofs of the manuscript are sent to the author in PDF format. After checking and correcting they should be returned within 48 hours. Finally, the article in PDF format exactly matching the printed version is sent to the author. The publishers shall not be held responsible for errors which are the result of authors' oversights.


Duplicate publication

Duplicate publication is a publication that overlaps substantially with one already published, in press, or in an electronic media submission. Duplicate submission is the same manuscript (or the same data) that is submitted to different journals at the same time. International copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost effective use of resources require that readers can be assured that what they are reading is original.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published or currently submitted elsewhere. Duplicate publication is a violation of the code of ethics and there will be grounds for prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript.


Competing Interest

Authors are required to declare any competing financial or other interest in relation to their work. All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author gives no competing interests, the listing will be ignored meaning the author do not have any competing interest.


Plagiarism

Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious violation of the most basic principles of scholarship and cannot be tolerated.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• Word-for-word copying of portions of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and acknowledging the source in the appropriate scholarly convention.
• The use of a particularly unique term or concept that one has come across in reading without acknowledging the author or source.
• The paraphrasing or abbreviated restatement of someone else's ideas without acknowledging that another person's text has been the basis for the paraphrasing.
• False citation: material should not be attributed to a source from which it has not been obtained.


Copyright

Authors of articles published in Journal of Agricultural and Crop Research retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work.