Journal of Groundwater Science and Engineering (JGSE) has the responsibility to maintain the rigour of scientific research and protect the researchers’ intellectual property rights. Following the guidelines of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), JGSE Publication Ethics have been formulated as the guideline for the editing and publication.

Ethical guidelines for journal publication

Each peer-reviewed article published in JGSE is an approval of the progress of scientific research in the fields of various aspects of Groundwater Science and Engineering. It directly reflects the quality of the authors’ work and the institutions that support them. Peer-review is designed to support and embody scientific methods. Therefore, it is very important that all parties involved in the act of the publication, including the author, journal editors, peer reviewers, publishers, and social organization, should seriously follow the Publication Ethics over all stages of publishing.

1. Guideline of the paper

1.1 The paper published in JGSE should be the original scientific paper and the content should be relevant with the JGSE’ scope.

1.2 A paper should contain sufficient detail, such as the research work and the experimental method, data must be guaranteed to be true. If any reference and open literature resources are quoted in the paper, they should be listed in detail for peer evaluation.

1.3 It should be avoided to split one research result into fragmented papers to submit.

1.4 Contention issue and the words in the paper should be clear and concise. Photographs and graphs in the paper should be of high quality. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that has to be appropriately cited or quoted.

1.5 Please give clear indication of research funding sources in the paper, if the research work is supported by the funds.

1.6 All papers submitted to JGSE will be screened for plagiarism by Crosscheck software iThenticate and AMLC (CNKI) . 

2. Duties of authors

2.1 Authors should cherish the opportunity of publication on JGSE and maintain the reputation of JGSE.

2.2 Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and it is unacceptable. When submitting the manuscript, all authors should certify the manuscript is the original one and hasn’t published on or submitted to other journals.

2.3 Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, execution, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article, and contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content. The others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors and the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.

2.4 Please indicate no more than two author as the corresponding author in the case of articles with multiple authors. The corresponding author has responsibility for communication with the editorial office, overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document.

2.5 Once the list and order of authors has been established, it should not be altered without permission of all living authors of that article. Due to a result of special circumstances, if it is necessary to change, the corresponding author should put forward a written application including the consent of all authors before the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) makes final decision for the paper. It can be modified after EIC approval.

2.6 It is the author's obligation to correct the errors in the article no matter the error is found by author or reviewers.

2.7 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. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

3. Duties of editors

3.1 For JGSE, the EIC is ultimately accountable for acceptance or rejection of an article.

3.2 Articles should be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers in the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. Articles submitted by the EIC or any other member of the editorial board shall be handled and reviewed by others.

3.3 Editors should treat all manuscripts fairly, unbiased, and timely. An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regarding to Ethnic, religion, nationality, gender, age, or affiliation of the authors. However, the editor may consider the relevance of the manuscript by the authors in its early or to other manuscripts contemporaneous period. The editor can directly reject the manuscript if it is not accord with the requirement of JGSE in the theme, breadth, depth, and English expression.

3.4 Editors should respect the independence of the author's ideas. For unpublished manuscripts, editors may not use their content without the consent of the author. The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript to anyone other than the reviewers, potential reviewers, EIC, and the publisher, as appropriate.

3.5 Editors should exercise their responsibilities based on the EIC or other editorial board member's suggestion that whether the paper needs to be modified or it can be published. No matter what the outcome of the review is, reviewers’ comments and marked articles are normally returned to the author in any case.

3.6 It is essential that the editor assures that the anonymity of the reviewers is protected during the review process. Editors shall not disclose the contents of manuscripts under review. Everything within this review process must be done openly, but the reviewer anonymity policy can protect the review results from the interference of authors.

3.7 Editors should respect the opinions of EIC and other editorial board members. The editor must not arbitrarily refuse the reviewers’ comments, unless the editor deems them clearly to be irrelevant, incorrect, or otherwise inappropriate. In particular, editors should not arbitrarily ignore reviewers’ suggestions for modifications of the article without sufficient technical cause to do so.

