Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement 

IJEDS is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and integrity. All parties involved in the publication process—authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers—are expected to adhere to ethical guidelines to ensure transparency, accountability, and scholarly rigor.

Authors’ Responsibilities

  • Ensure originality of submitted work and properly cite sources
  • Avoid plagiarism, data fabrication, and redundant publication
  • Disclose any conflicts of interest
  • Participate in the peer review process and respond to editorial feedback

Editors’ Responsibilities

  • Make fair and unbiased decisions based on scholarly merit
  • Maintain confidentiality of submissions
  • Address ethical concerns and suspected misconduct promptly
  • Avoid conflicts of interest in editorial decisions

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

  • Provide objective, constructive, and timely feedback
  • Maintain confidentiality of reviewed manuscripts
  • Report any ethical concerns or suspected misconduct
  • Avoid reviewing submissions where conflicts of interest exist

 

Editorial Policies

A. Authorship 

Authorship Criteria

To qualify for authorship, in accordance with the ICMJE, each individual must meet all of the following criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
  2. Drafting the work or critically revising it for important intellectual content.
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.
  4. Accountability for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.

          Individuals who do not fulfill all four criteria should not be credited as authors but may be acknowledged            for their contributions.

CRediT Contributor Roles

 

To promote transparency, CLSU IJEDS requires authors to clearly specify each contributor’s role using the CRediT taxonomy, which includes, but is not limited to, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, and Writing – review and editing.

Each published article will include an Author Contributions Statement that reflects these designated roles.

Authorship Changes

Any request to add, remove, or change the order of authors after manuscript submission must be justified in writing, signed by all authors, and approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that all eligible co-authors are correctly listed in the submission system at the time of submission. Requests to modify the authorship list will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and only when they fully comply with the journal’s authorship policy. Such requests must be submitted to the editorial office using the official authorship change request form. Requests for authorship changes made after acceptance will generally be denied, except in rare and exceptional cases. All authorship disputes will be handled in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In cases of suspected authorship manipulation, the journal reserves the right to contact the authors’ affiliated institution(s) for further investigation and/or to reject the requested changes.

Acknowledgment

Contributors who meet fewer than all four of the above authorship criteria should not be listed as authors but should instead be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. Activities that alone (without additional qualifying contributions) do not warrant authorship include the acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or provision of administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, or proofreading.

B. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted Tools

Starting 2025, the journal adopted the AI policy of Elsevier. 

For Authors

Generative AI and AI-assisted Tools/Technologies should only be used to improve the readability and language of the submitted, not for writing the whole content of the manuscript or creating/modifying figures or images. The use of AI must involve human oversight, as AI cannot be listed as authors and only authors are fully responsible for the content.

Authors must disclose the use of these technologies in a separate statement in their manuscript before references. If AI has not been used, the authors must also explicitly state this. See more.

For Reviewers

When a researcher is invited to review another researcher’s paper, the manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Reviewers should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights. See more.

For Editors

A submitted manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Editors should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights. 

This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript including any notification or decision letters as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, editors should not upload their letters into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability. See more.

C. Conflict of Interest

The CLSU IJEDS requires all authors to disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the objectivity or integrity of their work. Conflicts of interest may be financial (e.g., funding, stock or patent ownership, paid employment, consultancy, honoraria) or non-financial (e.g., personal relationships, academic competition, or membership in advisory boards, committees, or organizations relevant to the study).

Authors must provide a clear statement of all potential conflicts of interest at the time of submission in the designated section in their manuscript. If no conflicts exist, authors must also explicitly declare this.

D. Funding

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the research, including grants, institutional support, and project funding. The name of the funding agency and the specific grant number (where applicable) should be provided. Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of this information.  Authors must disclose this in the designated section of their manuscript. If the research did not receive any specific funding, authors must also explicitly declare this.

E. Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves the use of another author’s language, ideas, data, or results without proper attribution. To uphold academic integrity, all submissions to the IJEDS are screened for plagiarism using Turnitin software before peer review. Only manuscripts with a similarity score of 20% or less will proceed to peer review. Submissions exceeding this threshold will be returned to authors for revision or may be rejected outright at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Other types of plagiarism that are also considered unethical publishing practices includes :

  • Self-plagiarism - the reuse of substantial portions of one’s previously published work without appropriate citation; and
  • Duplicate or concurrent submissions - same or substantially similar manuscripts are submitted to more than one journal

All potential plagiarism conflicts will be resolved in accordance with COPE.

