Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Faculty of Education > Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Sanshodhan Darpan — Research Journal (Faculty of Education, Kadi Sarva Vishwavidyalaya, Gandhinagar)

This Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement sets out the standards of publication ethics that Sanshodhan Darpan expects from authors, reviewers and editors. The journal is an annual, open-access, peer-reviewed journal publishing original and high-quality research, reviews, innovation portrayals, and policy papers in the field of education (ECCE, School Education, Higher Education, Teacher Education) in English, Hindi or Gujarati. Sanshodhan Darpan follows best practices for publication ethics, including the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Guiding principles

  • Sanshodhan Darpan is committed to publishing original, honest and ethically-conducted research and to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record.
  • All manuscripts submitted to Sanshodhan Darpan are subject to double-blind peer review and editorial assessment.
  • Authors, reviewers and editors must act responsibly to prevent misconduct, to protect participants, and to respect copyright and intellectual property.

Responsibilities of authors

Authors submitting to Sanshodhan Darpan must ensure that:

  1. Originality: The manuscript is wholly original, has not been published previously in any form, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  2. Plagiarism: Textual and conceptual plagiarism are unacceptable. Authors should run similarity checks before submission; similarity should not exceed 10% overall and must not include unattributed copying of ideas, data or text. Any reused material must be clearly quoted and properly cited with permission where required.
  3. Accurate reporting: Data, methods, results and interpretations are reported honestly, completely and without fabrication, falsification, inappropriate data manipulation or selective omission.
  4. Methodological transparency: Methods and analysis are described sufficiently for others to understand and, where feasible, reproduce or confirm findings. For qualitative work, provide clear information about data collection, coding, reflexivity, and trustworthiness.
  5. Ethical compliance: Research involving human participants or identifiable data must comply with relevant ethical standards and laws. Authors must obtain necessary ethical approvals and informed consent, and include an ethics statement in the manuscript. Personal identifying information must not be published without explicit consent.
  6. Authorship: All those who made a substantive intellectual contribution to the work must be listed as authors; each author’s contribution should be disclosed. All listed authors must approve the submitted version. Ghost authorship and honorary authorship are unacceptable.
  7. Conflicts of interest: All financial and non-financial conflicts of interest that could influence the work must be disclosed on submission.
  8. Permissions: Authors must obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material and acknowledge the source.
  9. Corrections and retractions: Authors must co-operate with editorial requests to correct or retract work if errors or misconduct are identified.

Responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers for Sanshodhan Darpan are expected to:

  1. Objectivity and confidentiality: Provide fair, unbiased, constructive, and timely reviews while maintaining confidentiality of manuscript content. Reviewers must not use information obtained from a manuscript for personal advantage.
  2. Conflicts of interest: Decline review if any real or perceived conflict of interest exists.
  3. Competence: Accept assignments only for manuscripts within their expertise.
  4. Thoroughness: Evaluate originality, methodology, ethical compliance, clarity of presentation, and relevance to the field. Provide clear, specific feedback and recommend acceptance, revision, or rejection in line with Sanshodhan Darpan policies.

Responsibilities of editors and the editorial board

Editors and Editorial Board members must:

  1. Editorial independence: Make decisions based on the manuscript’s intellectual merit and relevance to the journal, free from commercial or political influence.
  2. Fair treatment: Ensure a double-blind review is applied, evaluate manuscripts without discrimination (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, or political belief).
  3. Confidentiality: Maintain confidentiality of submitted material.
  4. Conflict of interest: Declare and manage conflicts of interest; recuse themselves when appropriate.
  5. Ethical oversight: Act on suspected misconduct in submissions. Ensure corrections, retractions or expressions of concern are issued when required to protect the integrity of the literature.
  6. Quality control: Ensure accepted manuscripts meet the journal’s ethical and methodological standards and that published content is copyedited and typeset appropriately.

Peer review process (double-blind)

  • All submissions are prepared in an anonymized form for peer review (remove author names/affiliations and identifying acknowledgements). Authors must also provide a separate title page with full details for editorial use after acceptance.
  • Manuscripts passing initial editorial screening are sent to at least two independent reviewers. Editors make final decisions based on reviewers’ recommendations.
  • Reviewers and editors must not reveal manuscript content outside the review process.

Duplicate publication, overlapping publication and salami slicing

  • Submitting the same work to multiple journals or publishing overlapping content without proper disclosure is unacceptable. If parts of the content have been published (e.g., conference paper), authors must cite and explain the relationship and obtain necessary permissions.
  • Fragmenting a single study into multiple papers to inflate publication count (salami slicing) without clear justification is discouraged.

Handling allegations of misconduct

  • Sanshodhan Darpan takes allegations of misconduct seriously. Allegations (e.g., fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research practices, undeclared conflicts) will be examined by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board.
  • The editorial office will seek explanations from authors and, when appropriate, involve institutional authorities. If misconduct is confirmed, appropriate actions will be taken, which may include rejection, retraction, publication of an expression of concern, notification to the authors’ institutions, or banning authors from future submissions. Retraction or correction notices will be clearly linked to the original article.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern

  • Corrections (errata), retractions, and expressions of concern will be published when there is clear evidence that a published article is seriously flawed or that its findings are unreliable, or when ethical breaches have occurred. Corrections and retraction notices will be linked to the original article and explain the reason for the action.

Confidentiality and data protection

  • Reviewers and editors must keep manuscript content confidential. Authors must avoid publishing personal identifiable data of participants without consent. When consent was not feasible (e.g., archival data), authors must justify and explain safeguards.

Conflict of interest and funding transparency

  • Authors, reviewers and editors must declare any competing interests (financial, personal, intellectual, or institutional) that could influence the research or its interpretation. Funding sources and the role of funders must be acknowledged in the manuscript.

Copyright, licensing and open access

  • Sanshodhan Darpan is an open-access journal. Authors retain copyright of their work but must grant Sanshodhan Darpan a non-exclusive license to publish. Authors should indicate any preferred open license (e.g., Creative Commons) at the time of acceptance. The journal will clearly state the applicable license on publication.

Ethical approval for research involving human participants

  • Research involving human participants, identifiable data or vulnerable groups must include a statement on ethical approval (name of the ethics committee/institutional review board and approval number) and a description of how informed consent was obtained. For studies exempt from formal review (e.g., some classroom observations), authors must state the reasons and institutional policies that permit the exemption.

Research data, transparency and reproducibility

  • Authors are encouraged to make primary data, analytic methods, interview guides or coding schemes available where ethical and legal constraints permit, either as supplementary material or through recognized repositories. When data cannot be shared (e.g., confidentiality), authors should provide a clear explanation.

Contact for ethics enquiries

For questions about publication ethics, suspected misconduct, or appeals, please contact:
Email: shanshodhandarpan@gmail.com

By submitting a manuscript to Sanshodhan Darpan, authors confirm they have read and agree to this Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement. Sanshodhan Darpan reserves the right to update this policy; the current version will be posted on the journal website and applied to all submissions.

en_USEnglish
guGujarati en_USEnglish