Guidelines Regarding Plagiarism, AI Detection, and Duplicate Submissions
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Health, Environment and Computation (IJHEC) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity and publication ethics. To ensure originality and uphold trust in scholarly communication, IJHEC enforces strict policies on plagiarism, the use of AI-generated content, and duplicate submissions, in full alignment with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism is the unethical use of another’s intellectual property—whether ideas, text, data, figures, tables, or other creative content—without appropriate acknowledgment. This includes:
- Verbatim copying of content without citation
- Inadequate paraphrasing of source material
- Self-plagiarism (reusing one’s own published work without disclosure)
- Improper reuse of figures or data without permission from copyright holders
All manuscripts submitted to IJHEC undergo preliminary screening using advanced plagiarism detection software (DOCOLOC) to identify unoriginal content. Manuscripts found to contain plagiarized material will be rejected outright or returned to authors for correction, depending on the severity.
Authors are required to clearly cite all reused material, including their own prior work, and must indicate the extent to which a manuscript is based on previously published content. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permissions for the use of any copyrighted material.
AI-Generated Content Policy
IJHEC upholds the principle that all submitted work must reflect genuine human intellectual effort. As such:
The use of AI-generated content (including AI-assisted writing tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, or others) is strictly prohibited for all parts of the manuscript—including abstracts, literature reviews, results, discussions, and conclusions.
Authors must not use AI tools to draft, rewrite, or translate substantive sections of their manuscripts. Detected use of AI-generated text may lead to desk rejection or retraction if identified post-publication.
Authors may, however, use AI tools for language enhancement or grammar checking (e.g., Grammarly), provided that the scientific content remains entirely original and human-authored.
Duplicate Submission Policy
Manuscripts submitted to IJHEC must be exclusively submitted to this journal and must not be under review elsewhere. Duplicate or simultaneous submissions to multiple journals are strictly prohibited.
Authors must withdraw their manuscript from IJHEC before submitting it to another journal. Violations of this policy—including cases of dual submission or duplicate publication—will result in:
- Immediate rejection of the manuscript
- A one-year submission ban for all authors involved
- Notification to the authors' institutions, if necessary
IJHEC follows COPE’s Guidelines on Redundant and Duplicate Publication and takes all violations seriously to maintain the credibility of the scholarly record.
At IJHEC, we believe that ethical publishing is a shared responsibility among authors, editors, reviewers, and institutions. By submitting a manuscript to IJHEC, authors acknowledge their understanding and acceptance of these policies.