Publication Practice and Malpractice Statement

Ethical Practice

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. Such concerns will be addressed following appropriate COPE guidelines.

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.