Retraction Policy/ withdrawal policy
Policy Overview
Our journal operates a retraction policy to address various scenarios that may necessitate the withdrawal or correction of published articles. All publications are executed without any fees or charges.
Editors of the journal do not have the authority to unilaterally decide which articles to be published. Their decisions are guided by the policies of the editorial board and legal considerations, including defamation, copyright, double publishing, and plagiarism. Published articles remain unchanged whenever possible, but there are exceptional circumstances where they may need to be withdrawn or deleted.
Retractions can be initiated by editors, authors, or institutions and may require apologies for errors or gratitude to those who identified them. Retracted articles must be clearly marked as such and their data and conclusions should not be used in future research.
Article withdrawal may occur due to errors in the initial version, accidental duplicate submissions, or ethical breaches like plagiarism. Authors may withdraw their articles upon realizing ethical infringements, accompanied by a withdrawal statement addressed to the editorial board.
Article retraction happens upon the breaches of scientific ethical codes or errors in submission or publication. This can be initiated by authors or editors under the advice of the editorial board. Retractions can take various forms, including preface screens, watermarked PDFs, or removal of the HTML version.
In rare cases, articles may need to be removed due to legal reasons such as defamation or infringement of legal rights. In such instances, metadata will be retained but the text will be replaced with a notice indicating the article's removal.
Authors may replace flawed articles with corrected versions if they pose serious risks. The retraction process is followed, with the retraction notice including a link to the corrected article and its history.
Authors who detect errors in their published work
Once the authors detect an error in their published work, they contact the journal immediately using the information provided on the journal's homepage.
Generally, the duty is on the corresponding author to notify the journal of the erroneous information. The suggested adjustment and any supporting data or material will be reviewed by the journal editor or a designated representative (such as another editorial team member with the necessary subject matter knowledge). The suggested correction would be sent for additional peer review. The journal editor will choose the most proper method to correct the article. They would also consult with the editorial board of the publication before releasing the final decision.
Article Correction
A Corrigendum will be published where it is required to correct an error or omission, but the integrity and conclusions of the article are not compromised by the error.
The authors are to compose the Corrigendum. Publishing requires the consent of all authors. The corrected article will provide a link to the Corrigendum.
Occasionally, a mistake that occurred during the publication of an article may need to be fixed by the Publisher. If this is the case, the error will be fixed by an erratum published in the journal. The corrected article will provide a link to the erratum.
Article Withdrawal
Articles-in-Press, which are drafts of acceptable articles that haven't been released in their final form, have the option to be withdrawn before they're published. Articles-in-Press may be withdrawn where:
• It is discovered that they are flawed.
• They are found to be an inadvertent copy of an already-published article.
• The editor believes they may have violated the JMTR's publication policies, e.g., multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data.
• These are draft versions of articles that were released because of mistakes made during editing or production.
• It is discovered that they are flawed.
• They are found to be an inadvertent copy of an already-published article.
• The editor believes they may have violated the JMTR's publication policies, e.g., multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data.
• These are draft versions of articles that were released because of mistakes made during editing or production.
When an article-in-press is withdrawn, the PDF and HTML content of the article will be deleted.
Article Retraction
It has long been an occasional occurrence in the academic world for an article to be retracted by its authors or the journal editor on the advice of other scholars. Articles may be retracted for correction of errors that materially affect the conclusions presented in an article when the editors deem the corrections to be too extensive to publish, or for violations of JMTR's publication policies, such as multiple submissions, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent data use, or similar offences. Editors of journals or their chosen representative(s) will decide about retracting an article where:
• They have convincing proof that the results are faulty, either due to significant errors (such as experimental or mathematical errors) or to data fabrication or falsification (such as picture manipulation).
• It is considered plagiarism.
• The results had already been published elsewhere, and the authors neglected to provide due credit to earlier publications, disclose relevant information to the editor, get permission to reprint, or offer a rationale (i.e. redundant publishing).
