TAIWAN UBIQUITIOUS INFORMATION Ethical Policy

for Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (JIHMSP)

Last updated April 2020


JIHMSP is committed to following best practices on publication ethics. The following policy is based mainly on the Core Practices from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org). This policy should be read in conjunction with the JIHMSP's Author and Reviewer Guides which can be found through the JIHMSP's homepages.


Duties of the Editors

(1) Review of Manuscripts: Editors will take all reasonable steps to ensure that peerreviewers' identities are protected, and that the peer review process is fair, unbiased and timely.


(2) Publication Decisions:Editorial decisions are not affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. The decision to accept or reject a paper for publication is based on the paper's importance, originality and clarity, and the study's validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal.


(3) Confidentiality:Editors will ensure that the information and material submitted by the author(s) remains confidential while under consideration for the journal and will only be disclosed as appropriate to the author(s), reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisors and the JIHMSP.


(4) Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:Editors will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper for their own research purposes without the author's explicit written consent. Submissions made to a journal by the Editor will be handled by an alternative Editor to ensure the process remains fair and unbiased.


(5) Intellectual Property:Editors will ensure that all submissions are checked for originality using Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com) prior to peer-review. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and will work with the JIHMSP to ensure that the JIHMSP's Policy in Relation to Plagiarism, Infringement of Copyright and Infringement of Moral Rights and Submission to Multiple Publications is upheld.


(6) Data Protection Requirements:The Editors agree to comply with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (as applicable), the Data Protection Act 2018, Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations, and codes of practice issued by the Information Commissioner from time to time (all as amended, extended, re-enacted or replaced from time to time), in so far as the same relates to the provisions and obligations of this Agreement.




Duties of the Authors

(1) Reporting Standards:Authors should present their results accurately, clearly and honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Misleading, selective or ambiguous reporting should be avoided. Authors should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others. The submission guidelines of the journal must be followed.


(2) Acknowledgement of Sources, Plagiarism, Infringement of Copyright and Infringement of Moral Rights and Submission to Multiple Publications: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work, acknowledge all sources of data and appropriately represent the work or words of others in citations or quotations. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) should be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. Authors should ensure that they have not submitted the same manuscript or manuscripts describing essentially the same work to more than one journal concurrently. Authors should ensure that their submission does not contravene the JIHMSP's Policy in Relation to Plagiarism, Infringement of Copyright and Infringement of Moral Rights and Submission to Multiple Publications.


(3) Authorship:The authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. Others who have made a significant contribution must be listed as co- authors. The submitting author must ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.


(4) Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:All sources of financial support must be disclosed in the submitted manuscript. A statement should also be included disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be seen to influence the results or interpretation of the presented work.


(5) Significant Errors in the Work:Authors should alert the Editor promptly if they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their submitted, accepted or published work. Authors should cooperate with the Editor in issuing retractions or corrections when required.


(6) Human or Animal Subjects:All investigations involving humans must be conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and in accordance with local statutory requirements. Manuscripts relying on clinical trials should quote the trial registration number at the end of the abstract. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. For all manuscripts reporting experiments on animals, the corresponding author must confirm that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The manuscript must include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments, including any relevant details.




Duties of the Reviewers

(1) Confidentiality:Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that that are released by the journal.


(2) Acknowledgement of Sources:Reviewers should ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in their reported work. If the reviewer finds that the manuscript has similarity or overlap with any other published paper, this must be brought to the attention of the Editor immediately.


(3) Standards of Objectivity:Reviewers should not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations. Reviewers should be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory, and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments.


(4) Promptness:Reviewers should only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner.


(5) Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:Reviewers should not agree to review any manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive,collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions. Reviewers should not use information obtained during the peer review process for their own or any other person's advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.