Plagiarism Policy

Policy on Plagiarism

Africa Digital Governance and Law Review (ADGLR) has a very strict policy regarding plagiarism and all other types of academic and research misconducts. All the manuscripts submitted for publication in the Journal must be original pieces of work, written by the author submitting the manuscript.

Authors are expected to ensure proper acknowledgment and citation of all those words, ideas, data, arguments, research findings, technological materials, intellectual inputs, etc., that have been gathered from external sources. Plagiarism includes presenting words, ideas, data, arguments, research findings, etc., belonging to another person as one's own without proper acknowledgment.

Plagiarism Screening

All articles submitted to the Africa Digital Governance and Law Review will undergo plagiarism screening using recognised plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin prior to the start of peer review and where necessary prior to publication. This screening process aims to assist the Journal in detecting any instances of plagiarism; however, this process is not a substitute for the academic assessment of editors and reviewers. Any detected cases of similarity will be assessed on the basis of the nature, extent, and location of the material.

Acceptable Similarity Threshold

The Journal applies the following general similarity guidelines:

  1. A manuscript with overall similarity index less than 20% is eligible for editorial evaluation, given that no single source contributes more than 3% of similarity index without proper citation and acknowledgement.
  2. Manuscripts with similarity index in the range of 25% to 40% can be asked from the author(s) for re-evaluation for proper citations.
  3. Manuscripts with similarity index greater than 45%, or papers with any form of copying, unattributed copying, and/or paraphrasing, can be outright rejected.

However, these cut-off percentages only act as a guideline, and not as an automatic judgment of plagiarism. A paper with lower similarity index can also be judged as plagiarized, depending upon the nature of material used in the paper.

Serious Forms of Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

The following are considered serious ethical violations:

  1. Copying words, ideas, arguments, data, or other material directly without proper citation;
  2. Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism, including compilation of material from several different sources without proper citation;
  3. Unacknowledged translation plagiarism, which involves the translation of someone else's work, then presenting that work as one's own original scholarship;
  4. Data plagiarism, including using another scholar's data, datasets, electronic records, and other research materials without proper permission and citation;
  5. Self-plagiarism and duplicate publications, including using an author's own previously published work without proper citation;
  6. Citation manipulation or using citations incorrectly to mislead readers regarding the source, significance, and importance of scholarly work;
  7. Fabricated citations, which include using false or unverifiable citations, including AI generated fabricated references;
  8. The artificial intelligence-generated scholarly content being presented as original scholarly work without proper citation or contrary to the requirement of the journal; and
  9. Reproducing or passing off as one's own work any software, digital content, dataset, code or technological material without authorization.

In case of discovery of plagiarism and/or other kinds of academic dishonesty after the publication, the journal may publish the correction, expression of concern, retraction, withdrawal, or removal notices, depending upon the severity of the misconduct.