ICERT Press

Scope: This master policy serves as the binding foundational governance structure and ethical framework for all publishing components under ICERT Press, including peer-reviewed academic journals (Shodh Sari, Edumania), community periodicals (Eduphoria), and book publishing imprints (ICERT Pitara).

1. Editorial Governance & Institutional Autonomy

ICERT Press operates under the institutional aegis of the International Council for Education, Research and Training (ICERT), a US 501(c)(3) status nonprofit global academic & research council. The division maintains a strict separation between its organizational administration and its editorial functions to guarantee intellectual freedom and absolute scientific objectivity.

Core Principles of Governance:

• Editorial Independence: Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Boards hold final, absolute authority over the acceptance, revision, or rejection of all submitted manuscripts. Decisions are based entirely on academic merit, scientific validity, methodological rigor, and relevance to the scope.
• Board Composition & Appointments: Board structures are diverse, cross-border, and composed of qualified scholars with verified track records. In alignment with standard institutional press practices for learned societies, appointment to the Editorial Boards is granted exclusively to registered members of the International Council for Education, Research and Training (ICERT). Board seats are reviewed biennially by the ICERT Core Committee based on academic standing and reviewer excellence.
• Conflicts of Interest (Editorial): Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves from processing any manuscript where a personal, institutional, or financial conflict of interest exists.

2. Authorship Criteria & Integrity Framework

ICERT Press follows rigorous international academic standards to define authorship and ensure transparent accountability for published research.

Core Authorship Criteria (CRediT Taxonomy):

To guard against “ghost,” “guest,” or “gift” authorship, ICERT Press encourages the use of the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). Every listed author must meet all four of the following conditions:

• Substantial contributions to the conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation of the work.
• Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
• Final approval of the version to be published.
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria (such as individuals who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or general department financial backing) must not be listed as authors. Instead, they should be acknowledged cleanly in an Acknowledgements section at the end of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest (COI) Statement:

All authors are legally required to declare any financial, personal, or institutional relationships that could inappropriately influence or bias their research findings. Examples include research grants, employment ties, consultancies, or stock ownership. If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state: “The authors declare no competing interests regarding the publication of this manuscript.”

Funding Disclosure:

Authors must clearly name all sources of financial support for their research project. Submissions must include the full name of the funding agency, grant numbers, and a brief description of the funder’s role in the study design, data collection, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

3. Generative AI & Artificial Intelligence Policy

In accordance with updated global indexing guidelines, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in manuscript creation must remain completely transparent.

Author Restrictions & Accountability:

• Authorship Status: Generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) cannot be listed as authors or co-authors on any paper, chapter, or report published by ICERT Press. AI tools cannot take legal responsibility for the integrity, copyright clearance, or validity of the research framework.
• Mandatory Disclosure: If authors use Generative AI or AI-assisted software during text drafting, data analytics, visualization, or structural translation, they are legally obligated to include a transparent disclosure within the manuscript’s Methodology or Acknowledgments section. This disclosure must declare the name of the tool, its version, and the exact scope of its application.
• Accountability: The human authors remain fully accountable for any inaccurate, biased, or plagiarized material introduced by AI tools within their published work.

Reviewer Restrictions:

Reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading submitted manuscripts, abstracts, or figures into generative AI platforms. Doing so constitutes a critical breach of reviewer confidentiality and violates the intellectual property rights of the authors.

4. Research Integrity & Approvals

All ICERT Press entities strictly align their operational workflows with the international guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and leading global indexing networks.

Research Approvals & Institutional Review Boards (IRB):

For all studies involving human participants, medical data, human tissue, or animal subjects, authors must obtain formal ethical clearance from an official Institutional Review Board (IRB) or independent ethics committee before commencing the research. The name of the authorizing committee and the specific ethical approval reference number must be explicitly detailed in the manuscript’s methodology section.

