Plagiarism Policy

The TIERS Information Technology Journal Editorial Board recognizes that plagiarism is strictly unacceptable. We have established the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) upon the identification of plagiarism or similarities in articles submitted for publication.

Similarity Check: The journal uses Turnitin's originality checking software to detect similarities in text for both submitted manuscripts and final versions ready for publication. A maximum of 20% similarity is allowed for submitted papers. If the similarity index exceeds 20%, the article will be returned to the author for correction and re-submission.

Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

Originality & Fair Use Policy

Papers must be original, unpublished, and not pending publication elsewhere. Any material taken verbatim from another source needs to be clearly identified as different from the present original text by:

Indentation
Use of quotation marks
Clear identification of the source

Any text exceeding fair use standards (defined as more than two or three sentences or the equivalent thereof) or any graphic material reproduced from another source requires permission from the copyright holder and, if feasible, the original author(s), along with proper source identification.

Levels of Plagiarism & Penalties

When plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief responsible for reviewing the paper will agree on measures according to the extent of plagiarism detected, based on the following guidelines:

Minor Plagiarism
A small sentence or short paragraph of another manuscript is plagiarized without any significant data or ideas taken from other papers or publications.
Penalty: A warning is given to the authors along with a request to change the manuscript and properly cite the original sources.
Intermediate Plagiarism
Significant data, a paragraph, or a sentence of an article is plagiarized without proper citation to the original source.
Penalty: The submitted article is automatically rejected.
Severe Plagiarism
A large portion of an article is plagiarized, involving many aspects such as reproducing original results (data, formulation, equation, law, statement, etc.), ideas, and methods presented in other publications.
Penalty: The paper is automatically rejected.