Ethics & Malpractice

CDLH adheres strictly to the COPE Code of Conduct, covering responsibilities for authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers.

1. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must:

  • Submit original, unpublished work

  • Avoid plagiarism, redundancy, and duplicate submission

  • Acknowledge all sources

  • Ensure accuracy of data

  • Declare conflicts of interest

  • Include only legitimate authors

  • Obtain ethical clearance for studies involving human subjects

Misconduct may result in rejection, retraction, or blacklisting.

2. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must:

  • Evaluate impartially

  • Maintain confidentiality

  • Avoid conflicts of interest

  • Report ethical concerns

  • Not appropriate information from the manuscript

3. Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors must:

  • Make unbiased decisions

  • Ensure a fair review process

  • Maintain confidentiality

  • Address ethical complaints

  • Retract or correct published work when needed

4. Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher ensures:

  • Integrity of the publication process

  • Digital preservation

  • Transparency in policies

  • Prompt communication

5. Plagiarism & Similarity

  • Acceptable similarity: ≤10%

  • Higher similarity will lead to rejection or corrective action

  • Plagiarism includes self-plagiarism, paraphrasing without attribution, and uncredited quotations

6. Retraction, Correction, and Withdrawal

Retraction:

For plagiarism, unethical research, fraudulent data, or serious errors.

Correction / Erratum:

For minor errors not affecting the integrity of findings.

Withdrawal:

Allowed before acceptance or in exceptional justified cases.