Allegations and Suspicions of Academic Misconduct

Authors, reviewers, editors, or interested third-parties should report to the Afro-Asia Ethics Committee any suspicions of possible academic misconduct of which they become aware, by any means, affecting articles already published, under review, or in the process of publication in the journal.

The Ethics Committee is formed by three members of the Editorial Advisory Board and a fourth, external member chosen from the academic community, nominated by the editors and approved by a simple majority of the members of the Editorial Advisory Board.

The Ethics Committee will assess, particularly, cases involving:

• plagiarism or self-plagiarism, conceived not only in formal textual terms but also in terms of article contents (data, hypotheses, arguments or conclusions) – excepted, of course, established citation and reference practices;
• improper attribution of authorship or co-authorship;
• unauthorized use of private sources or copyrighted material;
• distortion or manipulation of data and primary sources;
• failure to acknowledge significant contributions to the development of the research or the elaboration of the manuscript in the first note, and along the text whenever necessary;
• failure to comply with the ethical guidelines applicable to the conduct of the research that resulted in the article, especially when this may imply misappropriation of intellectual property or risk to research subjects;
• concealment of possible conflicts of interest by authors, reviewers, or editors;
• unauthorized appropriation, by reviewer or editors, of data, hypotheses, arguments or conclusions contained in submitted articles;
• discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, age, religion, political beliefs or geographic origin during the review process.

Allegations of misconduct must be substantiated and documented to the maximum extent possible. Those involved will have the right to a full defense. Committee members who identify potential conflicts of interest will refrain from participating in the investigation.

After analysis, the Ethics Committee will recommend to the editors:

• archiving the report, if no misconduct has been proven;
• mandatory corrections to the manuscript (adjustments to the list of authors, inclusion of information in notes, correction of data and sources, inclusion of references, etc.), or errata in a separate document to be made available along with the original article, if already published;
• rejection of the manuscript, or retraction of the published article.

The Ethics Committee may make further recommendations to the editors or to the Editorial Advisory Board, or take additional measures if proven necessary.