Policies | Research in Biotechnology and Environmental Science

Policies

Please read the following policies about Article Sharing, Article Withdrawal, Article Retraction, Article Removal, and Article Replacement.

Article sharing
When a paper is published, it will be shared on several platforms that are the most important ones and help the author get more citations, audience, visibility, and reputation, thus promoting the author in his professional career. The following ways will also help the author(s) to promote their work after publication. The author(s) may:

consider search engine optimization and keywords to help readers discover your article.
share the paper on the press and social media. A sharing option is available on every page of published articles.
share the article on a personal website or blog.
share the article on any indexing database or institutional repository.

Withdrawal, retraction, removal, or replacement of a published article
RBES understands the importance of completeness of the scholarly record for researchers and librarians and gives the highest importance to maintaining trust in the authority of its electronic archive. Occasionally, it is necessary to withdraw, retract, remove or replace a published article. Such cases are not taken very lightly. RBES follows some strict specific rules and policies mentioned below:

Article withdrawal

In the event, an author(s) requests a withdrawal at any stage of submission time, during the peer review process, and before the acceptance, and after acceptance, it will be evaluated as either a retraction or correction and processed as specified above. In case the APC is paid but the authors demand the withdrawal of articles in Press (those that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information), the manuscript may be withdrawn from our database but the publication fee will not be refunded. The withdrawal requests because of simultaneous submissions to other journals especially when the article is under a peer-review process, will not be accepted. After the peer-reviewing step, the editor processes the withdrawal after investigating the matter. In case of multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, duplication, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like that are determined to violate Rovedar publishing ethics guidelines, the article may also be withdrawn from our database. It means that the article content (HTML, XML, and PDF) is removed and replaced with a statement (the article has been withdrawn according to the Rovedar policy on Article in Press Withdrawal) with a link to the current policy document.

decisions regarding actions like retractions, corrections, or withdrawals, which are not specifically covered in the provided policy, will be made based on the COPE Retraction Guideline.

Article retraction
In case of infringements of professional, and ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, duplication, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like that are determined to violate RBES publishing ethics guidelines, a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. RBES will consider retracting a publication if:

It has clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission, or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
It constitutes plagiarism;
It reports unethical research.

The following standards for dealing with retractions are adopted based on a number of libraries and scholarly bodies and COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors:

A retraction note signed by both authors and Editor is published in the specific part of a subsequent issue of the Journal and listed in the contents list;
A link is made to the original published article to help the reader see both the retraction note and the article itself;
A titled “retracted” watermark on the .pdf is added on each page without any change to the original article;
The HTML, XML, and ePrint version of the document is removed.

A notice of retraction will be posted on the journal page link to the manuscript and on the manuscript itself.

Article removal (because of legal limitations)
In a limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database so that the “Title and Authors” will be retained, and only the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk.

Article replacement
In case, where an article might pose a serious health risk, the author(s) can replace the article(s) with a correct version. In this case, we will post a notice with a link to the corrected re-published article (plus a history of the document if necessary).

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Editorial Board

The Editorial Board consists of a group of experts within the journal's field. Members of the Editorial Board have various responsibilities, including reviewing submitted manuscripts, offering guidance on journal policies and scope, proposing topics for special issues that they might also guest edit, attracting new authors, and promoting the journal to their peers. They also assist editors in decision-making processes, especially in cases involving plagiarism claims or disagreements among reviewers.

The selection of Editorial Board members is a careful process undertaken by the journal's editor(s) with input from the publisher. Typically, Editorial Boards are reviewed every two or three years, during which new members might be added, existing members might continue for another term, or some members might step down. Changes can also happen in between these periods, for instance, if a member resigns.

The Editorial Board significantly influences a journal's quality. Editors should consider several factors, including the geographical representation of Board members to reflect the journal's reach, ensuring that members' expertise aligns with the journal's scope, appointing representatives from prominent research institutes, considering individuals who have served as guest editors for special issues, authored key reviews, or excelled as top reviewers. Existing Board members can also provide valuable recommendations for potential new members.

Editors affiliated with RBES journal who are also serving on the editorial boards of other journals sharing similar goals and scope are expected to adhere to RBES' policies while they are involved in editorial responsibilities at RBES journals. For such editors, it is important to declare any potential conflict of interest transparently. If at any stage of the journal’s peer review process, it becomes apparent that a submitted article is under consideration in a journal where our editor also serves, the RBES journal immediately reassigns the article to another editor. Similarly, if such a situation involves the editor-in-chief, and the editor-in-chief collaborates with another journal, the responsibility for handling that article is delegated to the second editor-in-chief/associate editor-in-chief/handling editor/managing editor. In case of a conflict of interest between the editor-in-chief and any of the mentioned roles, the article will be handled by one of the editorial board members.

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Editorial Board

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Peer review policy

The practice of peer review is to ensure that only good science is published. It is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out by all reputable scientific journals. Our reviewers play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of Review Policy and all manuscripts are peer-reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Initial manuscript evaluation
The Editor first evaluates all manuscripts. Manuscripts rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the Journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are normally passed on to at least three experts for review.

Type of Peer Review
RBES employs a single-blind reviewing policy, where both the reviewer and author remain anonymous throughout the process.

Selection of the reviewer
Whenever possible, reviewers are matched to the paper according to their expertise and our database is constantly being updated.

