The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience considers integrity, transparency, and academic quality as principles expected of all categories of persons associated with the journal. This has made the Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience adopt the ethical guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to allow our editors and publishers to maintain the highest publishing ethical standards. The COPE guidelines can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience also adopts the ethical guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME), https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf, and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), https://wame.org/recommendations-on-publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals.
Any concern arising from a published article or articles not carried out in line with this publication practice guideline should be addressed to the editor at editor.njn@gmail.com, with a copy to journal@nsn.org.ng. Such concerns will be addressed following appropriate COPE guidelines.
Editorial Process
The Editor-in-Chief has the final authority to accept or reject an article. However, the editorial team’s input is vital for this. This responsibility is exercised taking only into consideration the relevance of the work to the Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience and the quality of the content. The latter consideration takes into account the quality of the methods, the validity of the experiments, and the quality of the conclusions. In instances where errors are found even after publication, articles must either be corrected or retracted. Where there is a conflict of interest with respect to an article, the editor or editors recuse themselves and are not parties to accept or reject such an article.
Peer Review
The confidentiality of all submitted manuscripts is of importance to the editorial team and is guaranteed to the authors, reviewers, and publisher. A double-blind review is adhered to during the peer review process.
Ethical Conduct of Reviewers Reviewers are usually nominated anonymously and maintained as such throughout the cycle of a particular article. Every reviewer is expected to provide his or her recommendation based on an evidential, informed, and unbiased standpoint. If the selected reviewer feels unable to review the paper thoroughly or cannot promptly review the paper, the reviewer should inform the editor and withdraw from the peer review process of the paper. Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors, and/or the research funders. This includes exercising confidentiality with respect to all reviewed articles. Reviewers are at liberty to point out relevant published work that has not been cited.
Plagiarism
The similarity and plagiarism rates of all published works and works in development are usually carried out for all articles that are to be published in the Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience. Plagiarism is the act of using another’s words, data, ideas, and materials without their expressed acknowledgement and permission.
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience reserves the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools, and exercises a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism in respect of any and all publications. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or in part, will be rejected. Any articles discovered to have plagiarized post-publication will be retracted.
Salami Slicing, Duplicate and Redundant Publication
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience does not encourage “Salami-slicing” or divided publishing. This is the act of fragmenting data into smallest publishable units, where the authors seek to publish parts of a study as several articles instead of a single article.
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience also does not encourage duplicate or redundant publication. This is when a research, or substantial parts of such, is published more than once by the author(s) without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap. This can be in the same language or a different language.
Furthermore, any works pending submission or publication must not be under consideration with any other publication, be it journal, book, or other forms of press.
Readers, reviewers, and editors can raise any suspicions of plagiarism, duplicate or otherwise of another person’s work, by contacting the editor or by emailing editor.njn@gmail.com.
Retractions, Corrections, and Expressions of Concern
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience will consider retractions, corrections, or expressions of concern in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines. If an author is found to have made an error, the journal will issue a corrigendum. If the journal is found to have made an error, they will issue an erratum. However, substantive corrections will be carried out in line with COPE’s Retraction Guidelines: https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines.
Copyright and licencing
Copyrights for articles are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. Authors have rights to reuse, republish, archive, and distribute their own articles after publication. The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. This journal is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en#main-content-marker.
Marketing Communication
The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience shares published articles as table of contents or synopsis on social media and email communication with new and existing readers as part of our efforts to maintain engagement. However, our social media teams are to uphold the responsibilities that maintain the integrity of our publications and reputation by regarding and adhering to the Journal’s ethics guidelines.
Advertising
As well as advertising our own products to our readers, the Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience allows third-party advertisements online and in print publications, each within limited spaces. Our advertisements are in accordance with our data protection regulations, the Advertising Standards Authority’s guidance on the marketing of publications, and our internal compliance procedures. Where present, all advertising must be independent of editorial decisions on what is published and be categorically distinct in content. The Nigerian Journal of Neuroscience reserves the right to reject and/or remove any advertising suspected of contravening the Research Publishing Ethics Guidelines or our Code of Ethics.