Handling Allegations of Misconduct:

In cases of alleged data fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, or unethical human/animal research practices, the editorial boards will execute investigations following standard COPE flowcharts. Authors are given a formal opportunity to respond. If misconduct is verified, ICERT Press reserves and gives the right to editors to issue public expressions of concern, execute formal retractions, or notify the authors’ home institutions.

5. Comprehensive Anti-Plagiarism & Text Recycling Policy

ICERT Press maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward intellectual property theft, uncredited paraphrasing, and text recycling (self-plagiarism).

• Mandatory Pre-Screening: Every manuscript submitted to an ICERT publication or book series undergoes automated ingestion and screening via industry-standard plagiarism detection software (e.g., Turnitin / iThenticate) prior to assignment for peer review.
• Acceptance Thresholds: A maximum overall similarity index of 10% to 15% is generally acceptable, provided individual source matches do not exceed 1% to 2% and are restricted to standard methodological definitions. Any manuscript displaying an unrefined similarity index exceeding 20% is subject to immediate desk rejection without editorial appeal.
• Text Recycling: Verbatim duplication of an author’s own previously published data, text, or figures without explicit attribution and justification is treated as text recycling and will flag the paper for revision or rejection.

6. Open Access, Creative Commons Licensing, and Rights Distribution

To promote global knowledge equity, ICERT Press champions open research models that maximize public benefit and streamline metadata crawling by international indexing networks.

• Open Access Paradigm: All ICERT journals operate under an immediate Open Access framework. Articles are universally accessible via the internet immediately upon publication without subscription firewalls.
• Creative Commons License: Works are issued under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license or the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, depending on the specific publication’s charter. This enables public distribution, translation, and reuse, provided original creators receive proper citation.
• Copyright & Rights Retention: Authors publishing under the master framework retain full copyright over their text, allowing them unrestricted rights to reuse, republish, or expand their findings into subsequent books or materials.

7. Digital Preservation, Archiving, and Repository Policies

To assure funders, libraries, and international registries that published knowledge remains permanently accessible despite institutional or digital disruptions, ICERT Press deploys redundant preservation frameworks.

• Long-Term Digital Preservation: ICERT Press commits to archiving all journal volumes and monographs within globally recognized digital preservation networks (e.g., Internet Archive or others) as well as national statutory repositories.
• Self-Archiving / Repository Policy: Authors are fully permitted and actively encouraged to self-archive all versions of their work (Preprint, Accepted Manuscript, and the finalized Publisher’s Version) in institutional repositories, funder databases, and personal academic websites (e.g., ResearchGate, Academia.edu) immediately upon publication, provided a link to the official Publisher Object Identifier (DOI) is visible.

8. Financial Transparency & Business Ethics

ICERT Press operates strictly under non-profit publishing standards, prioritizing scholastic integrity over financial gain.

• Transparency of Fees: All publication-related expenses, Article Processing Charges (APCs), or book production fees must be stated with total transparency on the submission portals. If a publication operates a diamond or platinum model (charging zero fees), this must be stated explicitly. No hidden fees or retroactive charges will ever be levied.
• Waiver Policies: For any publication requiring fees, ICERT Press maintains a robust, non-discriminatory waiver framework providing partial or full exemptions for researchers, early-career scholars, and postgraduate students originating from low-income economies or facing documented institutional financial hardship.
• Commercial/Sponsorship Independence: Revenue generated from corporate sponsorships, professional development registrations, or institutional donations exercises zero influence over editorial evaluations or peer-review decisions. Advertising that interferes with editorial objectivity is structurally forbidden across all ICERT Platforms.

9. Journal-Specific Editorial Policies & Guidelines

• While this Master Framework establishes the overarching legal and ethical protocols governing all publishing units under the Research, Innovation & Publications Division (ICERT-Sapientia), individual titles maintain localized mandates tailored to their precise scientific scope.
• Authors are required to review the specific scopes, targeted abstracting/indexing requirements, issue frequencies, and manuscript template criteria unique to their chosen publication channel prior to submission.
• For individual journal policies, localized submission tracks, and specific aims, please visit the dedicated portals via the main navigation menu.