Editor Guidelines

Editors are responsible for safeguarding the quality, integrity, and credibility of the journal. They play a vital role in ensuring that manuscripts are evaluated through a fair, transparent, and rigorous editorial process. Editors are expected to uphold the highest standards of publication ethics and maintain independence, confidentiality, and impartiality throughout all editorial activities.

Editorial Responsibility and Independence

Editors must:
Evaluate manuscripts based solely on their scientific quality, originality, significance, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s aims and scope.
Ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by authors’ nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, ethnicity, religion, political views, or other personal characteristics.
Maintain complete editorial independence and make decisions free from pressure or influence by the publisher, sponsors, authors, or external parties.
Ensure that all published content meets the journal’s ethical and academic standards.

Confidentiality

Editors must maintain strict confidentiality regarding submitted manuscripts.
Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents.
Information about submitted manuscripts must only be shared with the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial board members, and publisher representatives when necessary for the editorial process.
Editors must not use unpublished information, data, or ideas from submitted manuscripts for personal research or professional advantage without explicit written permission from the authors.

Peer Review Management

Editors are responsible for ensuring an effective and unbiased peer-review process.
Editors must select qualified reviewers with appropriate expertise and ensure that reviewers are free from conflicts of interest.
The journal follows a single-blind peer-review process, in which reviewers remain anonymous to authors.
Editors must ensure that peer reviews are conducted objectively, constructively, and within a reasonable timeframe.
Additional reviewers may be invited when necessary to obtain balanced and informed evaluations.
Editors should carefully consider reviewers’ comments while making final decisions on manuscripts.

Ethical Oversight

Editors must actively promote responsible research and publication practices.
Editors should:
Ensure that studies involving human participants or animals include appropriate ethical approval, informed consent, and related statements where applicable.
Identify and address potential ethical concerns, including plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, unethical research practices, and inappropriate image manipulation.
Follow appropriate procedures when allegations of research misconduct arise.
Publish corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern when required to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Conflicts of Interest

Editors must avoid situations where personal or professional interests may affect editorial decisions.
Editors must declare and manage any conflicts of interest, including financial, institutional, collaborative, or personal relationships.
Editors must not handle manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest with the authors, institutions, or research outcomes.
Such manuscripts should be assigned to another qualified editor for independent evaluation.

Transparency and Integrity

Editors should promote transparency, fairness, and accountability in the publication process.
Editorial decisions should be communicated clearly and professionally to authors.
Authors should receive constructive feedback to improve the quality of their manuscripts whenever possible.
Editors should encourage compliance with recognized reporting standards and ethical guidelines.
Any necessary corrections, retractions, or updates should be published promptly and transparently.

Timeliness and Editorial Efficiency

Editors should ensure that manuscripts are processed efficiently while maintaining rigorous academic standards.
Editors should monitor the progress of submissions and peer reviews to avoid unnecessary delays.
Decisions should be made within a reasonable timeframe based on the quality and completeness of peer-review reports.
Editors should ensure that authors, reviewers, and other stakeholders receive timely communication throughout the editorial process.

Commitment to Publication Ethics

Editors are expected to follow internationally recognized principles of publication ethics, including the guidelines and recommendations of organizations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and to work continuously towards maintaining the reliability, transparency, and trustworthiness of the journal’s published content.