Journal Policy
Ethical Issues
Manuscript submitted to the journal must be original, previously unpublished and not under the consideration of other journals simultaneously. Authors are responsible to obtain written permissions to reproduce any materials from other sources that are used in the manuscript, e.g. figures, tables and illustrations.
Open Access
The journal is an open access journal which is freely available online. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles without prior permission from the publisher and authors.
Copyright
Any reproduction of figures, tables and illustrations must obtain written permission from the chief editor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). No part of the journal may be reproduced without the editor’s permission. The journal is published by:
The Malaysian Society of Applied Biology
c/o Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology,
Faculty of Science and Technology,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
Malaysian Society of Applied Biology (MSAB) does not hold itself responsible for statements made in the journal by contributors. Unless so stated, contents of the journal do not reflect an endorsement or an official attitude of MSAB or the Editorial Board.
Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Malaysian Applied Biology (MAB) Journal is a Scopus indexed journal committed to safeguard the highest standards of publication ethics. The parties who are involved in the act of publishing (authors, reviewers, editors and publisher) have to follow the standards of publication ethics. MAB Journal publication ethics and malpractice statement is based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE (http://publicationethics.org/).
Responsibility of Editors
- MAB editors are responsible to evaluate submitted manuscripts based on its merit and relevance to the journal scope without considering authors gender, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious belief, citizenship, institutional affiliation or political philosophy. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority to decide the editorial content and timing of publication of issue.
- Editorial board members will not disclose any information to anyone except potential reviewers.
- Editorial board members that have acquired information or ideas as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and will not use it for their personal advantage. Editors having conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships/connections with any of authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers will request for another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.
- Editorial board will ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the said field.
- Editor-in-Chief will make editorial decision of each submitted manuscript based on reviewers’ comments, quality of work and importance to researchers, readers and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright violation and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may discuss with respective associate editors or reviewers in making this decision.
- Any ethical concerns that were raised with regards to a submitted manuscript or published paper will make the MAB editorial team in conjunction with publisher to look into these reported act of unethical publishing behaviour seriously and take actions even if it is discovered years after publication. MAB editors will follow the COPE Flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts) when dealing with cases of suspected misconduct. If on investigation, the ethical concern is understandable, a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be published in the journal.
Responsibility of Reviewers
- Reviewers are responsible to assist editors in making editorial decisions and may assist authors in improving their manuscripts through editorial communications.
- Reviewers are responsible to notify MAB editors immediately after receiving the manuscript from MAB, if they feel unqualified to review the research reported in the manuscript or rapid review is impossible for them due to their time constraint.
- Reviewers who received manuscripts have to treat it as a confidential document and must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief. This rule applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
- Reviewers should conduct the review process objectively and should formulate observations clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscripts. Personal criticism of the authors is not acceptable.
- Reviewers should make sure that any statement given by authors in the manuscript that is an observation, derivation and argument that has been reported in the previous publication should be accompanied by the relevant citation and they also should be able to identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. During the review process, if a reviewer observed any similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript published or unpublished of which they have personal knowledge should notify the editor immediately.
- Any invited reviewers who has conflict of interest resulting from collaboration or other relations or connections with any of the authors, institutions or companies connected to the manuscript are supposed to notify the editors immediately to declare their conflict of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted. Invited reviewers who acquired information or ideas as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and will not use it for their personal advantage. This applies also to the invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
Responsibilities of Authors
- For original articles submission, authors should present an accurate amount of the work performed by them with results, followed by the discussion. Authors also need to incorporate sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. For review articles submission, the content should be objective, accurate and comprehensive. False or knowingly incorrect statements are considered as unethical and are unacceptable.
- During manuscript submission process, authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their work together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. Ensuring accessibility of data is the responsibility of the authors for at least 10 years after the publication date via a subject-based data repository, institution, or a data centre. This needs to be available provided the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data does not prevent their release.
- Authors should guarantee on writing and submitting their completely original work and should not use others work. If authors are using other words or statements, it should be appropriately cited. Publications that have been significant in defining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited.
- Plagiarism will occur in number of reasons including passing off another author paper as the authors own paper, extracting results from research conducted by other authors and copying or summarising significant results from research conducted by without proper citation. All the above forms of plagiarism will consider as unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
- Authors are not allowed to publish the research work in more than one journal and submit the manuscript journal concurrently to more than one journal. The above action is considered as unethical publishing behaviour and unacceptable. Publication of some kinds of articles including clinical guidelines and translations in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable provided that, authors and editors of the concerned journal must agree for the secondary publication, must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document and the primary paper must be cited in the secondary publication.
- Those individuals who meet the below authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript. The authorship criteria include - (i) Give authorship only to those who made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; (ii) Those who contribute in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (iii) all authors must see and approve the final version of the paper before submission to the journal. Those persons who do not meet the criteria for authorship but provided substantial contribution in terms of technical help, writing, editing and general support should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section upon getting written permission from them. The corresponding author should make sure that all co-authors meet the above mentioned authorship criteria to be included in the authors list and should get consent from all co-authors to submit the manuscript for publication.
- In the early stage of submission itself, authors should disclose any conflicts of interest including financial ones such as educational grants or other funding, honoraria, participation in speakers’ agencies, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones which include personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).
- Authors should guarantee that they have properly acknowledged the work of others and cite the publications that have been significant in defining the nature of the work. Any new information obtained from other private sources through conversation, correspondence or discussion among third parties should be reported after getting their written consent to add these information in the manuscript. Authors should not use any sort of information or ideas obtained during handling some of the confidential services include reviewing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they get written consent from the respective authors who were involved in the service.
- Authors whose work involves using unusual hazardous equipment, procedures or chemicals, must state clearly in the manuscript. Those authors’ work which involved participating human volunteers or handling animals should perform in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and should mention a statement in the manuscript that informed consent and ethical approval was obtained for experimentation with human participants or animals. The privacy rights of human participants must always be followed.
- Authors are responsible to participate in the peer review process and work together fully with the editorial members by responding promptly for the requisition of raw data, proof of ethics approval, clarifications, patient consent form and copyright permissions. After the editorial decision made by the editors, authors should respond to the reviewers’ and editorial comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, and make sure to submit the revising manuscript to the journal within the given deadline.
- When authors realise significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their responsibility to quickly inform the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of a printing or writing or to retract the paper.
- If the editors or publisher discover from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ responsibility to quickly correct or retract the paper. Authors can also provide evidence to the journal editors to support the correctness of the paper.
Responsibilities of Publisher
- Publisher in collaboration with editors, should take necessary steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts where research misconduct has occurred and should not knowingly allow or encourage such misconduct to take place. Publishers should work closely with the editors to clarify situation and take necessary actions for those authors who suspected or verified the scientific misconduct, plagiarism or carried out fraudulent activities to publish the manuscript.
- Publisher is responsible for the preservation of scholarly research and provides accessibility by affiliating with organizations and maintaining own digital archive.
