Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

1. Editorial Commitment

WUST-affiliated publications are committed to an accurate, fair, and durable scholarly record. Editorial decisions must be based on the quality, originality, relevance, methodological soundness, and ethical acceptability of the work, without discrimination based on an author's identity, institutional status, nationality, beliefs, or professional relationships.

This statement applies to editors, editorial-board members, reviewers, authors, staff, and any person involved in manuscript evaluation or publication. Each journal may adopt additional discipline-specific requirements, but no local procedure may reduce the protections described here.

2. Responsibilities of Editors

• Assess submissions consistently and select qualified, independent reviewers.
• Protect manuscript and reviewer confidentiality before publication, subject to lawful or ethics-related disclosure.
• Disclose and manage personal, financial, academic, supervisory, or institutional conflicts of interest.
• Recuse themselves when impartial handling is not reasonably possible and document the reassignment.
• Give authors a reasonable opportunity to respond to significant concerns and reviewer comments.
• Investigate credible concerns before and after publication, preserving records and seeking institutional input when appropriate.
• Issue corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other notices when needed to protect the scholarly record.

Editors must not use unpublished ideas, data, images, code, or other material for personal advantage. Editorial decisions and significant ethics actions should be documented and retained according to the publication's records schedule.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should accept an assignment only when they have suitable expertise, can meet the requested timeline, and can provide an impartial review. They must:

• Treat the manuscript, review invitation, and related correspondence as confidential.
• Provide specific, respectful, evidence-based comments directed at the work rather than the authors.
• Identify relevant uncited work and alert the editor to suspected duplication, plagiarism, fabrication, manipulation, or ethical concerns.
• Declare conflicts promptly and decline or seek guidance when independence may be affected.
• Not contact authors directly, delegate the review, upload the manuscript to an external service, or involve another person without editorial permission.
• Not use unpublished content, data, methods, or ideas for research, teaching, competition, or personal benefit.

4. Responsibilities of Authors

Originality and accurate reporting

Authors must submit work that honestly represents the research performed. Data must not be fabricated, falsified, selectively altered, or presented in a way that materially misleads. Methods and limitations should be described sufficiently for informed evaluation, and source material must be cited accurately.

Exclusive and transparent submission

A manuscript must not be under consideration by more than one journal at the same time unless all editors have expressly agreed. Prior publication, preprints, conference versions, related manuscripts, translations, and substantial reuse must be disclosed at submission. Fragmenting one study into misleadingly incomplete publications is unacceptable.

Authorship and acknowledgments

All listed authors must have made a meaningful scholarly contribution, approved the submitted version, and agreed to be accountable for their contribution and the integrity of the work. Gift, guest, honorary, coercive, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be acknowledged with their permission.

Ethics, consent, and data

Authors must identify required ethics approval or exemption, provide approval details when requested, protect participant identity, and obtain consent for identifiable publication where applicable. They should retain underlying records and make data, code, and materials available when ethically, legally, and contractually possible.

Funding and conflicts

All funding sources, sponsor roles, relevant affiliations, and financial or nonfinancial conflicts must be disclosed. Authors must promptly notify the editor of a material error discovered before or after publication and cooperate with corrective action.

5. Peer-Review Process

Each journal must state its review model and apply it consistently. Initial screening may assess scope, completeness, originality, ethics documentation, and basic quality. Manuscripts that proceed should normally be evaluated by reviewers with relevant expertise who are independent of the authors and the work.

Editors may request revision, additional analysis, underlying records, ethics documentation, or reporting checklists. Acceptance is not guaranteed by revision. Editorial staff should communicate decisions clearly, avoid unnecessary delay, and provide a record of the principal reasons for rejection or required changes.

Editors and board members submitting to their own journal must not participate in selection of reviewers or the decision. The journal should identify an independent editor and disclose the handling arrangement in the published article when appropriate.

6. Suspected Misconduct and Unethical Practice

Concerns may include plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, citation manipulation, undeclared conflicts, authorship abuse, peer-review manipulation, unethical research, breach of confidentiality, or failure to obtain required approval.

1. The editor conducts a confidential preliminary assessment and preserves the relevant record.
2. The person raising the concern may be asked for specific evidence; anonymous concerns are considered based on credibility and available facts.
3. Authors or reviewers are given an opportunity to respond when doing so will not compromise evidence or safety.
4. The journal may pause review or publication and consult the publisher, Research Center, ethics body, sponsor, or author's institution.
5. The outcome is based on available evidence and may include no action, education, rejection, correction, retraction, notification, or another proportionate response.

A journal generally determines the reliability and status of the publication record; institutions determine whether research misconduct occurred under their policies. These processes may proceed separately while sharing necessary information responsibly.

7. Corrections, Retractions, and the Published Record

• Correction: Used when an error affects part of an otherwise reliable article or its metadata.
• Retraction: Used when findings are unreliable, the work is redundant without proper disclosure, the publication is unethical, or serious misconduct undermines the article.
• Expression of concern: Used when credible serious concerns remain unresolved and readers should be alerted while an investigation continues.
• Removal: Reserved for exceptional legal, privacy, security, or immediate-harm circumstances. A notice should remain whenever possible.

Notices should be linked to the article, freely accessible, promptly published, and clear about what changed and why. Retraction is intended to correct the literature, not to punish authors. The original record should remain identifiable unless removal is essential.

8. Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools

AI systems and automated tools cannot be authors because they cannot accept responsibility, approve publication, disclose conflicts, or respond to questions about integrity. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, permissions, and confidentiality of all submitted material.

Material use of generative AI in drafting, translation, coding, analysis, image creation, or data processing must be disclosed in the manner required by the journal. Routine spelling or grammar assistance need not be disclosed unless the journal says otherwise. Fabricated citations, undisclosed synthetic data, deceptive image alteration, and entry of confidential or participant information into unapproved tools are prohibited.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts to generative-AI or external analysis services without explicit authorization and suitable privacy and security safeguards.

9. Complaints, Appeals, and Confidentiality

An author may appeal an editorial decision by identifying a specific factual or procedural error. Disagreement with reviewer judgment alone is not sufficient. Appeals should be handled by an editor who was not the sole decision-maker when feasible, and the appeal outcome is final unless new evidence becomes available.

Complaints about process, conduct, discrimination, confidentiality, or conflicts should be sent to the journal's editorial contact or to [email protected]. Information will be shared only as needed to review the matter, protect participants and the record, provide fair process, or meet legal and institutional obligations. Retaliation for a good-faith concern is prohibited.