Publication Ethics Statement
Publication Ethics
The JSTM and its editorial board fully adhere to and comply with the policies and principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Duties of Editors
Publication decisions
The editorial board of the JSTM is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. Members of the board confer and refer to reviewer recommendations in making this decision, constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
Confidentiality, disclosure, and conflicts of interest
During the review process, editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's, reviewer’s, or any other reader’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Readers should be informed about who has funded the research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
Author relations
Editors strive to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased, and timely. The journal has established policies for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review. Author instructions provide guidance about the criteria for authorship.
Reviewer relations
The JSTM encourages reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, and inappropriate data manipulation), and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Reviewers’ comments should be sent to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks. Contributions of reviewers to the journal are regularly acknowledged and cease to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality, or late reviews.
Quality assurance
Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that different sections have different aims and standards. Editors should seek assurances that the research they publish has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to handle potential breaches of laws and conventions. Errors, inaccurate, or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.
Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to editorial decisions
Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
Qualification of reviewers
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. References to the ideas of others should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Duties of Authors
Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to raw data in connection with a paper and retain such data for at least two years after publication. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Originality, plagiarism, and concurrent publication
Authors should ensure their work is entirely original and that any work and/or words of others have been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting essentially the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Authorship of the paper
The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
Peer review process
All manuscripts are subjected to peer review and are expected to meet the standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors and vice versa, identities of authors will remain anonymous to the reviewers (Double-blind peer review). The decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript is the responsibility of the editorial board and is based on the recommendations of the reviewers (peer-reviewed process).
Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.
Plagiarism
The journal has a strict policy against plagiarism, where the journal does not tolerate using others’ ideas, words, or work without acknowledgment. Submissions containing plagiarism in whole or part, duplicate and redundant publication, or self-plagiarism (same or a different language), will be rejected. The Preprint archive will not be considered a duplicate publication. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript through and after the evaluation and publication process with the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using professional plagiarism-checking software. Submitted manuscripts with an unacceptable similarity index resulting from plagiarism are rejected immediately.
Standards of reporting
Research should be communicated in a way that supports verification and reproducibility, and as such, we encourage authors to provide comprehensive descriptions of their research rationale, protocol, methodology, and analysis.
Use of third-party material
You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. These materials may include – but are not limited to – text, illustration, photographs, tables, data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, or musical notation.
The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.
Use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in writing
Please note the policy only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process.
Authors who incorporate AI and AI-assisted technologies into their writing process should do so with the intention of enhancing readability and language, rather than substituting essential authoring tasks. The application of this technology should always be under human oversight and control, and all work should be subjected to careful review and editing. AI has the potential to produce content that sounds authoritative but may be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Ultimately, authors bear the responsibility and accountability for the content they produce.
Authors must openly disclose their use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in their manuscripts, and a statement to this effect will be included in the published work. Such transparency fosters trust among authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors and ensures compliance with the terms of use for the relevant tools or technologies.
Authors should refrain from attributing authorship to AI or listing AI as a co-author. Authorship entails responsibilities and tasks that can only be fulfilled by humans. Each author is responsible for addressing inquiries regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work and for approving the final version of the work and consenting to its submission. The authors also have a duty to ensure the originality of the work, that the stated authors meet the criteria for authorship, and that the work does not infringe upon the rights of third parties.
