As an important carrier of scientific research achievements, sci-tech periodicals play an important role in maintaining and promoting the integrity of scientific research. Biotechnology Bulletin adheres to the high level of academic quality and rigorous publishing integrity code, combined with "Science and Technology Publishing Ethics Norms" to develop the publication ethics statement for the reference of contributors. For more details, please refer to the official website of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://www.publicationethics.org/).
1 Ethical Expectations
1.1 Editors' responsibilities
Editors must conscientiously fulfill their responsibilities and obligations to publish scientific research results, abide by academic ethics, defend scientific research integrity, and resist academic misconduct.
1) Process all submitted manuscripts in a timely and fair manner. During the first review, we must maintain objectiveness and fairness, should not prejudice the author's institution, title, nationality, etc., and consciously avoid submitting the manuscript that has a conflict of interest with the editor itself.
2) Guarantee the confidentiality of the manuscript. The author information and academic content of the paper shall not be disclosed to anyone other than the reviewing experts and editorial board.
3) Strictly select experts for reviewing manuscripts. Under the premise of academic reputation and scientific research performance during the evaluation period, experts capable of reviewing manuscripts should be reasonably selected. In the process of submitting for review, try to avoid the review experts from the same institution.
4) Strictly abide by the "three-review system". To ensure that all steps in whole process are transparent and open, authors may view the progress of manuscript processing at any time in the system.
5) Communicate with the author in time when there are major modifications to the article, and confirm it with the author before the article is officially published.
6) Reasonably handle the appeals of rejected manuscripts, and properly establish a bridge between authors and the review experts.
7) Reasonably response to academic ethics complaints. To adopt and follow reasonable procedures in the event of complaints of an ethical or conflicting nature, in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Society where appropriate. To give authors a reasonable opportunity to respond to any complaints. All complaints should be investigated no matter when the original publication was approved. Documentation associated with any such complaints should be retained.
1.2 Reviewers' responsibilities
The peer review aims to evaluate the originality, scientificity, and innovation of the submitted papers, help the editorial department to further exclude low-quality articles, and at the same time propose detailed amendments to the existing problems of the approved articles to help the authors improve paper quality.
1) Anonymous review system. In order to avoid subjective influence to reviewing experts from the authors, the Biotechnology Bulletin adopts a "double-blind reviewing" system, which hides the authors’ names, organization, acknowledgement and other information during the review process, prompting the reviewing experts to make a more objective comments. The experts’ information in the comments back to authors will also be deleted.
2) Timeliness of peer review. Fill in the review comments on time and give it back to the editorial department within the specified time. You should explain the situation and return the manuscript if you cannot complete it on time.
3) Confidentiality of peer review experts. Strictly keep the reviewed manuscripts confidential, do not circulate or discuss with others, and do not use and publish the data, opinions, and conclusions of the reviewed manuscripts.
4) Withdrawal of peer review experts. The reviewer should be aware of any potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative or other relationships between the reviewer and author) and alert the editor to these, if necessary withdrawing their services for that manuscript.
1.3 Authors' responsibilities
Biotechnology Bulletin is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record, and will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct. Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal and ultimately the entire scientific endeavor. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by the following rules of good scientific practice.
1) The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
2) The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”).
3) A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. “salami-publishing”).
4) No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions.
5) No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the authors’ own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgments to other works must be given, and this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased. Quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.
6) Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
7) Consent to submit has been received from all co-authors and responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out before the work is submitted.
8) Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.
9) Authors should ensure that any studies involving human or animal subjects conform to national (such as Declaration of Helsinki), local, and institutional laws and requirements. For experimental studies involving animals, please refer to the "Guidelines for the Ethical Review of Welfare of Experimental Animals" and "Guidelines for the Care and Use of Experimental Animals". For clinical trials involving humans, the author must provide ethical review certification documents for the research plan, those involved the patient (subject) should sign an informed consent.
10) Authors should notify the editorial department if a significant error in their publications is identified.
11) This paper does not involve state secrets, any infringement issues related to intellectual property rights, or any interest disputes.
1.4 Authorship
Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work, and every author has responsibility for the data and argument mentioned in the paper. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and for any change in authorship.
In addition: changes of authorship or in the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript; requests to add or delete authors at the revision stage or after publication is a serious matter, and may be considered only after receipt of written approval from all authors and a detailed explanation about the role/deletion of the new/deleted author. The decision on accepting the change rests with the editorial department of the journal, and authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc.
