Plagiarism Policy

The Organizing Committee of the UKMC International Conference 2024 is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity. Plagiarism, which is defined as "the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work," is considered unacceptable. The following policy has been established to address and manage plagiarism in conference submissions.

Policy:

1. Originality Requirement:

   • All submitted abstracts and papers must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Any material copied verbatim from other sources must be clearly indicated through (1) indentation, (2) quotation marks, and (3) proper citation of the source.

2. Fair Use and Permissions:

   • Text that exceeds the fair use standard (more than two or three sentences or their equivalent) or graphic material reproduced from another source must be accompanied by appropriate permissions from the copyright holder and must be properly cited.

3. Detection and Threshold:

   • The conference will use plagiarism detection tools to check for text similarities. A maximum similarity index of 20% is permitted. Submissions exceeding this threshold will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

Levels of Plagiarism and Actions:

• Minor: Minor sections are plagiarized without significant data or ideas taken from other works.

  • Action: A warning will be issued, requesting the author to revise the text and provide proper citations.

• Intermediate: Significant portions are plagiarized without appropriate citations.

  • Action: The submission will be rejected, and the author may be prohibited from submitting further works for one year.

• Severe: A substantial portion is plagiarized, involving original results or ideas from other publications.

  • Action: The submission will be rejected, and the author may be banned from future submissions for five years.

If an author is found to have committed plagiarism twice, the decision regarding further actions will be made by the Organizing Committee. The author may face a permanent ban from future submissions.

Authors must properly identify sources of previously published material and obtain necessary permissions. Submissions that are substantially similar to those submitted to other conferences or journals will be treated as severe plagiarism.

Retraction and Correction Policy

The conference organizers will consider retraction of a presentation or paper if:

• There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable due to misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation).
• Findings have been published elsewhere without appropriate cross-referencing, permission, or justification.
• The presentation constitutes plagiarism.
• The research reported is unethical.

Statement of Concern:

A statement of concern will be issued if:

• There is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct.
• Evidence shows unreliability of findings, but the authors' institution has not conducted an investigation.
• The investigation into misconduct was not fair, impartial, or conclusive.
• An investigation is ongoing, but a final judgment is not imminent.

Correction:

A correction will be issued if:

• A minor part of an otherwise reliable presentation is misleading due to honest error.
• The author/contributor list is incorrect (e.g., omission of a deserving author or inclusion of someone not meeting authorship criteria).

This policy aligns with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), accessible at COPE Retraction Guidelines.