Privacy Statement

a. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Functional Food Science (FFS) considers publication ethics to be of the utmost importance. In order to uphold the scientific integrity of our journal, we are committed to maintaining high standards of honesty and accuracy in each and every one of our publications. Unethical practices such as plagiarism and falsification of data are not tolerated.

We have outlined below the duties and responsibilities of each major party in the publication process including: editors, authors, and reviewers. This statement was based on the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

"Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement." AACE. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 2013. Web. 27 May 2015. 

b. Editors’ Responsibilities

  1. Publication Decisions: After reading comments by the editorial review board, the editor may accept, reject, or suggest changes to the manuscript.
  2. Review of Manuscripts: He/she must perform an initial review of the manuscript in order to check for originality. Then, the editor should send the manuscript in blind peer review form to reviewers, who at this point, may accept, reject, or suggest changes to the manuscript.
  3. Unbiased Review: The editor must review manuscripts based solely on intellectual and scientific content, and not be swayed by authors
  4. Confidentiality: Prior to publication, manuscripts and related information must be kept confidential.
  5. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: FFS editors may not publish and/or submit manuscript material as his or her own work without the author(s)’ written consent.

c. Author’s Responsibilities

  1. Reporting Standards: Author’s manuscripts should be an accurate account of their research methods, results, followed by an objective empirical discussion. Manuscripts should follow the guidelines dictated on the FFS website: http://www.ffhdj.com/
  2. Originality: Authors must take care to describe only their original work in their manuscripts.
  3. Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publications: Authors should not submit identical manuscripts or descriptions of the same research to more than one journal simultaneously.
  4. Acknowledgment of Sources: Authors should acknowledge and/or cite all sources that contributed to the manuscript, influenced its research, or helped with its completion.
  5. Authorship: Individuals should be named authors only if they made significant contributions to manuscript conception, design, completion, or analysis. Other significant contributors must be named as co-authors.
  6. Data Access and Retention: Authors should provide original data to FFS as well as keep copies of this data for reference.
  7. Fundamental Errors in Published Works: If the author(s) discovers a significant error in their submitted manuscript, he/she must report the error to the FFS editor.

d. Reviewers’ Responsibilities

  1. Confidentiality: Reviewers must keep all manuscript information confidential prior to publication.
  2. Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should ensure that authors acknowledge all relevant sources used in the study. If reviewers notice suspicious similarity of information between current or prior manuscripts, it must be reported to FFS’s editor.
  3. Objectivity: Manuscript feedback should be scientifically objective, without bias, clear, and supported by arguments.
  4. Promptness: If a reviewer believes that he/she will not be able to thoroughly read a manuscript within the required time frame, he/she must reported this to the FFS editor so that the editor can find a replacement reviewer.