1) Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
The Geological Society of Malaysia (GSM) adheres strictly to internationally accepted publication ethical standards to guarantee excellence in its scientific publications – Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia and Warta Geologi. GSM employs peer review process to validate the integrity and novelty of the research work to increases the quality of research submitted for publication. After receipt of reviewers’ comments on an article, the Editor decides as to its acceptance or amendment or rejection. If the article is positively commented by the reviewers and recommended for its acceptance by the Editor, the authors are communicated regarding the same to further complete the prescribed formalities of copyright declaration. Upon completion of all the prescribed formalities, the authors are issued final acceptance for their manuscripts and it will then be published in the upcoming journal issue.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on publication ethics is adopted by GSM to ensure the rules of good scientific is practiced. The reviewers and editors of the journal are highly expected to comply with the code of conduct for Journal Editors and Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as prescribed by COPE.

a) Duties / Responsibilities of Authors

• Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s); does not contain fabricated or falsified data or results;
• The authors submitting their manuscripts to GSM are strongly recommended to adhere to the GSM Publication Guidelines for final submission of the manuscript;
• Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted;
• Manuscript (or substantial sections from the manuscript) submitted to GSM is not already under consideration by another journal, or vice-versa;
• Any conflict of interest must be clearly stated;
• The sources of data used in the development of the manuscript is acknowledged; copying from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of the author’s own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered as plagiarism;
• All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be swiftly communicated to the Editor;
• All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results. Submitting authors should provide assurance that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. We also ask for assurance that there is no one else who fulfils the criteria that has been excluded as an author;
• Significant scientific contribution, including students, laboratory technicians as well as the reviewers, must be acknowledged.

b) Duties / Responsibilities of Editor and Editorial Board Members

• All manuscripts are evaluated in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or political values of authors;
• Information pertaining to manuscripts are kept confidential;
• Any observed conflict of interest pertaining to manuscripts must be disclosed;
• Editorial Board takes responsibility for making publication decisions for submitted manuscripts based on the reviewer’s evaluation of the manuscript, policies of the journal, editorial board and legal restrain acting against plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement;
• Editors shall conduct proper and fair investigation into ethical complaints.

c) Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers are expected to evaluate a manuscript for critical analysis, comparative analysis and most importantly for integrity and novelty of the research work.  As such, reviewers must confirm the following; that:

• All manuscripts are reviewed in fairness based on the intellectual content of the article regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of author(s);
• Any observed conflict of interest during the review process must be communicated to the Editor;
• All information pertaining to the manuscript is kept confidential;
• Any information that may be the reason for the rejection of publication of a manuscript must be communicated to the Editor.

d) Responsibility of Publisher

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editor, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work. The publisher and the Journal do not discriminate on the basis of age, religion, disability, marital status, national origin, race or gender in its publishing programs, services and activities.

2) Appeals & Complaints
GSM journals follow Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process. In cases where an author wishes to complaint or has an issue with the review process, the matter should be directly emailed to geologicalsociety@gmail.com and will be dealt with confidentially.

3) Corrections to Published Work
Authors should inform the editorial office of any errors of fact they have noticed (or have been informed of) in their article once published. Corrections are made at the Publisher’s discretion. If the article has already appeared in an issue, a correction notice will be printed in the next available print issue, while for the online version of the article, the Publisher will consider replacing this version with an updated version which corrects the error.

4) Conflict of Interests / Competing Interests
Declaration of all potential conflicts of interest is required by GSM as this is an integral aspect of a transparent record of scientific work.
If there are no competing interests in their submitted manuscripts, authors should state so explicitly: “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.” This statement should come prior to the references.
If there are possible conflicts of interest, authors must state what competing interests are relevant to the submitted work.

5) Data Sharing
Authors are encouraged to share or make available any data and materials supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper.
Please note that data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.