Sciedu Press is committed to the integrity, reliability and transparency of the scholarly record. This statement applies to all Sciedu Press journals and to all authors, editors, editorial-board members, guest editors, reviewers, staff and other participants in publication. It applies to regular articles, special issues, supplements, invited content and post-publication notices.

The statement is guided by the COPE Core Practices, the COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, current DOAJ guidance, Scopus publication-ethics guidance and the Web of Science journal evaluation criteria. Journal-specific instructions and discipline-specific standards also apply. Reference to these standards does not imply certification or endorsement by any organization.

1. Editorial independence and accountability

• Fair decisions. Decisions are based on scholarly merit, originality, validity, ethical compliance, relevance and clarity. They must not be influenced by nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, political belief, institutional affiliation or other irrelevant characteristics.
• Commercial independence. Article processing charges, advertising, sponsorship, reprints and other revenue must not influence peer review or editorial decisions. Ability to pay is never a condition of acceptance.
• Editorial authority. The publisher protects editors from commercial, political, institutional and personal interference and supports timely, evidence-based corrections to the record.
• Recusal. Editors, reviewers and staff must disclose relevant conflicts. A conflicted person must recuse themselves, and an independent editor must handle the manuscript.
• Transparency. The publisher and journals maintain accurate public information about governance, peer review, access, copyright, licences, fees, waivers, preservation and contact details.

2. Peer review
All scholarly articles undergo the journal's publicly stated quality-control process before publication.

• Independent review. Research articles are reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. In arts and humanities fields where editorial review is the accepted model, review is conducted by at least two independent editors and the process is clearly described.
• Human decision. The Editor-in-Chief or a delegated academic editor makes the final decision. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and are not converted mechanically into a decision.
• Confidentiality. Submissions, reviews, editorial correspondence and reviewer identities are confidential within the journal's stated review model. Unpublished information must not be used for personal, academic or commercial advantage.
• Internal submissions. Articles by editors, board members, reviewers, staff or close collaborators receive independent handling. Research papers with an editor, board member or reviewer as an author must not exceed 25% in either of the two latest issues, or in the latest calendar year for continuous publication.

3. Responsibilities of editors and reviewers
Editors

• select qualified, independent reviewers and seek methodological or statistical expertise when needed;
• protect confidentiality, manage conflicts and document decisions;
• be alert to plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, image or data manipulation, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, paper-mill activity, peer-review manipulation and citation manipulation;
• avoid coercive citations and require only citations that are academically relevant; and
• respond to credible concerns before and after publication and correct the record when necessary.

Reviewers

• accept assignments only when they have appropriate expertise, adequate time and no conflict that could impair impartiality;
• provide timely, specific, constructive and evidence-based comments without personal criticism, discriminatory language or unsupported allegations;
• not share a manuscript, contact the authors or delegate a review without the editor's prior approval; and
• report suspected ethical or integrity problems privately to the editor and recommend citations only when genuinely relevant.

4. Responsibilities of authors

• Accuracy. Authors must present an accurate and complete account of the work, report limitations, avoid selective or misleading reporting and notify the journal promptly of material errors.
• Originality. Submitted work must be original, properly attributed and not under consideration elsewhere. Related manuscripts, prior publication, preprints, theses, conference versions, translations and reused material must be disclosed. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors retain the responsibility to update the preprint record with a link to the final published Version of Record (VoR), including the journal's full citation and DOI.
• Integrity. Plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, fabricated or falsified data, undisclosed text recycling, purchased authorship, paper-mill services and manipulated citations or peer review are prohibited.
• Citation practice. Citations must be accurate, relevant and sufficient to acknowledge the literature. Authors must not add irrelevant citations to influence metrics or satisfy coercive requests.
• Cooperation. Authors must retain relevant records and cooperate with reasonable editorial requests for data, code, original images, ethics approvals, consent forms or other supporting material, subject to lawful restrictions.

Authorship and contributorship
Authorship requires substantial scholarly contribution, approval of the final version and accountability for the work. All listed authors must qualify, all qualifying authors must be included, and the corresponding author must obtain the agreement of all authors before submission. Author names, affiliations and persistent identifiers must be accurate.

