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Publication Ethics and Code of Conduct

The DFI Journal is committed to the highest and honest publication standards and follows a strict code of conduct for its publications and the handling of its publications. This includes expectations and responsibilities of the author as well as commitment and integrity of the editorial staff. The DFI Journal standing membership with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is currently in the certification process and requires its authors, reviewers, and editors to be familiar with a proper, ethical code of conduct when interacting with the Journal. Various aspects of the Journal’s code of ethical conduct are outlined hereafter: 

General Publication Ethics

Plagiarism is the copying or use of other authors’ work without proper acknowledgement or attribution. It is unethical and unacceptable in the context of scientific publication, infringes authors’ moral rights and may also be illegal where copyright is infringed. 

The DFI Journal’s standing membership with COPE is currently in the certification process. The DFI Journal follows the guidelines recommended by COPE outlined at publicationethics.org. 

DFI is an active subscriber to Similarity Check to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism by providing immediate feedback regarding a manuscript’s similarity to other published academic and general web content (see https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/). Every manuscript submitted to DFI will be subject to a plagiarism check. 
It is the responsibility of all authors and the institutions in which they work to ensure that articles appearing under their names conform to these guidelines. It is a condition of submission to the journal that all authors of any article found, following due process, to breach good practice accept responsibility for this breach, which will be subject to sanction at the Publisher’s and Editors’ absolute discretion. These sanctions may include, inter alia, the retraction of a published article; publication of a note of correction or apology; banning of future submissions by any author for a specified period; and/or notification of the Head of the authors’ department or organization. 

Authors must ensure that all prior work on which they draw is explicitly acknowledged and that the sources are included in the list of references. This requirement relates to the methods, results, and conclusions on which the present work is built, and to the text of the articles in which it has been presented. If passages of text are copied word for word, the source must be given, and the text must be placed within quotation marks. If the original text is paraphrased or reproduced with minor alterations, this must be made clear, and the source given. It is unacceptable to reproduce extensive passages of text without permission from the author(s) and the copyright holder. A related unacceptable practice is ‘redundant-publication’, the multiple publication or submission by an author of the same research or the reuse of substantial portions of articles without acknowledgement of prior publication. This includes publication of an article in different languages, or at different venues (e.g., conference/journal/magazine). 
Redundant publication of the same material and plagiarism of others’ work without acknowledgement are serious ethical offences that may leave the author open to sanction.  

Permissions

Authors who wish to reproduce sections of text, data, or figures from previously published sources or where copyright is owned by a third party must obtain written permission from the copyright holder and any other interested party and credit the source(s) in the article. 

Note that many publishers now deal with copyright permissions requests online via Rightslink (a permissions link is usually provided from the abstract page of the article in question). If an author seeks to re-use content published elsewhere for re-publication in the DFI Journal, the author can also use the Permission Request form, and submit this form to the respective publisher holding the copyright on the desired graphics. The completed form should then be sent to the DFI Journal’s email address. 

Using Images and Other Content from the Internet

Copyright laws apply to the internet sometimes more rigorously than for other mediums. Authors must check the terms and conditions of the website and/or the copyright disclaimer; if these items are not visible, please do not assume that re-using content is acceptable.

Using Images from Google

Authors may use Google Map/Google Earth images in articles (where necessary) subject to the guidelines published by Google on its website (http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html). Full acknowledgement must be given in the caption credit.

Copyright

All submissions must be original work of the authors. If the current paper is an expansion of an ongoing publication series, or if the journal article is an extension of a conference paper, we expect all authors to cite the original publication and ensure that the content presented in the Journal exceeds the content presented in the conference paper (or any other previous or concurrent publication) by at least 50%. To reiterate, at least 50% of all figures must be different, and in addition at least 50% of all text, findings and results must be new and unpublished. Please refrain from copy-pasting original content from other manuscripts into your current submission. All previously published content is copyright protected with the respective previous publisher. Similarly, once published in the DFI Journal, the copyright of the submitted material is transferred to DFI. All authors must sign the copyright agreement form through the Editorial Manager or click here to download the Copyright Transfer Agreement.  Email signed Copyright Agreement Form to: journal@dfi.org. Authors are also required to disclose whether the manuscript submitted to the DFI Journal has been concurrently submitted elsewhere.

