Physical Activity, Exercise and Cancer (hereafter PAEC) takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. In no case shall PAEC and/or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that a journal's publisher or PAEC editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in our journal, PAEC shall follow COPE's guidelines (The Core Practices, 2017) in dealing with allegations.

Duties of the Editor and the Editorial Board

Publication decisions. The Editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The publication decision should be guided by the policies of the journal’s Editorial Board and should be based exclusively on the academic merit and the decision of the reviewers. The Editor must stick to the contemporary regulations pertaining to libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism that are effective. He is entitled to conduct decision-making in consultation with reviewers or members of the editorial board. An editor must not use unpublished information in the editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper.

Fair play. An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality. The Editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors should excuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations. PAEC will respond to all allegations or suspicions of research or publication misconduct raised by readers, reviewers, or other editors. Cases of possible plagiarism or duplicate/redundant publication will be assessed by the journal. In other cases, the journal may request an investigation by the institution or other appropriate bodies.

Duties of the Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions. Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Reviewer misconduct. Editors will take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage. Allegations of serious reviewer misconduct, such as plagiarism, will be taken to the institutional level.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards. Authors reporting results of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Originality and plagiarism. Authors should adhere to publication requirements that: (i) submitted work is entirely original, (ii) is not plagiarized,(iii) has not been published elsewhere, and (iv) if the authors have used the work and/or words of others this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of sources. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of a manuscript. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be named in an Acknowledgement section. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list of the manuscript, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

 

DISCLAIMER

Neither the editors nor the Editorial Board are responsible for authors’ expressed opinions, views, and the contents of the published manuscripts in the journal. The originality, proofreading of manuscripts and errors are the sole responsibility of the individual authors. All manuscripts submitted for review and publication in PAEC go under double-blind reviews for authenticity, ethical issues, and useful contributions. Decisions of the reviewers are the only tool for publication in the journal and will be final.

Physical Activity, Exercise and Cancer submits all its articles to plagiarism detection and prevention software Turnitin. Articles with more than 25% similarity to another reference will be withdrawn.