Statement on Ethics & Publication Malpractice

Enquiry (ENQ), Online ISSN 2329-9339,  and its governing institution, The Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC), are dedicated to following best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. The Editorial Board of this journal does not tolerate unethical behavior of any kind or plagiarism in any form. It is the responsilbity of authors submitting articles to ENQ to affirm that manuscript contents are original.

This journal is aligned with best practiced documented by COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics in its Core Practices as well as its flowcharts. All articles published by ENQ must conform to these internationally accepted ethical guidelines.

 

Duties of Editor-in-Chief, Editor, and Copy Editor

1. The Editor-in-Chief has complete responsibility and authority to accept, reject or request modifications to the submitted article. The Editor-in-Chief and each editor must ensure that each article is initially evaluated for originality, making use of appropriate software to do so. Following an editorial review, the article is forwarded for double blind peer review to selected experts in the articles realm of focus who will make a recommendation to accept, reject, or modify the article.
2. Editors evaluate submitted articles exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study's validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
3. Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted article to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
4. Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted article for their own research purposes without the authors' explicit written consent. Editors will recuse themselves from considering articles in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the article.
5. Editors will publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies whenever needed.
6. Articles will not be rejected based on suspicions but only when there is valid proof of misconduct.

 

Duties of Guest Editors

1. Guest editors are responsible for defining the subject matter and role of every article in a thematic issue. They must provide clear guidelines to authors regarding the topic and boundaries of their contributions and the overall design of the issue.
2. Guest editors must work with the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board to ensure that appropriate reviewers are selected for all the articles, that all articles are processed through a double-blind peer review regardless to whether the article was invited or submitted as result of a call for papers.
3. Guest editors are responsible to work with editors and the editorial board to establish a timeline for draft paper submission, peer review, revision and final paper submission and ensuring that all deadlines are met;

 

Duties of Authors

1. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
2. Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works and, if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
3. Authors should not submit  a manuscript for considerationthat has already been published in another journal.
4. Individuals indenitified as authors must be able to take public responsibility for the content. An individual should only be listed as an author if they made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the article but who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.
5. Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. 
6. Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.
7. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.
8. Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors' requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions.
9. When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal's editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors' obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper. 

 

Duties of Reviewers

1. Reviewers evaluate articles based on content without regard to the authors' race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.
2. A potential reviewer should withdraw from the review process if he/she feels unqualified to assess the contribution or cannot provide an assessment in a timely manner as defined by the editor. In addition, reviewers should not review 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 connected to the papers.
3. Any article received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
4. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments, so that authors can use them for improving the article.

 

Duties of Advisory Board Members

1. The advisory board typically consists of a group of prominent scholars in the field of architecture and allied disciplines.
2. Board members generally attend one or two annual meetings through video conferences or virtual communications and advise on journal policy and scope, suggest ideas, new initiatives and programs to support the development of the journal.
3. Board members may review submitted manuscripts, identify topics for special issues or attract new authors and submissions if necessary.