Plagiarism is the presentation of another person's words, ideas, data, results, images, or other intellectual contributions as one's own without appropriate acknowledgement or citation. Plagiarism, including the unattributed use of material from published or unpublished sources, constitutes a serious breach of publication ethics and is not acceptable in Spectrum of Operational Research (SOR).
All manuscripts submitted to SOR must represent original scholarly work and must appropriately acknowledge and cite all sources. Authors are responsible for ensuring that quotations, paraphrased material, data, figures, tables, images, and other content derived from external sources are properly attributed and, where required, used with appropriate permission.
Submitted manuscripts may be screened using iThenticate or other appropriate similarity-detection tools.
Similarity reports are used as an editorial screening tool and are not interpreted solely on the basis of an overall similarity percentage. A numerical similarity score does not, by itself, establish whether plagiarism has occurred.
Editors evaluate the nature, extent, context, distribution, and sources of textual or other identifiable overlap when determining whether plagiarism, inappropriate duplication, substantial unattributed reuse, or another form of unacceptable overlap may have occurred.
Legitimately quoted and cited material, bibliographic references, standard methodological terminology, appropriately attributed content, and overlap with legitimately disclosed earlier versions of the authors' own work may contribute to a similarity score without constituting plagiarism.
Similarity with an author's own legitimately disseminated preprint, conference paper, thesis or dissertation, repository version, or other previously disclosed version of the work does not automatically constitute plagiarism.
Authors must transparently disclose relevant prior versions and appropriately cite them where required. The Editorial Office will evaluate such overlap in context and in accordance with the journal's policies concerning originality, prior dissemination, duplicate publication, and redundant publication.
Authors are expected to avoid inappropriate reuse of substantial portions of their own previously published material without appropriate citation and disclosure. Previously published material must not be presented in a manner that misleadingly suggests that it is entirely new.
Matters concerning duplicate or redundant publication, extended conference papers, reuse of previously published material, and related publication-integrity issues are addressed in the journal's Publication Integrity policy.
Appropriate citation does not, by itself, resolve all copyright or licensing requirements. Where copyrighted material is reproduced, adapted, or otherwise reused, authors are responsible for ensuring that the intended use is permitted by the applicable license, copyright law, another relevant legal exception, or authorization from the appropriate rights holder.
Detailed requirements concerning copyright, licensing, attribution, third-party material, and permissions are provided in the journal's Copyright and Licensing policy.
Where plagiarism, substantial unattributed overlap, or another potentially serious originality concern is identified before publication, the Editorial Office may request clarification or supporting information and may take appropriate editorial action depending on the nature and seriousness of the concern.
Where the matter raises a credible allegation of research or publication misconduct, it will be assessed in accordance with the journal's Procedures for Dealing with Allegations of Unethical Behaviour .
Where plagiarism or substantial unattributed reuse is identified or credibly alleged after publication, the journal will assess the matter under its applicable publication ethics procedures.
Any formal amendment to the published scholarly record, including a correction, Expression of Concern, retraction, or other appropriate action, will be governed by the journal's Retraction and Correction Policies .
In assessing suspected plagiarism and related originality concerns, SOR will consider relevant guidance and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) .