3.8 If an article is returned for revision, it is important to make clear to the corresponding author whether on the one hand the article will be accepted if the indicated changes are made or, on the other hand, the article will be resubmitted to the reviewers for further review.

3.9 Once the EIC confirms that the manuscript can be published, the editor should prepare for publication as soon as possible.

3.10 The submitted manuscript written by editor him/herself should be handled by other editors or editorial board member who has no conflict of interest.

3.11 If there is sufficient evidence to show that the published paper has mistake(s), Editors should take corrective action whenever possible and the corrected text can be provided by the mistake finder or the author of the manuscript.

3.12 A Copyright Transfer Agreement should be signed by both the authors and the journal, in order to protect their rights and ensure that all legal information and copyright regulations are addressed.

4. Duties of reviewers

4.1 Manuscript review is an essential step in the process of publishing and peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication. So, JGSE shares the view of many people that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

4.2 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 and return the manuscript to the editor immediately. Or they should remind the editor of the possibility of delaying the review and give a possible return time.

4.3 Based on the standards of maintaining a high level of scientific and textual expression, referees should be objectively evaluated the quality of the manuscript, the level of the experiments and the theory, the rationality of the interpretation and inference. Referees should respect the independence of the author's thought.

4.4 Selected referee shall not have a personal or business relationship with the authors or partner of the paper affecting the evaluation impartial.

4.5 Information contained in an article under review is confidential and shall not be shared with others, nor shall reviewers use non-public information contained in an article to advance their own research or financial interests.

4.6 Referee comments should be explained sufficiently with the basis of his (her) judgment in order to be understood by the editor and the author. The facts or opinions in the evaluation comments shall be attached to related literature to avoid lacking basis assertions.

4.7 Referees should identify whether the important relevant published work has been cited or not by the authors. It is absolutely forbidden guiding the author to cite the reviewer's own paper. The authors should be reminded of the substantive similarities between the author's manuscript content and published papers or manuscripts submitted to other journals

4.8 Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

5. Punitive measure

5.1 Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. And that is highly likely to have serious moral and legal consequences.

5.2 After screened, if the paper is found there are more than 25% similar to the previous published journal article, the paper will be regarded as plagiarism and will be rejected.

5.3 In case an author has submitted the paper under consideration to another journal, the paper will be rejected. JGSE will inform the institute of the author and other journals within the field, and will reject to publish all the papers submitted by this author forever.

6. Post-publication

Authors will have chance to double check symbols, formulas, and figure legends before final publication, for these may accidentally have been changed during typesetting. After final publication, substantial changes in content such as new results and corrected values are not allowed without the approval of the Editor-in-Chief. Erratum might be needed for further corrections.

JGSE would deal with papers concerning complaints, appeals and misconduct according to the guidelines of COPE, and make a retraction statement if that is possible in an obvious place.

The paper published in JGSE should not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

7. Archive

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of the published content in JGSE and Sciopen.

8. Open access, article licensing, copyright, and charge

8.1 This is an open access journal: all articles published are immediately freely and permanently available to read, download and share.

8.2 The Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY-NC-ND) shall apply to all articles published in JGSE.

8.3 Materials published in print or online are copyrighted by Editorial office of Journal of Groundwater Science and Engineering.

8.4 JGSE is a subsidized open access journal where IHEG pays for the publishing costs incurred by the journal. Authors do not have to pay any fee for publication.

9. Advertising policy

All advertisements are subject to approval of the Publisher, Editors, or publishing partners of JGSE which reserves the right to reject or cancel any advertisement at any time. 

Statements in advertisements should carry no direct or implied disparagement of another product. There should be no statements that are misleading, exaggerated, or contrary to proven facts. Advertisements may not be indecent, obscene, or defamatory.

The principle of maintaining editorial independence from commercial influence underlies decision-making. Editorial decisions are not influenced by advertising.

Advertisements must be clearly identifiable as advertisements and clearly distinguishable from editorial content. JGSE will not publish advertisements in the form of editorial content.