Anti-Plagiarism Policy

AUCPS Anti-Plagiarism Policy

Introduction

The Accord University Cross Disciplinary and Pure Sciences (AUCPS) Journal is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity and originality in research publications. This Anti-Plagiarism Policy outlines the principles, detection mechanisms, and consequences related to plagiarism, ensuring compliance with international research publishing standards such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), and IEEE Publishing Ethics.

Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unethical practice of using another person’s work, ideas, or intellectual property without proper attribution. It includes, but is not limited to:

  • Direct Plagiarism: Copying text, data, images, or ideas from another source without citation.
  • Self-Plagiarism: Reusing substantial portions of one’s own previously published work without proper citation or justification.
  • Mosaic Plagiarism: Paraphrasing content from multiple sources without proper acknowledgment.
  • Fabrication & Falsification: Manipulating research data, references, or findings dishonestly.
  • Unauthorized Authorship: Listing an individual as an author who did not contribute to the research or omitting rightful contributors.

Policy Guidelines

Only similarity reports produced internally with Turnitin software are accepted by AUCPS. AUCPS permits a maximum similarity index of 15% across all sources. Additionally, if the piece is submitted as a thesis, it should be taken out of the institutional repository prior to submission and should not contain more than 4% of identical text from a single source.

Furthermore, whether it comes from an author's published or unpublished thesis or any other type of work submitted by the author or another institution in the Turnitin repository or any other repository or database, AUCPS does not accept self-plagiarism (articles, manuscripts, or theses submitted in repository typically in Turnitin by author or author's institution). Before submitting to a journal, the author must take it out of the repository.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors submitting to AUCPS must:

  • Ensure their work is original and properly cited.
  • Use quotation marks and citations when referring to others' work.
  • Disclose any previously published material and avoid self-plagiarism.
  • Obtain permissions for copyrighted content (figures, tables, datasets).

 Consequences of Plagiarism

If plagiarism is detected, AUCPS will take the following actions:

Plagiarism (Above 15% but less than or equal to 20%):

Authors are notified to revise and properly cite sources in case of plagiarism is above 15% but less than or equals to 20%.

Plagiarism (Above 20%):

  • Immediate rejection of the manuscript.
  • Authors can resubmit after revising the manuscript.