Allegations of Misconduct

ISEMA: Islamic Educational Management is committed to upholding the highest standards of research integrity and publication ethics. We take all allegations of academic misconduct seriously and handle them in strict accordance with the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Definition of Misconduct Scientific misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • Plagiarism: The uncredited use of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words.

  • Fabrication and Falsification: Inventing data or results, or manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, leading to an inaccurate representation of the research.

  • Duplicate Submission/Publication: Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously, or publishing the same research in multiple venues without proper justification and citation.

  • Authorship Disputes: Including individuals who do not meet authorship criteria (Gift Authorship) or excluding those who do (Ghost Authorship).

  • Citation Manipulation: Including citations primarily to increase the number of citations to a given author's work or to articles published in a particular journal.

Investigation Process When an allegation of misconduct is raised by a reviewer, editor, reader, or any third party, the Editorial Board will initiate an investigation. The process involves:

  1. Initial Assessment: The Editor-in-Chief will review the allegation to determine its validity and whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed.

  2. Confidentiality: All investigations are conducted confidentially. The identities of the complainant (if requested) and the accused author will be protected during the investigation.

  3. Right to Respond: If the evidence suggests potential misconduct, the corresponding author will be contacted in writing, provided with the details of the allegation, and given a fair opportunity to respond and provide an explanation or supporting data.

Sanctions and Resolutions If the editorial board concludes that academic misconduct has occurred, ISEMA reserves the right to take one or more of the following actions, depending on the severity of the violation:

  • Pre-publication: Immediate rejection of the manuscript and a warning issued to the author(s).

  • Post-publication: Publishing a formal Correction (Erratum/Corrigendum) or, in severe cases, issuing a formal Retraction of the article from the journal’s database.

  • Further Action: Banning the author(s) from submitting future manuscripts to ISEMA for a specified period, and/or notifying the authors' affiliated institutions or funding agencies about the misconduct.

We encourage readers and reviewers who suspect any form of misconduct in published or submitted articles to contact the Editor-in-Chief directly with detailed evidence.