1.5 Disclosure of potential conflict of interests
Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled, and is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:
1) Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number);
2) Honoraria for speaking at symposia;
3) Financial support for attending symposia;
4) Financial support for educational programs;
5) Employment or consultation;
6) Position on advisory board or board of directors or other types of management relationships;
7) Multiple affiliations;
8) Financial relationships, for example, equity ownership or investment interest;
9) Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights);
10) Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have a financial interest in the work.
In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research. The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list. See below examples of disclosures.
Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
If no conflict exists, the authors should state as follows:
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
1.6 Informed consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered and what they have said e.g. during a study or an interview as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes, and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) has given written informed consent for publication.
Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning. The following statement should be included:
Informed consent: “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
If identifying information about participants is available in the article, the following statement should be included:
“Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.”
2 Identification and Treatment of Academic Misconduct Papers
In order to protect the rights and interests of readers and maintain the quality and reputation of this journal, Biotechnology Bulletin will strictly test and screen papers in the publishing process, and continue to implement the rejection system and deal with papers identified as academic misconduct seriously. The specific detection and identification process and treatment methods are hereby announced as follows:
2.1 The journal adopts the “Academic Misconduct Literature Check(AMLC)” to automatically detect the papers, and takes the general library of online publishing of China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database to detect academic misconduct papers such as plagiarism and forgery, tampering, improper signature and multiple submission of one draft and so on.
2.2 Scope of papers to be tested
1) All papers recorded or ready for employment by the journal;
2) Readers report suspected plagiarism of papers.
2.3 Identification of academic misconduct papers
The “Academic Misconduct Literature Check” is used to check the duplicate of the paper. The similarity rate should be below 20%. If any academic misconduct is identified, the manuscript will be rejected.
The criteria for identifying papers as academic misconduct are as follows:
1) Copying the achievements of others in the original or basically intact content of the thesis;
2) In the content of the paper, changing the type of other people’s achievements and regard the achievements completed by others as the achievements completed by themselves independently; or not changing the type of achievements, but making use of the copyright protected elements in the achievements and changing the specific forms of expression of the achievements, and treating the achievements completed by others as the achievements completed independently by themselves;
3) Using the protected views of others to form the whole, core or main views of his own paper, and taking the protected academic achievements of others as the main part or substantive part of his own academic paper;
4) Fabricating or tampering with research results, investigation data, experimental data or literature in a paper;
5) Quoting other people’s protected views, plans, materials, data, etc., without annotation or explanation of the source;
6) More than one draft.
2.4 Treatment of papers identified as academic misconduct
1) In a prudent manner, the editorial department shall timely notify the author of the papers finally identified as academic misconduct, and allow the author to explain and defend this issue before making a decision.
2) If the paper has been hired but not officially published, inform the author that the paper will be rejected directly.
3) If the paper has been officially published, inform the author that the paper will be retracted. If it causes reputation or other losses to the journal, the journal will reserve the right to continue to pursue compensation.
4) If the circumstances are serious, the author's unit and name will be published in the journal at a selected time, as well as the notice of canceling the paper, and the event will be notified to the author’s affiliation.
5) For the papers written by the author as the first author who seriously plagiarizes and submits more than one draft, this journal will not be employed within 3 years.
3 Correction and Retraction
1) Written corrections to appropriate revisions to published articles will be made by Biotechnology Bulletin and will be published in print journals and databases. If the amendment does not change the original meaning (such as spelling mistakes), this journal will publish corrections and a corresponding statement in the latest issue. If the amendment request affects the scientificity, integrity, conclusion, author reputation, journal reputation, or violates the scientific research and publishing ethics, a standard investigation procedure will be initiated which may result in retractions.
2) Manuscripts with misconduct will be rejected. Authors, authors’ research group, and author’s affiliation will be informed according to the situation. As long as any published article is verified that there is academic misconduct, the editorial team will issue a statement of retracting the article on the paper version and website of this journal, and delete the data of the article in the relevant databases to terminate the article propagation.
3) When the author proposes to retract the manuscript, all authors must sign a retraction statement, detailing the reasons for retracting the paper. All final decisions on corrections or retractions of manuscripts rest with the editorial office.
4 Complaint and feedback
Authors can submit written appeals to the editorial department via the journal’s E-mail if they disagree with the identification and handling results of the journal. The editorial department promptly reviews appeal and provides feedback. Readers or authors with feedback on journal articles can send comments to the journal’s email, with the editorial department processing and providing feedback as appropriate.
The above measures shall come into force as of the date of promulgation and shall be interpreted by the Editorial Board of Biotechnology Bulletin.
Editorial Board of Biotechnology Bulletin
