Academic integrity is the cornerstone of scientific progress and thus remains essential to all parties involved in research, academic writing and publication. Journal of Mining Science and Technology, as publisher of research findings, maintains high ethical standards in the publishing procedure, as is outlined in the following ethical guidelines for authors, reviewers and editors.

1. Responsibilities of Authors

1) Ensure the submitted research is original (review articles not included), and does not contain such unethical behavior as fraud, plagiarism, unauthorized national confidentiality, conflict of interest or intellectual properties, published findings written in any language.

2) Do not submit manuscripts to more than one journal at a time or submit to another journal before being informed by the editorial office on the rejection of manuscripts.

3) Provide clear citations and references in the required format

4) Acknowledge contributors and institutions that offer assistance, counseling or funding to the research.

5) Respond with due respect to suggestions of revision from the reviewers and the handling editor.

6) Approve the Exclusive License Agreement and the Sole Agency Agreement with the publisher on the publication of manuscripts.

Academic Misconduct:

1. Duplicate submission

1) Submitted manuscripts that involve the same theory, experimental results, figures/tables or major arguments (despite the different choice of wording) are considered as duplicate submission. This does not include submitting follow-up research of published communications, on which the editorial office needs to be informed before submission.

2) The confirmation of receipt indicates that the submitted manuscript is under editorial assessment. If the submitting author who has received such confirmation intends to submit the manuscript elsewhere, the editorial office needs to be informed and approved the matter beforehand.

3) Authors shall be informed by the editorial office on a suspected duplicate submission and respond to relevant evidence. The evidence should be checked in a prudent manner by the editorial office before any sanction is made. Conflict between the editorial office and the authors shall be resolved by the higher authority or arbitrated by a third party authority.

4) Retraction statement of a confirmed duplicate submission shall be posted in the latest issue (including the author's name and institutional affiliations) and informs the author's institution and other journals in the field.

2. Plagiarism

Plagiarism refers to manuscripts that contain work from others without the authors' approval, clear citations or acknowledgements, including direct copying or rewriting of data, ideas, concepts or texts. Any form of plagiarism is totally prohibited in publication.

3. Authorship

All listed authors are accountable for the submitted manuscript, whose contributions to the research are acknowledged. Those listed as authors should provide major contributions to the conception, design, implementation or data analysis of the research. Those who make notable contributions to the research must be listed as co-authors. The submitting author should be approved and authorized by co-authors before submission.

4. Fraud

Fraud refers to the author's fabrication of data or findings that are not direct results from experiments or research. Under no circumstance is fraud allowed in research.

2. Responsibilities of Reviewers

1) Evaluate and comment on the manuscript in a prudent, objective and fair manner, in terms of whether the research

a. is original, scientifically sound and demonstrates potential for application,

b. includes an appropriate design, accurate results and conclusion,

c. doesn't contain unauthorized confidentiality.

The reviewer's comments factor into the editor's final assessment on the manuscript. Reviewers should provide detailed suggestions of revision and assist the authors in improving the quality of the manuscript.

2) Give due respect to the research results; avoid manuscripts with conflict of interest; evaluate only on the content of the manuscript without personal judgment or criticism, regardless of the author's race, gender, religion, faith, status or experience; offer sufficient references to clarify judgments.

3) Review the manuscripts timely and send comments to the editorial office before the given deadline; inform the editorial office on inevitable delays so that the manuscript could be sent to an alternative reviewer.

4) Point out published work that are not cited in the manuscript

5) Keep the manuscript confidential. Do not transfer, discuss, use or publish the data, ideas or findings obtained from the manuscript.

6) Do not reveal the reviewer's comment and relevant information for personal advantage.

3. Responsibilities of Editors

1) Abide by the laws and regulations of P.R.C.; comply with publishing ethics and guidelines; uphold academic integrity; assess all submitted manuscripts timely and fairly; ensure the quality and timely publication of accepted manuscripts.

2) Ensure that all manuscripts have been subject to testing on originality with appropriate testing software, after which manuscripts are sent to two reviewers for double-blind review. Reviewers shall give detailed suggestions regarding the acceptance, rejection or revision of the manuscripts.

3) Ensure that all accepted manuscripts have been subject to testing on content, without regard to the author's gender, race, religion or nationality.

4) Give due respect to the author's research findings and the reviewers' comments; keep the manuscript assessment record faithful and maintain the confidentiality of all materials involved in manuscript assessment and revision; do not reveal any relevant information about the manuscript or its submission to other parties, except for the corresponding author, reviewers or members of the editorial board if necessary.

5) Ensure fair selection of manuscripts: acceptance or rejection of a manuscript is only grounded on its originality, significance, clarity and alignment with the aim and scope of the journal.

6) Respond to appeals against the reviewer's comments.

