Journal Policies

Editorial policy

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that the authors have not violated any ethical practices followed in the preparation and publication of biomedical manuscripts. Author(s) are responsible for all statements made in their work and should be willing to defend them publicly if challenged.

Authors should prepare manuscripts exactly according to the journal's instructions. Manuscripts that do not follow the journal's format and style may be returned for revision or rejected. The journal reserves the right to make formal changes and language corrections necessary in a manuscript accepted for publication. Manuscripts and figures are not returned to authors, not even upon rejection.

Responsibilities of authors

By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) warrant that the work is their own, original, and has neither been published previously nor is under consideration elsewhere. They also warrant that sources of ideas and/or words not their own have been properly attributed through citation or quotation.

An author should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in multiple venues; such redundant publication is considered unethical and may result in rejection or retraction. Authors should present an accurate account of the work performed with an objective discussion of its significance — fabrication of results or knowingly inaccurate statements are cause for rejection or retraction.

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to include any images or artwork for which they do not hold copyright, and the copyright holder must be made explicitly aware the material will be made freely available online. Authors' names should be listed in order of contribution; only those who made a substantive contribution should be listed as authors, with others credited in an Acknowledgments section. The corresponding author must ensure all appropriate co-authors — and no inappropriate ones — are included, and that all have approved the final version.

Where an author discovers a significant error in a published article, they have an obligation to promptly notify the editors and cooperate to correct or retract it as appropriate.

Responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers perform work for the journal on a volunteer basis and are free to decline invitations they cannot complete in a timely fashion, or for which they feel unqualified. Reviewers who accept are normally expected to submit their review within three weeks, and should recuse themselves if a conflict of interest becomes apparent.

Privileged information obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and never used for personal advantage. Reviews should be conducted objectively, without personal criticism, with clear and justified recommendations and constructive feedback. Reviewers should identify relevant published work not cited by the authors, note any resemblance to other published work, and flag any concerns about the ethical acceptability of the reported research.

Responsibilities of editors

The Editor has ultimate responsibility for deciding whether a submitted manuscript should be published, guided by the journal's editorial board policies and applicable legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism, and may consult the Associate Editor, editorial team and reviewers in making that decision.

Editors evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the author(s), and will not disclose information about a manuscript under consideration beyond the author(s), reviewers and, where appropriate, the editorial board — including maintaining the integrity of the blind review process.

Plagiarism policy

IJPER is committed to publishing original, plagiarism-free work. All submitted articles are screened for plagiarised content (iThenticate) before being sent for peer review. An article found to have plagiarised content exceeding 10–15% will not be considered, or will be asked to be revised; the decision rests with the handling editor.

Copyright & open access

Articles published in IJPER are open access — freely available to read, download and share, with no article processing charges to authors. Authors retain copyright in their work under the licence stated on the article itself.

Retraction policy

Where a correction is needed, IJPER publishes one, linked from the article. Where a finding is unsafe, a retraction is published stating the reason. The original article is not deleted — it remains available and is clearly marked, since removing it would hide the scholarly record rather than correct it.