Forum for Education Studies

Publishing Ethics

Academic Publishing Pte. Ltd. follows the rules, regulations and best practices set by:

• Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

• The Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing as stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)

• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

Experiments should be carried out in accordance with the laws and regulations of Ethics Committee affiliated with the author's institution. All studies using human or animal subjects should include an explicit statement in the Material and Methods section identifying the review and ethics committee approval for each study, if applicable. The statement will be displayed in the final publication. An informed consent should be obtained for all clinical treatment where disclosure is required regarding medical information, that includes discussion on the risks, benefits, and alternatives.

The Editorial Office adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any misconducts. Complainants could direct all correspondence to editorial_office@acad-pub.com. The Editorial Office will deal with it according to the procedure set out by COPE.

Authorship

Authorship should meet the following 3 points at the same time:

• having made substantial contributions to the conception, design, acquisition and analysis of data;
• having made intellectual contribution to writing the manuscript or revising it;
• final approval of the version to be published.

All authors must read and approve the final version of the manuscript. All the authors have the right to explain the questions raised, and agree the author rank before publishing.

Changes to Authorship

The Editorial Office considers the authorship list is definitive by the time the original submission is received.

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the reasons for the change in the authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) agreeing with such change, to the Editorial Office.

The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.

Conflict of Interest

• For authors: authors must declare any potential conflict of interest in related to the research when submitting the manuscript, including academic competition, and financial benefits.
• For editors: editors should assess their own potential conflicts, and avoid participating in the whole peer-review process when being one of the authors.
• For reviewers: reviewers should avoid relationship with any author. If they feel unable to be objective, they must declare potential interest, and decline to review the manuscript.

Plagiarism

Academic Publishing is a member of CrossCheck by CrossRef and iThenticate. All submissions are screened by iThenticate. Any plagiarism (fabrication or falsification of data) is strictly unacceptable, including duplicate publication without proper citations.

If plagiarism is detected, we will follow the flowcharts of COPE for how to handle cases of potential plagiarism in a submitted manuscript or a published article. We will inform all the authors and their institutions about the case.

Language

The language used in manuscripts submitted to Forum for Education Studies (FES) is required to be English. Authors from non-English speaking countries may have their manuscripts professionally edited before accepted to ensure the article content is fully understood by readers.

Erratum, Retraction & Withdrawal policy

Erratum

Editors, authors and readers, whoever find a correction is required in the publication, should feel free to contact editorial_office@acad-pub.com. Please clearly state the content needing to be changed. Please also send the article title, DOI, and page number to us. Upon approvement by the Editorial Office, an erratum will be published in the current issue.

Retraction policy

The journal considers retracting the publication if:

• Editors have clear evidence of unreliable results, tendency of misconduct, evident calculation errors, etc.
• It reports unethical research including plagiarism.

JAM abides by Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Please note that APCs will not be refunded due to the retraction of an article.

Withdrawal policy

This journal does not support withdrawal of publication considering that it may be suspected of academic misconduct. If the author can provide reasonable application to the Editorial Office after it has been accepted (but not yet published), and the Editorial Office agrees the request, a processing fee of USD 200 is chargeable upon withdrawal.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Forum for Education Studies (FES) is bi-annual.

Indexing & Archiving

• All the publications will be archived by Portico.
• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).
• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of Academic Publishing.

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the “Author Guidelines” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Forum for Education Studies (FES) are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to the peer review process, manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Forum for Education Studies (FES) will be treated as confidential materials. Manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Human & Animal Research

Human research 

If human subjects were used in the experiments, authors should identify the committee or organization (e.g., authors’ Institutional Ethics Review Board) approving the experiments during the submitting process, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. This journal requires that authors provide a proof of research ethics or ethics statement along with the submission. In the case that ethics approval identifiers are not available, written approval from the granting committee or organization must be provided as a confidential supplemental file.

Authors should confirm that experiments were carried out in adherence to the ethical principles set out in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki and that informed consent was obtained from all human subjects. 

For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent statement was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated clearly as well.

Authors should inform study participants of the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits as a result of the experiment, and patients' right to withhold or withdraw consent. 

If a study participant is a minor, consent should be obtained from his/her parent(s) or legal guardian(s).

Authors are obliged to declare and clearly specify any restrictions on the availability or the use of human data in the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to follow the CARE guidelines while reporting a clinical case that involves human subjects. If the article reporting guidelines suggested by Forum for Education Studies (FES) were not pertinent to your work, please look for and refer to the appropriate reporting standards as found on EQUATOR Network, which have been adopted by the field of the works or which apply to their study design.

Animal research

For studies reporting experiments that involve testing on regulated animals (i.e., all live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates), authors should identify the committee or organization (e.g., authors’ Institutional Ethics Review Board) during the submitting section of the manuscript, which should also detail ethics approval information such as the name of the granting committee or organization and the approval identifiers, i.e., reference numbers. For research conducted on non-regulated animals, a statement should be made as to why ethical approval was not required.

Authors are encouraged to follow the ARRIVE guidelines while reporting animal research. 

Experiments on non-human primates should be performed in accordance with the recommendations set out in the Weatherall report (The Use of Non-Human Primates in Research).

Privacy Statement

The information from manuscripts including the authors’ name, addresses, and email, will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal. The collected information will not be available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Patient Anonymity and Privacy

Human subjects have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information or patient identifiers, including patient names, initials, date of birth, contacts, medical record numbers, hospital numbers, and geographical location, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and patients (or his/her parent or guardian) give written informed consent for publication. Efforts must be made by authors to at least mask or conceal any identifying information of the patients that appear in writing or within photograph.

Authors are obliged to explain to patients if revealing patients’ identity cannot be fully avoided, e.g., an image of an identifiable body part like the face has to be published in the report. Relevant identifying information to be published, e.g., images, must be shown to patients, and consent must be obtained to use this information in publications. If a patient dies, consent should be obtained from the next of kin or legal representatives. Submissions that include identifying patient information without appropriate patient consent will not be considered for publication.

Refer to ICMJE Privacy and Confidentiality guidelines for more information about patient anonymity and privacy.