F. Post-publication Update Policy

The CLSU-IJEDS is committed to upholding the accuracy, transparency, and integrity of the scholarly record. When concerns or issues are identified after publication, the journal will implement appropriate updates in accordance with recognized international standards, including the COPE Guidelines on Retractions, Corrections, and Editorial Expressions of Concern.

The CLSU-IJEDS implements the Crossmark button in the HTML and online PDF versions of all articles. Crossmark is an industry-standard tool that enables readers to verify that they are accessing the most current version of an article. By clicking the Crossmark button, readers can access the article’s Crossmark record, which provides details of all formal updates, corrections, and amendments.

The following are categories of corrections and post-publication updates to all published scholarly content of CLSU-IJEDS. All categories below are bi-directionally linked to the original article and indexed.

Author Correction: An Author Correction may be published to address significant errors made by the author(s) that impact the scientific integrity of the published article, the accuracy of the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Publisher Correction: A Publisher Correction may be published to correct significant errors introduced by the journal that affect the scientific integrity of the published article, the accuracy of the publication record, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Addendum: An addendum is generally published when significant additional information crucial to the reader’s understanding of the article has come to light following publication of the article. Addendum is peer-reviewed at editor’s discretion.

Editorial Expression of Concern: An Editorial Expression of Concern (EEoCs) is a statement from the editors alerting readers to serious concerns affecting the integrity of the published paper. EEoCs are published online and are bidirectionally linked to the published paper.

Publishing an EEoC is recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as a means of keeping readers updated while a potentially lengthy research integrity investigation is underway. EEoCs is typically replaced by publishing another amendment, such as a correction or retraction, once the investigation is complete.

Retraction: An article may be retracted when the integrity of the published work is substantially compromised due to errors in the conduct, analysis, or reporting of the study. Retraction may also result from violations of publication or research ethics. The original article will be clearly marked as retracted, while a PDF version–also labeled as retracted–remains accessible to readers. The retraction statement is bi-directionally linked to the original article and will typically indicate whether the authors assent to or dissent from the retraction.

Version of Record

The published article constitutes the Version of Record and is considered final. Any amendments after publication are made solely through the issuance of formal notices, including Corrections, Addenda, Expressions of Concern, or Retractions. The original article text will not be altered post-publication, except for minor editorial adjustments (e.g., metadata, formatting, or typographical corrections) that do not affect the scholarly content or its integrity.

Addressing post-publication issues

CLSU-IJEDS is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record and thoroughly investigates any concerns raised directly by authors or readers. Authors are always given the opportunity to respond to such concerns. During the course of an investigation, we may request original, unprocessed data and consult with independent experts as needed.

Depending on the nature and severity of the issues identified, the following outcomes may occur:

  • Manuscripts under review: The manuscript may be rejected and returned to the author.

  • Published articles: Depending on the issue, one or more of the following actions may be taken:
    • A Correction or Addendum may be issued.
    • An Editorial Expression of Concern may be published, typically followed by a subsequent notice once the investigation concludes.
    • The article may be retracted.

  • Author’s institution notification: In cases involving potentially serious issues, the author’s affiliated institution may be informed.

G. Publication Malpractice Handling

In cases of suspected ethical violations—such as plagiarism, data manipulation, or authorship disputes—the editorial board will initiate an investigation following COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines. Proven misconduct may result in manuscript rejection, retraction of published articles, and notification to relevant institutions.

This statement is publicly available on our website to ensure transparency and accountability in all aspects of scholarly publishing.

H. Licensing

CLSU IJEDS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

The publisher allows authors to copy and distribute the article in any medium or format in unadapted form for noncommercial purposes, and as long as the appropriate attribution and credit are given for the published work.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

I. Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

J. Copyright Statement

Publishing to this journal, the author/s agrees to subject the published articles to the Creative Commons (CC) license. CLSU IJEDS starts to publish using the CC-licensed research in Volume 2. The CC license is an open-access publication, promoting access and re-use of scientific and academic research.