7) Investigate and follow up academic misconduct; timely respond to appeals of academic misconduct on submitted or published manuscripts; timely issue statements of correction, clarification, retraction or apology if necessary; implement sanctions on misconduct of authors or reviewers.

8) Ensure that the detailed information of submission or the identity of reviewers and handling editors are kept confidential.

4. Retraction and Correction

1. Editors shall retract the manuscript if clear evidences are presented in terms of

1) the unreliability of research as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. false judgment or margin of error in experiments),

2) findings of the research being previously published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (duplicate submission),

3) plagiarism,

4). reporting unethical research results.

2. Retraction statements should be linked to the retracted manuscript in all electronic versions, with clear markings of the retracted manuscript (e.g. the retraction statement should includes the research title and authors); timely issue retraction statements to minimize the potential damage caused by the misleading manuscript.

3. Editors shall issue correction statements if

1) a small fraction of a reliable manuscript is proved misleading (especially concerning honest errors),

2) incorrect authorship or acknowledgement (major contributor missing or unqualified authors being listed)

To uphold academic integrity and protect the interest of readers and authors, the journal implements rigorous testing procedure to all submitted manuscripts:

1) Identification of academic misconduct

  All submitted manuscripts shall be subjected to testing using CNKI 'Science and Technology Periodical Academic Misconduct Document Detection System', relevant search engines and alignment testing with 'Chinese Academic Literature Network Publishing Library', coupled with clues of misconduct provided by reviewers. The manuscript shall be examined to see if it contains plagiarism, fraud, falsification, improper signature, etc. Suspected manuscripts will be thoroughly examined by expertise invited by the editorial office or members of the editorial board. 

2) Scope of testing

a. All submitted manuscripts

b. Manuscripts suspected of academic misconduct

3) Identification of academic misconduct

Manuscripts with 15% or higher plagiarism likelihood (according to the plagiarism detection report) shall be sent to the reviewers or the editorial board to confirm the nature and form of the manuscript in alignment with the manuscript of similitude.

Criteria for identifying academic misconduct:

The manuscript that contains any of the following unethical behavior shall be identified as academic misconduct:

1) Direct copying, paraphrasing or rewriting of others’ ideas, data, texts, research method or results without clear citations.

2) Inclusion of any form of published work without clear citations or acknowledgements, or the follow-up research is proved insufficient. 

3) Fabrication or tampering with data, research results or literature.

4) Duplicate submission

5) Conflicts of interest and incorrect signature, authorship or institutional affiliations

Sanctions for Academic Misconduct

1) Authors shall be informed by the editorial board on a suspected duplicate submission and respond to relevant evidence. The evidence should be checked in a prudent manner by the editorial office before any sanction is made.

2) If the suspected manuscript has not been accepted, the editorial board shall terminate the assessment procedure and inform the author of the manuscript's rejection.

3) If the suspected manuscript has been accepted but not formally published, the editorial board shall withdraw the manuscript instantly, inform the author of its rejection, return all the submitting materials and give the author a warning.

4) If the suspected manuscript has already been published, the editorial board shall post a retraction statement online, in the latest issue and to the related database administration to withdraw all the data and information related to the retracted manuscript. The author's institution will be informed about the misconduct and the author should pay for the fees generated in the assessment procedure, give statement of apology to the journal and its readership, the authors or institutions being plagiarized for the adverse effects caused by the misconduct and assume corresponding responsibilities. The editorial board reserves the rights to demand further compensation for compromised reputation or other losses on the journal's side.

5) The authors of the manuscript that involve academic misconduct shall be rejected for the next three years as authors of other manuscripts.

The above measures shall be implemented since the date of promulgation and the editorial board of Journal of Mining Science and Technology reserves the right of final explanation.

Journal of Mining Science and Technology

The editorial board shall retract a manuscript in the following circumstances:

1. Withdrawal by the submitting author

1) The submitting author should explain to the editorial board for personal reasons of withdrawing a successfully submitted manuscript.

2) The submitting author that requires the withdrawal of an accepted or a reviewed manuscript must submit an application of withdrawal.

3). The submitting author that requires the withdrawal of a manuscript under editorial composing out of personal reasons should pay for the fees generated in the assessment, editing and composing of the manuscript.

4). If a manuscript has been withdrawn twice due to personal reasons, the editorial board shall refuse further submission from the author (as the first author or the corresponding author) within one year.

2. Retraction by the editorial board

1) The editorial board shall reach the submitting author on misconduct of a submitted manuscript, and the author shall submit relevant materials/evidences to the editorial committee to decide on its withdrawal.

2) If the suspected manuscript has not been formally published, the editorial board shall withdraw the manuscript and submit a withdrawal statement.

3) If the suspected manuscript has already been published, the editorial board shall post a retraction statement online, in the latest issue and to the related database administration to withdraw all the data and information related to the retracted manuscript.

4) The authors and corresponding authors of manuscripts that involve academic misconduct shall be rejected for the next three years as authors of other manuscripts.