The journal follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers. (https://publicationethics.org/membership/code-of-conduct)

Duties of the Editor

Fair and Unbiased Decisions

Editors evaluate manuscripts based solely on their intellectual content, originality, scientific quality, and relevance to the journal’s scope, without discrimination based on gender, nationality, institutional affiliation, or personal beliefs.

Management of Peer Review

Editors are responsible for organizing a fair, confidential, and unbiased peer review process by selecting qualified reviewers and ensuring timely and constructive evaluations.

Confidentiality

Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not disclose any information about a manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and publisher as appropriate.

Ethical Vigilance

Editors must take reasonable steps to identify and prevent publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, falsification, and unethical experimentation.

Conflict of Interest

Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest and assign the manuscript to another qualified editor.

Post-Publication Responsibility

Editors should take appropriate action when ethical concerns are raised about published articles, including issuing corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern when necessary.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer reviewers assist editors in making informed decisions by providing critical, constructive, and objective evaluations of manuscripts.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents and must not be shared or discussed with others without authorization from the editor.

Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively, with clear arguments supporting the reviewer’s recommendations. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

Identification of Ethical Issues

Reviewers should alert the editor if they identify plagiarism, duplicate publication, data inconsistencies, or other ethical concerns.

Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must decline the review if they have conflicts of interest related to the manuscript’s authors, institutions, or subject matter.

Timeliness

Reviewers should complete their reviews within the agreed timeframe and promptly notify the editor if they are unable to do so.

Duties of Authors

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that their work is entirely original and that appropriate citations are provided for all sources used.

Accurate Reporting of Research

Authors should present accurate and honest descriptions of their research methods, data, and findings. Fabrication, falsification, or selective reporting of data is unacceptable.

Data Availability

Authors should retain research data and provide access to it if required for editorial review or verification.

Multiple or Redundant Publication

Authors should not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal or publish the same research in multiple journals without proper disclosure.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made significant contributions to the research. All co-authors must approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, or personal relationships that could influence the interpretation of their research.

Ethical Approval

Research involving human participants, animals, or sensitive data must have appropriate ethical approval and comply with relevant ethical standards.

Corrections and Retractions

If authors discover significant errors in their published work, they must promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate in correcting or retracting the article.

Duties of Publishers

Editorial Independence

The publisher ensures that editorial decisions are made independently by the editorial team based solely on academic merit, without interference from commercial or institutional interests.

Ethical Oversight

The publisher supports the implementation of strong publication ethics policies and works with editors to address issues such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, and ethical misconduct.

Integrity of the Scholarly Record

The publisher ensures that necessary corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern are published when errors or ethical issues are identified.

Infrastructure and Accessibility

The publisher provides the technical infrastructure necessary for manuscript submission, peer review, publication, and digital archiving to ensure long-term accessibility of published content.

Transparency

The publisher ensures that journal policies—including author guidelines, publication fees (if any), peer review procedures, and ethical policies—are clearly communicated to authors and readers.