• Gift, guest, honorary and ghost authorship are prohibited. Non-author contributions must be acknowledged with permission; contributor roles should be described using CRediT or another appropriate taxonomy.
• Requests to add, remove or reorder authors require a reason and written agreement from all affected authors. Unresolved disputes may be referred to the authors' institutions.

Competing interests and funding

Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial interests that could reasonably be perceived to influence the work, covering a minimum period of 36 months prior to submission. Financial interests include employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, grants or expert testimony; non-financial interests include personal, professional or academic relationships and affiliations. Every article must include a competing-interests statement, including a statement of none when applicable. All funding, grant numbers, material support and the sponsor's role in the research and publication decision must be stated. Reviewers and editors must disclose relevant interests for the same 36-month period before participating and must recuse themselves when impartiality may reasonably be questioned.

5. Artificial intelligence and automated tools
These requirements apply to generative AI, large language models, AI-assisted image or media tools and other automated systems used in research, manuscript preparation, peer review or editorial work.
Authors

• No AI authorship. AI systems and automated tools cannot be authors or co-authors, and generative AI output must not be cited as a source. Human authors remain fully responsible for every part of the submission.
• Disclosure. Substantive use of generative AI beyond basic spelling, grammar, punctuation or formatting must be disclosed in a separate AI statement. The disclosure must identify the tool, provider and version where material, and explain the purpose and extent of use.
• Research use. AI used in study design, coding, data collection, analysis, interpretation or visualization must be described in the Methods section with enough detail for evaluation and, where feasible, reproducibility.
• Verification. Authors must independently verify factual claims, calculations, citations and originality; assess bias; protect privacy, confidentiality and intellectual property; and ensure that the final work reflects genuine human scholarly judgment.
• Prohibited uses. AI must not be used to fabricate or misrepresent data, evidence, citations or findings, or to create or alter primary research images. AI-generated non-data illustrations may be considered only when lawful, accurate, clearly labelled and disclosed.
• Protected material. Confidential, proprietary, identifiable or embargoed material must not be entered into an AI service unless the author is authorized to do so and the service provides appropriate privacy, security and rights protection.
• Records. Authors should retain a reasonable record of material AI use and provide it confidentially if the editor needs it to assess integrity or reproducibility.

Reviewers, editors and the publisher

• Reviewers and editors must not upload a submitted manuscript, review or confidential correspondence to a public or unauthorized AI system.
• Generative AI must not create the substantive peer-review assessment, editorial evaluation or final decision. Limited language editing may be used only when confidentiality is protected, the tool is authorized, human control is maintained and the use is disclosed when required.
• Any routine publisher or journal use of automated tools must be disclosed, appropriately tested and subject to human oversight. Similarity checks, image checks, AI detectors and reviewer suggestions are screening aids; no adverse decision will be based solely on automated output.

6. Ethical oversight of research
Human participants, privacy and vulnerable populations

• Research involving people, identifiable human material or identifiable data must have prior approval or a documented exemption from an appropriate research ethics board or equivalent body. The manuscript must name the body and provide the approval number where available.
• Freely given informed consent must be obtained when required. Separate consent to publication is required for identifiable personal information, images or case details. Data must be minimized, secured and de-identified where appropriate.
• Research involving children or other vulnerable populations must include additional safeguards, a proportionate risk-benefit assessment, legally valid consent and age- or capacity-appropriate assent where applicable. Community or substitute decision-maker authorization does not remove the duty to respect the participant's welfare and wishes.
• Clinical trials must be registered prospectively in a recognized public registry and report the registration number, protocol changes and relevant reporting guideline.

Animal and other sensitive research

• Animal research must have prior approval from an appropriate committee, comply with applicable laws and welfare standards, minimize suffering and use suitable alternatives when feasible. Approval details and the reporting guideline used must be stated.
• Research involving biosafety, dual-use risk, Indigenous or traditional knowledge, cultural heritage, protected sites or sensitive communities must have the necessary permissions and must respect applicable governance, safety, attribution and benefit-sharing requirements.

7. Data, methods, images and reproducibility

• Research must be described with enough detail to permit critical evaluation. Appropriate reporting guidelines should be followed for the study design.
• Articles should include a Data Availability Statement. Data, code, protocols and materials should be deposited in a trusted repository when ethical, legal, contractual, cultural, security and privacy conditions permit. Restrictions must be explained.
• Fabrication, falsification and deceptive omission are prohibited. Images must not be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, duplicated or introduced in a way that misrepresents the evidence. Legitimate adjustments must be applied consistently and described when relevant.
• Editors may request original data, unprocessed images, code, laboratory or field records, ethics documentation or other evidence for confidential examination. Unreasonable refusal or material discrepancies may affect the decision or trigger an integrity review.

