Editorial Policies

1. Editorial Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief and Handling Editors are committed to ensuring a fair, objective, and confidential peer-review process. Their responsibilities include:

  • Acknowledging receipt of new submissions promptly.

  • Maintaining confidentiality of all manuscript details, limiting access to the corresponding author, assigned reviewers, and necessary editorial staff.

  • Declaring and recusing themselves from handling manuscripts where any conflict of interest exists.

  • Protecting the anonymity of reviewers.

  • Making final decisions based solely on the manuscript's academic merit, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope.

  • Prohibiting any practice that pressures authors to cite the journal to influence editorial decisions.

  • Refraining from using unpublished data or ideas from submitted manuscripts for personal research.

  • Addressing ethical complaints concerning submitted or published work promptly and thoroughly in accordance with COPE guidelines, which may include issuing corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions.

2. Corrections Policy

The journal is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly record. While published articles are considered final, the following actions may be taken when warranted:

  • Correction (Erratum): Published for minor errors that do not affect the conclusions or scientific integrity (e.g., typographical errors, incorrect author affiliation). The original article is permanently linked to the correction notice.

  • Retraction: Published when the core findings are deemed unreliable due to major error (e.g., miscalculation) or misconduct (e.g., data fabrication, plagiarism, unethical research). The editorial office will act promptly once a decision is made. The retracted article remains online with a clear “RETRACTED” watermark and is linked to a notice detailing the reasons.

3. Article Withdrawal

  • Pre-publication Withdrawal 
    Authors may request to withdraw their manuscript within 3 days of initial submission without any penalty.
    After this period, or once the peer-review process has commenced, the journal still accepts withdrawal requests free of charge. However, authors are strongly encouraged to consider the editorial and reviewer resources already invested.

  • Post-publication Retraction 
    Retraction is a serious action taken only to correct the scholarly record in cases of major error or misconduct (as detailed in the Retraction section above).  No fee is ever charged to authors for a retraction.