Ethics in Publishing

Overview

These policies define the responsibilities of authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and publishing staff. They are intended to protect the integrity of the scholarly record and to provide a fair, confidential, and documented process for addressing ethical concerns before and after publication.

Editorial Board

The Editor-in-Chief and editorial board oversee the journal’s editorial standards and peer-review process. Manuscripts are assessed according to the journal’s aims and scope, originality, methodological and technical soundness, significance, clarity, and compliance with publication ethics. Reviewer recommendations inform, but do not determine, editorial decisions.

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit and are made without discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, political belief, or institutional affiliation. The Editor-in-Chief, or an unconflicted delegated editor, has final authority over acceptance or rejection and is accountable for the integrity of the editorial process.

Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest

Editors and publishing staff must treat submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, and related correspondence as confidential. Information may be shared only with the authors, assigned editors, invited reviewers, and staff whose involvement is necessary to administer the review and publication process.

Unpublished information or ideas obtained through editorial handling may not be used for personal advantage or research without the author’s explicit written permission. Editors, reviewers, and staff must disclose any financial, professional, personal, institutional, or other relationship that could reasonably be perceived to influence their judgment and must recuse themselves when impartial handling cannot be assured.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Peer review supports the editor’s assessment of a manuscript’s validity, originality, significance, and suitability for the journal. An invited reviewer who lacks the required expertise, cannot complete the review within the requested time, or has a conflict of interest should promptly decline the invitation.

• Reviews must be completed promptly and should be objective, constructive, and supported by clear scholarly reasoning.
• Reviewers must preserve confidentiality and may not share, discuss, reproduce, or use unpublished material without prior authorization from the editor.
• Reviewers should identify substantive methodological or technical concerns, unsupported claims, relevant uncited work, and possible overlap with published or submitted material; requests for citation must be academically justified.
• Reviewers must disclose competitive, collaborative, financial, personal, family, institutional, or other conflicts and decline the review whenever impartial judgment could reasonably be questioned.

Author Responsibilities

Authors are accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work. Research questions, methods, results, limitations, and conclusions must be reported honestly and with sufficient detail to permit scholarly evaluation and, where appropriate, replication. Authors must retain underlying records and data for an appropriate period and provide them when reasonably required for editorial review or verification, subject to legal, ethical, and confidentiality restrictions.

Authorship is limited to individuals who made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the drafting or critical revision of the manuscript. All authors must approve the final version, agree to submission, and accept accountability for their contributions. The corresponding author must ensure that all eligible contributors are included, ineligible individuals are excluded, and other contributions, funding, and support are appropriately acknowledged.

Accuracy, Originality, and Plagiarism

Manuscripts must present original work and must not contain fabricated, falsified, selectively omitted, or deceptively manipulated data, images, citations, or results. Authors must accurately represent the work and provide sufficient methodological detail to allow readers and reviewers to evaluate the findings and, where appropriate, reproduce the research.

Text, ideas, images, data, code, or other material derived from another source must be clearly attributed, and permission must be obtained where required. Plagiarism—including unattributed copying, close paraphrasing, or appropriation of another person’s results—is prohibited. Avestia may use similarity-detection software and will assess identified overlap in context.

Dual Submissions and Conflicts

A manuscript may not be under consideration by more than one journal at the same time. Authors must disclose related submissions and prior dissemination, including conference papers and preprints, and explain any overlap. Previously published material may be considered only when the submission provides a substantial new scholarly contribution and appropriately cites the earlier work.

All authors must disclose funding sources and any financial or non-financial interests that could be perceived to affect the research, interpretation, review, or publication of the work. Relevant interests may include employment, consultancies, advisory roles, grants, stock ownership, patents, paid testimony, personal relationships, and institutional affiliations.

Human, Animal, and Hazardous Material

Research involving human participants or animals must comply with applicable laws and institutional standards and must receive approval from an appropriate research ethics committee or animal care body before the work begins. The manuscript must identify the approving body and approval reference where available; human research must also describe informed consent and privacy protections, or justify any formally approved waiver.

Manuscripts involving hazardous chemicals, materials, organisms, procedures, or devices must clearly identify relevant risks and describe appropriate safety precautions. Where applicable, clinical trial registration details and data-availability information must also be reported.

Mistakes, Errata, and Retractions

Authors must promptly notify Avestia when they identify a material error or omission in a published article. Avestia evaluates concerns according to their effect on the reliability and integrity of the scholarly record and may issue a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other appropriate notice. Decisions are made after appropriate review and, where possible, communication with the authors and other relevant parties.

Post-publication notices remain clearly linked to the original article and explain the nature of the change. Retraction may be warranted when findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct, plagiarism, redundant publication, unethical research, or compromised peer review. Errors that do not invalidate the central findings are generally addressed through a correction.

Content, Archiving, and Access

Avestia deposits participating journals and conference proceedings with Portico, an independent digital preservation archive, to support the long-term availability of published scholarly content.

Avestia journals provide immediate open access. Authors retain copyright, and reuse is governed by the licence stated on each article. Under CC BY 3.0, users may read, download, copy, distribute, link to, and adapt published material, including for commercial purposes, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is supplied, and any changes are indicated.

Avestia journals use continuous publication within one annual volume. Accepted articles are published online after the required editorial, copyright, and production steps have been completed.