Reviewer reports
Reviewers are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript: - Is original - Is methodologically sound - Follows appropriate ethical guidelines - Has results that are clearly presented and support the conclusions - and correctly cites previous relevant work.

Language correction
Language correction is not part of the peer-review process, but reviewers may, if so wish, suggest corrections to the manuscript.

How long does the review process take?
The time required for the review process depends on the reviewers' responses. Should the reviewers' reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. The Editor’s decision will be sent to the author with recommendations made by the reviewers, which usually include verbatim comments by the reviewers. Revised manuscripts might be returned to the initial reviewers who may request another manuscript revision.

Final report
A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the reviewers and may include verbatim comments by the reviewers.

Final decision
The recommendations are sent to the Editor(s)-in-Chief, along with a review from the assigned Editorial Board Members. The Editor(s)-in-Chief makes a decision on the manuscript, for which there are three options: accept, require revision, or reject.

The use of AI in the peer-review process

Although some journals use generative AI to identify potential peer reviewers for manuscripts, editors should be responsible for choosing reviewers and actively supervise this process. While AI can aid in suggesting reviewers and streamlining the process, entirely replacing human editorial judgment with AI is not allowed. Many editors already use software to suggest reviewers and check for conflicts of interest, but having a human editor behind decisions is valuable, providing a sense of responsibility for the journal's content.

Editors and reviewers should not exclusively rely on generative AI to review the submitted papers. If AI tools are used, transparency with authors is essential, and AI-generated content should not be the sole basis for reviewer recommendations or editorial decisions. This caution is vital to preserve the role of editors in fostering meaningful scholarly discussions. While generative AI can aid in various aspects of paper evaluation, the complete substitution of humans in the review process should not occur, as retaining human evaluation is crucial to maintaining the integrity of the review process.

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Terms of use

The articles in RBES journal are open-access. For more information about open-access policy kindly visit here.

By accessing this website, downloading, printing, or reading any article published in the Journal, you are stating that you agree to all of the following terms and conditions:

In no event shall the Journal, its publisher, editors, or anyone involved in the Journal be liable to you or any other party on any legal theory, for any special, incidental, consequential, punitive, exemplary, or any damages whatsoever arising out of or in connection with the use of any material in this web site or material published in the Journal, whether or not advised of the possibility of damage.
The content of this website and the materials published in the Journal are provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, completeness, or absence of errors.
Statements or methods presented in the articles are those of the authors and do not constitute an endorsement by the editors or the publisher. The information contained in the articles must not be used as medical or any other advice. Nothing in the Journal or on this website shall be deemed to be a recommendation of, endorsement of, or a representation as to a third party’s qualifications, services, products, offerings, or any other information or claim.
You agree to indemnify and hold the Journal and its editors, publisher, and authors harmless from any claim or demand, including legal and accounting fees, made by you or any third party due to or arising out of your use of this website, your access, reading or transmitting of the Journal articles, or your violation of these Terms of Use.
The Journal reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change the terms and conditions of this agreement at any time without notice and your access to this website will be deemed to be your acceptance of and agreement to any changed terms and conditions.

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Privacy policy

Privacy is an important concern for users of RBES. Browsing and viewing articles on our publisher, eprint, and journal website does not require any personal information to be submitted from users. Nor do these functions require the user’s browser to be set to accept cookies. Some other aspects of our services published on our website may require the use of cookies, and the supply of information such as name, e-mail, etc. This is necessary for security reasons and also for us to be able to assure standards of scientific integrity. Users may submit further personal information (e.g. details of research areas of interest) in order to take advantage of present and future personalization facilities on our website. Registrants may decline to provide the information requested. They should be advised, however, that RBES may be unable to deliver its services unless at least the information necessary for security and identification purposes is provided. In order to offer the best possible service to users, RBES tracks the patterns of usage of pages on the site. This enables us to identify the most popular articles and services. Where users have provided details of their research areas of interest, this information can be correlated, helping RBES to provide a useful service for scientists, offering them the most relevant information based on their areas of interest. User information will only be shared with third parties with the explicit consent of the user. Publishing a scientific manuscript is inherently a public (as opposed to anonymous) process. The name of all authors and e-mail addresses of corresponding authors of a manuscript will be available to users. These details are made available in this way purely to facilitate scientific communication. Collecting these e-mail addresses for commercial use is not allowed, nor will RBES itself send an unsolicited e-mail to authors unless it directly concerns the paper they have published in the Journal. RBES reserves the right to disclose members’ personal information if required to do so by law, or in good faith and belief that such action is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process, respond to claims, or protect the rights, property, or safety of RBES, employees, or members.

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Article processing charges

RBES operations (15%), publication costs (10%), communication (7%), IT & innovation (12%), growth (16%), general & administration expenditure (5%), discounts and waivers (23%), differential article type pricing structure (5%), and general costs, such as membership in international publishing organizations and tax (7%) are all financially supported by APC received from the authors. RBES business model does not influence editorial decision-making.

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Advertising

Based on the decision of the scientific committee of the journal, no commercial advertising will be accepted in RBES.

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Whistle-blowing policy

RBES has a policy to allow anonymous reporting of any concerns about financial impropriety, corruption, or other severe organizational problems. If you have such a concern, please report it at contact@rovedar.com