The Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers Malaysia (JSAEM) is committed to ensuring the highest standards of publication ethics whereas the publication malpractice is strictly prohibited by all possible measures. The JSAEM publishing ethics and malpractice guidelines are fully consistent with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines as well as the COPE Code of Conduct (https://publicationethics.org/). 

Editor Responsibilities

The editors are accountable and responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Each submission is subjected to a plagiarism checking using plagiarism detection software and the acceptance rate is <20%. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers when making this decision.

The editors should:

• Evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• Not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
• Keep the confidentiality of the privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not use the information for personal advantage.

Review Process

Each manuscript is first reviewed by the editor and, if it is judged suitable for publication in the JSAEM, it is then sent to two referees for double blind peer review. Decisions regarding the publication of a manuscript will be based on the Editorial Board's recommendations. Manuscripts submitted by members of the journal's Editorial Board are also subjected to the same review procedure.

Reviewer Responsibilities

The reviewers must:

• Notify the editor immediately of any conflicts of interest or if unable to review in a timely manner and provide the names of other potential reviewers.
• Evaluate manuscripts only for their intellectual content.
• Identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
• Maintain the confidentiality of the review process: not sharing, discussing with third parties, or disclosing information from the reviewed manuscript.
• Bring to the attention of the Editor-in-Chief any information that may be reason to reject publication of a manuscript.

Author Responsibilities

The authors should:

• Submit papers only on work that has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and that complies with all relevant legislation.
• Present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
• Adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere. If an author has used the work and/or words of others, that this original is been appropriately cited or quoted and accurately reflects individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
• Provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review if requested and be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
• Disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
• Not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
• Assign copyright to the journal publishing their study by submitting the “Transfer Agreement Form” prior to full publication.
• Promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper if the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work.

The authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.