INSS Press INSS Press

Editorial Policies

Editorial Policies

1. Editorial Independence

  • Autonomy of Editors: Editors have the authority to make final decisions on manuscript acceptance, revision, or rejection, guided by scholarly merit, originality, and alignment with the journal’s scope.
  • Freedom from External Influence: Decisions are not influenced by the journal’s owners, publishers, sponsors, advertisers, or other stakeholders. Financial or political considerations cannot override editorial judgment.
  • Ethical Responsibility: Editors are expected to act in accordance with recognized international standards, such as those set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/, ensuring fairness, transparency, and objectivity.
  • Conflict of Interest Management: Editors must disclose and avoid conflicts of interest. Manuscripts authored by editorial board members, or involving personal or professional relationships, should be handled by independent editors to avoid bias.
  • Scientific Integrity: Editorial independence safeguards the trust of the academic community by ensuring that only work meeting ethical, methodological, and scholarly standards is published.

2. Originality and Prior Publication Policy

2.1. Originality Requirement

  • Manuscripts submitted must be original works that have not been published elsewhere, either in whole or in substantial part.
  • Submissions must present novel findings, analyses, or perspectives and contribute meaningfully to the scholarly literature.
  • Text recycling (“self-plagiarism”) should be avoided; limited reuse of previously published work (e.g., methods) must be properly cited and disclosed.

2.2. Prior and Duplicate Publication

  • Manuscripts published elsewhere (journal, book, conference proceedings) will not be considered, except in rare justified cases (e.g., translations, policy briefs) with approval from both editors.
  • Posting on preprint servers (e.g., arXiv, SSRN, medRxiv) is generally permitted if disclosed at submission.
  • Conference abstracts or posters that do not constitute a full paper are not considered prior publication.

2.3. Plagiarism Screening

  • All submissions are checked using plagiarism-detection software (e.g., iThenticate).
  • Manuscripts with significant overlap (including self-plagiarism) will be rejected or returned for correction.

2.4. Consequences of Breach

  • Duplicate or plagiarized submissions may lead to immediate rejection or post-publication retraction.
  • Repeated violations may result in a ban on future submissions to the publisher’s journals.

3. Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the work. Contributions include:

  • Conceptualization and Design: Significant contributions to conception, design, or methodology.
  • Data Contribution: Participation in acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
  • Manuscript Preparation: Drafting or critically revising the manuscript.
  • Final Approval: Approval of the final manuscript.
  • Accountability: Responsibility for integrity and accuracy of the work.

3.1. Author Contributions Statement

All submissions must include a Contributor Roles Statement (e.g., CRediT Taxonomy), such as:

  • Conceptualization
  • Methodology
  • Software
  • Validation
  • Formal Analysis
  • Investigation
  • Resources
  • Data Curation
  • Writing – Original Draft
  • Writing – Review & Editing
  • Visualization
  • Supervision
  • Project Administration
  • Funding Acquisition

This statement will be published alongside the article.

3.2. Order of Authorship

  • Authors determine authorship order collectively based on contributions.
  • Disputes must be resolved by the authors before submission; the journal will not mediate authorship conflicts.

3.3. Changes in Authorship

  • Any change after submission must be requested by the corresponding author and approved by all listed authors.
  • A written explanation is required; the editorial office may decline unjustified changes.

3.4. Corresponding Author Responsibilities

  • Ensuring all authors meet authorship criteria.
  • Handling communication with the editorial office.
  • Coordinating revisions and responses.
  • Ensuring all authors approve the final manuscript.

3.5. Ethical Compliance

  • Ghost authorship and guest authorship are prohibited.
  • Suspected cases will be investigated following COPE guidelines.

4. Conflict of Interest Policy

4.1. Types of Conflicts of Interest

  • Financial Conflicts
  • Personal or Professional Relationships
  • Academic or Intellectual Conflicts
  • Editorial and Reviewer Conflicts

4.2. Author Responsibilities

  • All authors must declare potential COIs at submission.
  • If none exist, authors must state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”
  • Failure to disclose COIs may lead to rejection or retraction.

4.3. Reviewer Responsibilities

  • Reviewers must disclose COIs before accepting an invitation.
  • If identified later, reviewers must withdraw.

4.4. Editor Responsibilities

  • Editors must not handle manuscripts when they have a COI.
  • Manuscripts involving editorial board members must be handled by an independent editor.

4.5. Transparency in Publication

  • Declared conflicts will appear in the published article.
  • A funding disclosure section will be included when appropriate.

5. Data, Materials, and Code Policy

5.1. Transparency and Reproducibility

  • Authors are encouraged to make data, materials, and code publicly available whenever possible.

5.2. Data Availability

  • All submissions must include a Data Availability Statement.
  • Where data cannot be shared, authors must explain the reasons.

5.3. Materials Sharing

  • Authors must provide enough detail for replication.
  • Where specialized materials are used, accessibility information must be provided.

5.4. Code Availability

  • New software or algorithms must be deposited in recognized repositories (e.g., GitHub, Zenodo, Dryad, OSF).
  • A Code Availability Statement must describe access and licensing.

5.5. Author Responsibilities

  • Archive data and code in permanent repositories with DOIs.
  • Provide documentation for reproducibility.
  • Declare any restrictions transparently.

5.6. Exceptions

  • If sharing is restricted (privacy, legal, proprietary), authors must clearly state this.
  • Editors may request access during review for verification.

5.7. Compliance and Enforcement

  • Noncompliance may lead to rejection, correction, or retraction.

6. Correction and Retraction Policy

6.1. General Principles

  • INSS Press maintains scholarly integrity through corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions aligned with international standards.

6.2. Corrections (Errata or Corrigenda)

  • Minor Errors: Corrections issued for minor issues not affecting scientific integrity.
  • Author-Initiated Corrections: Authors must notify the editorial office of any discovered errors.
  • Publisher-Initiated Corrections: Issued when errors are found by readers, reviewers, or editors.
  • Corrections are linked to the original article and are freely accessible.

6.3. Expressions of Concern

  • Issued when concerns exist regarding reliability or integrity but evidence is inconclusive.

6.4. Retractions

  • Issued for unreliable data, fabrication, falsification, major errors.
  • Issued for plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research practices.
  • Issued for undisclosed major conflicts of interest.
  • May be initiated by authors, editors, or the publisher.
  • Retracted articles remain online but clearly marked with a watermark and notice.

6.5. Author Responsibilities

  • Authors must cooperate with investigations.
  • Retraction or correction requests must be submitted with justification.

6.6. Transparency

  • All corrections and retractions are freely accessible, indexed, and linked to the original article.
  • The journal follows COPE guidelines: https://publicationethics.org/.