8. Special issues and guest editors
Special issues, supplements and invited collections are subject to the same scope, peer review, ethics and quality standards as regular content. The Editor-in-Chief remains accountable for the entire journal and must oversee guest editors.

• Guest editors' identity, affiliation, expertise, responsibilities and conflicts must be verified and disclosed.
• Guest editors must not handle their own papers or papers from close collaborators. Such submissions require independent review and decision-making.
• Papers authored by guest editors must not exceed 25% of a special issue's research content. There must be no acceptance quotas, guaranteed publication or reduced ethical scrutiny.
• Sponsors may not control reviewer selection, editorial decisions, interpretation or conclusions. Sponsorship must be disclosed.

9. Allegations of misconduct
Sciedu Press journals assess credible concerns before and after publication using fair, confidential and proportionate procedures informed by current COPE guidance.

• Concerns may be raised by any person, including anonymously when they are specific and supported. The journal will make an initial assessment, preserve relevant records and normally give affected parties a reasonable opportunity to respond.
• The journal evaluates the reliability and publication status of the work. Institutions, employers, funders, ethics bodies or authorities may be asked to investigate conduct or facts beyond the journal's remit.
• Possible actions include clarification, revision, rejection, withdrawal of acceptance, new peer review, correction, expression of concern, retraction, removal from an editorial role, a defined submission restriction and notification of appropriate bodies.
• Good-faith complainants and participants must not face retaliation. Knowingly false, malicious or abusive allegations may be addressed separately.

10. Corrections, retractions and post-publication discussion
The purpose of post-publication action is to maintain an accurate scholarly record, not to punish authors. All post-publication updates are managed in accordance with current COPE guidelines and international metadata standards.

• Material but limited errors are corrected through a linked notice. An expression of concern may be issued while serious questions remain unresolved. Unreliable, unethical, plagiarized, redundantly published or manipulated work may be retracted in line with current COPE guidance.
• Notices are freely accessible, linked to the article, identify the reason and initiator, and distinguish honest error from misconduct when the evidence permits. The original record is not silently replaced. Full-text removal is exceptional and reserved for serious legal, privacy, safety or public-health risks.
• Readers may submit evidence-based comments or concerns to the journal office. The journal may invite an author response, seek additional review and publish a correction, reply, commentary or other update when it materially improves the record.

11. Complaints and appeals
Complaints about conduct, process, policy application, fees or published content, and appeals of editorial decisions, should be sent to the relevant journal office using the contact details on the journal website.

• The submission should identify the journal and manuscript or article, explain the issue, provide supporting evidence and state the requested remedy.
• Disagreement with reviewer opinion alone is not normally grounds for appeal. A material factual error, procedural irregularity, unmanaged conflict or significant overlooked scholarly issue should be identified.
• The matter will be acknowledged, documented and, where practicable, reviewed by a person not materially involved in the disputed decision. Complaints about an Editor-in-Chief are referred to the publisher or another independent person. No person may be disadvantaged for raising a good-faith concern.
• The outcome and reasons will be communicated within a reasonable period. Repetitive appeals without new material information may be closed.

12. Intellectual property, confidentiality and professional conduct

• Authors must respect copyright, database rights, licences, permissions, attribution requirements and third-party rights. Each journal states the applicable copyright holder, licence, access model and self-archiving policy. Open-access content is published under the stated open licence without contradictory reuse restrictions.
• Personal data and confidential editorial or investigation information are used only for legitimate journal purposes and handled under applicable privacy and data-protection requirements.
• All participants must act respectfully. Harassment, discrimination, bullying, threats, retaliation, abusive correspondence and personal attacks are prohibited. Scholarly disagreement must be expressed professionally and supported by evidence.

13. Implementation and updates
This statement is a publisher-wide minimum. A journal may adopt stricter discipline-specific requirements but may not reduce these protections. Sciedu Press will review this statement as law, technology and scholarly standards evolve. Questions and journal-specific concerns should be directed to the relevant journal office; publisher-level matters may be submitted through the Sciedu Press Contact Us page.