International Conference on Geomechanics and Geoenvironmental Engineering (iCGMGE) maintains the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all necessary measures to avoid publication malpractices in any form. It is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) principles. Any papers submitted to the iCGMGE conference is fully reviewed before acceptance for publication.

All the papers submitted to iCGMGE conference are sent to at least two independent referees for double-blind peer review. These referees are regarded as expert in the subject matter who may be either from the conference scientific committee or outside the committee but an expert in the subject matter of the paper.

The referee reports are sent to the corresponding author to prepare a revised paper by addressing all the comments by the referees and Co-chairs of the Technical Committee.

The Co-chairs of the Technical Committee are responsible for final decision on accepting or rejecting a paper by considering reports of the reviewers and response of the authors and revised paper.

The Co-chairs and conference secretaries or their nominees are the editors of the conference proceedings. To decide whether a paper is to be accepted or rejected, the relevance, originality, clarity of the paper are considered by the Co-chairs. The Co-chairs of the Technical Committee are highly committed to maintain publication ethics.

If a paper is accepted at least one of the authors must register and present the paper orally in the conference. If a paper is not defended by presenting it in the conference, it is not included in the conference proceedings.

The iCGMGE conference does not accept plagiarism (in any form) and data fabrication or inappropriate use of humans or animals in research study. The iCGMGE conference reserves the right to use plagiarism detecting software to check the presence of plagiarism in a submitted paper. After publication of a paper in the proceedings, it will be removed from the conference proceedings if malpractice is discovered. Hence, editors, authors, reviewers and publisher are required to conform to the ethical standards.

Authors' responsibility

Authors ensure that the submitted papers are based on their own original works and these are not based on copied works of others. Authors confirm that their papers are of high scholarly standard, with appropriate references following the prescribed referencing system. Authors should keep in mind that plagiarism and research fabrication/falsification in any form is unethical publishing practice and is not accepted by the Co-chairs of the technical committee. Authors confirm that the papers which have been submitted to iCGMGE conference have not been submitted elsewhere. All the involved researchers contributed to the research must be reflected either as co-authors or with appropriate acknowledgments. Any source of funding must be stated in the acknowledgement section. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all the co-authors have approved the final version of the paper for publication in the conference proceedings. The authors must provide evidence in a timely manner if asked by the Co-chairs of the Technical Committee about data sources, proof of authorship and originality of the work. The corresponding author must sign the copyright form by fully understanding its content.

Reviewers' responsibility

A reviewer should agree to review a paper if it falls within his/her area of expertise. If a reviewer is too busy and cannot do an adequate review, he/she should not agree to review the paper. A reviewer should declare if there is any conflict of interest with the authors/works. In case of a doubt, the reviewer should communicate with the Co-chairs for clarification that could be helpful. Conflict of interests may be of personal (e.g., author is a close relative), financial, intellectual, professional, political and religious in nature.

To evaluate a paper, the reviewer should read the paper carefully with an objective view and make constructive comments in a professional manner with supporting arguments/documents without any prejudice. A reviewer should not use the data and information contained in the paper without authors' permission. If ethical misconduct is found in the paper, it should be reported to the Co-chairs of the technical committee.