Plagiarism & Publication Misconduct
Founding-stage policy
CIJ treats plagiarism — presenting another person's words, ideas, data or images as your own without proper attribution — as a serious breach of publication ethics. This includes verbatim copying, close paraphrasing without citation, data fabrication or falsification, duplicate submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal, and text recycling without disclosure.
Originality is an explicit review criterion: human reviewers assess every submission for citation integrity and originality, supported by AI-assisted screening under a human Academic Editor's oversight. CIJ does not yet operate commercial similarity-screening software (the iThenticate/Turnitin class of tool); that is planned for the launch phase alongside Crossref membership and DOIs, and this page will be updated when it is in place.
An AI system can never be listed as an author of a CIJ publication. Authors must disclose any AI assistance in research, writing or analysis at submission, and remain fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the work.
CIJ applies a proportionate response: a published correction where the error is minor and honest; retraction with a public explanation for plagiarised, fabricated or otherwise unreliable work; and notification of the author's institution for serious or repeated misconduct. Corrections and retractions are handled under the Corrections & Retractions policy; disputes under Complaints & Appeals.
CIJ follows the standard structure of publication-ethics practice, but does not currently claim membership of COPE or any other external ethics body.
CIJ does not currently claim membership of, or endorsement by, any external body.