Misconduct

All manuscripts submitted to the DFI are treated confidential and will not be shared with any individual or publisher. DFI accepts new and unpublished content according to its copyright and ethics guidelines, and does not allow dual submission (i.e., a paper is submitted to two different journals at the same time and undergoes concurrent review processes). Similarly, dual publication (same content) is prohibited as outlined above. The DFI Journal’s standing membership with COPE is currently in the certification process and the DFI Journal follows the guidelines set forth by COPE regarding issues of scientific misconduct. Fabricating or falsifying data is a major violation of proper scientific conduct. Authors identified of violating the general rules set forth by COPE will be asked to supply all supporting data and results for evaluation. If the DFI Journal or COPE staff find cause for further investigation, the issue may be referred to the author(s)’ institution and/or funding agency for investigation. 

Commercialism

The DFI Journal does not permit the publication of manuscripts with commercial intents. While the Journal is supported by underwriters related to the deep foundation industry to maintain an inexpensive production and publication process for our readership, all authors are prohibited to advertise, promote, or feature any commercial and industrial products, tools, or methodologies in any form or manner. Journal underwriters are not allowed to support the Journal issue in which they desire to publish in and are not allowed so serve as reviewers for any submissions with potential conflict of interest.

Authorship

The DFI Journal expects its authors to acknowledge contributions through authorship and acknowledgements when individuals have made substantial contributions to the manuscript to be published; and demands the exclusion of authors that have limited or no involvement in the development, writing, revising, or editing of the submission. DFI encourages the use of the CRediT taxonomy, which defines roles and contributions of research outputs. These guidelines can be reviewed at: https://credit.niso.org/

AI Tools: Authorship and Disclosure

With the increased use and capabilities of online Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms, the journal adheres to the principles outlined by COPE, and prohibits online tools (such as ChatGPT) from being listed as authors. Authorship is defined by an individual who can take responsibility for their contribution to the submitted work; explain, discuss and interpreted their text, data and analyses.

Authors who use online based AI tools are fully responsible for their output and are expected to fully disclose parts and sections produced by an AI tool. A nondisclosure of the use of AI tools is considered a breach of publications ethics.

Please refer to the COPE position as adhered by the DFI Journal: https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

Conflict of Interest Policy

All manuscripts submitted to the DFI Journal must be accompanied by a Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure Statement, which is required when you initially submit to the DFI Journal.  

This disclosure statement must include all financial and non-financial interests and relationships, direct employment with a private sector entity (whether full- or part-time), and service on private sector and non-profit boards and advisory panels, whether paid or unpaid and any other relationships that are or may constitute potential or actual conflicts of interest or that may be perceived as a conflict of interest by others in relation to the subject research. 

Authors should also disclose any conflict of interest that may have influenced either the conduct or the presentation of the research to the editors, including, but not limited to, relationships of any type, financial, professional, family, that may compromise the integrity of the research with those who might be helped or hurt by the publication, academic interests, rivalries, and any personal, political convictions relevant to the topic at hand.  

Reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest to the Editor-in-Chief and, if serious, abstain from reviewing. If there is any uncertainty over the need to recuse oneself from editing, the reviewer shall seek the advice of the Editor-in-Chief. See more information on the reviewer conflict of interest in the Journal’s Reviewer Guidelines. 

Complaints Process

Should an author, reviewer or editor feel unfairly treated during any step of the journal’s submission, review or decision process, a formal complaint may be submitted to the Journal. The DFI Journal has established a complaints policy to provide detailed information with regards to the process, assessment, handling, and investigation of complaints pertaining to any matter involving the DFI Journal. 

The DFI Journal is committed to ensure that all complaints are handled in a consistent and regulated manner, and that further complaint incidents are mitigated and where possible, prevented. When a person has cause to complain, the complaints handling procedure will be followed in every instance and include creating a record with the complaint nature and details, to help improve DFI’s services and reduce the occurrence of similar complaints.