• It includes information or data that authors were not permitted to publish.
• Either copyright has been violated, or there is a major legal problem (libel, privacy breach, etc.).
• It exposes unethical research and/or violates publication ethics guidelines of JMTR concerning the use of animals or human subjects in research.
• There is proof that the editorial process has been systematically manipulated or that peer review has been corrupted.
• There is proof that authorship is being sold.
• Evidence of citation manipulation has been found.
• The editor believes that the failure of the author(s) to disclose a significant competing interest (a conflict of interest) would have substantially influenced how editors and/or peer reviewers interpreted the work or recommended changes.
• The editor no longer has faith in the article's legitimacy or integrity since there is proof of any other violation of the journal's publication standards.
• They have convincing proof that the results are faulty, either due to significant errors (such as experimental or mathematical errors) or to data fabrication or falsification (such as picture manipulation).
• It is considered plagiarism.
• The results had already been published elsewhere, and the authors neglected to provide due credit to earlier publications, disclose relevant information to the editor, get permission to reprint, or offer a rationale (i.e. redundant publishing).
• It includes information or data that authors were not permitted to publish.
• Either copyright has been violated, or there is a major legal problem (libel, privacy breach, etc.).
• It exposes unethical research and/or violates publication ethics guidelines of JMTR concerning the use of animals or human subjects in research.
• There is proof that the editorial process has been systematically manipulated or that peer review has been corrupted.
• There is proof that authorship is being sold.
• Evidence of citation manipulation has been found.
• The editor believes that the failure of the author(s) to disclose a significant competing interest (a conflict of interest) would have substantially influenced how editors and/or peer reviewers interpreted the work or recommended changes.
• The editor no longer has faith in the article's legitimacy or integrity since there is proof of any other violation of the journal's publication standards.
Many scientific and library organizations have created standards for withdrawing papers, and JMTR follows the following best practice:
• A retraction notice is published in a later edition of the journal, paginated, noted in the table of contents, and signed by the editor and, if applicable, the authors under the title "Retraction: [article title]".
• The retraction notice and the original article are linked in the electronic edition.
• The retraction message appears on a screen before the online article. The link leads to this screen, from which the reader may access the article itself.
• The original article is kept unaltered save exept for a watermark on the.pdf file that says "retracted" on every page.
• The article's HTML version is deleted.
• A retraction notice is published in a later edition of the journal, paginated, noted in the table of contents, and signed by the editor and, if applicable, the authors under the title "Retraction: [article title]".
• The retraction notice and the original article are linked in the electronic edition.
• The retraction message appears on a screen before the online article. The link leads to this screen, from which the reader may access the article itself.
• The original article is kept unaltered save exept for a watermark on the.pdf file that says "retracted" on every page.
• The article's HTML version is deleted.
Article Removal: Legal Limitations
Very rarely, it could be necessary to remove an article from the journal's online archive after it was published. The academic record is a permanent and, to the greatest extent feasible, unmodified record of the transactions of scholarship. Accordingly, removal of an article is rarely seen and will only take place under the following circumstances:
• Retraction is insufficient redress for this slanderous or legally infringing article. The article is the subject of a court order, or JMTR has good grounds to believe it will be.
• Retraction is insufficient redress for this slanderous or legally infringing article. The article is the subject of a court order, or JMTR has good grounds to believe it will be.
• If followed, the article might provide a significant risk to one's health.
In such instances, the article's content will be replaced by a screen noting that it has been deleted for legal reasons, but the metadata (Title and Authors) will remain intact.
Article Replacement
When an article has the potential to seriously harm someone's health if followed, the authors may decide to withdraw the original and publish an updated version. The retraction processes will be followed in these cases, with the exception that a link to the updated, republished article and a document history will be provided in the database retraction notice.
Official Archives
The University of Kelaniya's Faculty of Graduate Studies, home of JMTR's official archives, will save all article versions—including those that have been retracted or otherwise removed.
