The International Journal of Computer Engineering and Embedded Technologies maintains a strict, zero-tolerance policy toward plagiarism in any form. This policy has been established in accordance with the standards expected by international abstracting and indexing bodies, including Scopus and Web of Science, and follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for handling plagiarism and related forms of publication misconduct.
Definition of Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as the use of another person's ideas, words, data, images, or results without adequate acknowledgement or permission, and presenting them as original work. This includes, but is not limited to, direct copying of text, sentences, or passages from another source without citation and quotation marks; close paraphrasing of another's work without proper attribution; use of another author's ideas, findings, or theories without appropriate credit; reproduction of figures, tables, or data from another publication without permission and citation; and self-plagiarism, meaning the reuse of an author's own previously published text, data, or results without disclosure or proper citation.
Screening Procedure
Every manuscript submitted to the journal undergoes mandatory similarity screening using standard plagiarism-detection software prior to being sent for peer review. The similarity report is reviewed by the handling editor as part of the initial editorial screening process. Manuscripts with a high overall similarity index, or with substantial unattributed overlap concentrated in any single source, are flagged for further evaluation before the review process can proceed.
Acceptable Similarity Threshold
A manuscript is generally expected to have an overall similarity index that reflects standard academic phrasing, commonly used technical terminology, properly cited quotations, and the reference list itself, rather than substantive unattributed overlap with any single source. Editorial judgment is applied to distinguish between legitimate similarity of this kind and genuine plagiarism, since a raw percentage score alone does not determine misconduct. Manuscripts found to contain substantial unoriginal or unattributed content are returned to the authors for revision or rejected outright, depending on the severity and nature of the overlap.
Handling of Suspected Plagiarism
At the Submission Stage
If plagiarism is detected or suspected before a manuscript enters peer review, the manuscript is rejected and the corresponding author is notified, along with the specific evidence of the overlap identified.
During Peer Review
If plagiarism is identified or suspected during the review process, the review is suspended, the authors are contacted for an explanation, and the manuscript is rejected if the concern is substantiated.
After Publication
If plagiarism is discovered in an article that has already been published, the editorial board conducts a formal investigation in line with COPE guidelines. Depending on the findings, this may result in a correction, an expression of concern, or full retraction of the article. Any retraction is clearly marked as such and remains permanently linked to the original article in the journal's archive, in keeping with the permanent scholarly record expected by indexing databases.
Self-Plagiarism and Redundant Publication
Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript, or a manuscript with substantial overlapping content, to more than one journal simultaneously, and must not republish their own previously published work as new material without full disclosure and appropriate citation of the original source. Where authors build directly on their own prior publication, this must be explicitly acknowledged, and the novel contribution of the new manuscript must be clearly distinguished from previously published material.
Author Responsibility
Authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscript represents entirely original work, and that any material drawn from other sources, whether text, data, or figures, is properly cited and, where necessary, used with the appropriate permissions. Authors are encouraged to run their own originality checks prior to submission.
Consequences of Confirmed Plagiarism
Where plagiarism is confirmed, the journal may take one or more of the following actions depending on severity: rejection of the manuscript, retraction of a published article with a formal notice, a formal notification to the author's institution, a ban on future submissions from the author to the journal, and a public correction or retraction notice published in the journal, in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines.
Commitment to Integrity
The journal regards the integrity of the scholarly record as fundamental to its mission and is committed to acting promptly, transparently, and fairly whenever plagiarism is suspected or identified, in order to protect the credibility of published research and maintain compliance with the standards required for recognition by major international indexing and abstracting services.