These policies set the publisher-wide minimum requirements for journals published by Sciedu Press. They apply to authors, editors, reviewers, readers, guest editors, and publishing staff. A journal may add discipline-specific requirements, but it may not weaken the standards of transparency, editorial independence, research integrity, or record preservation stated here.

This policy is designed to align with the current principles and journal-evaluation expectations of COPE, DOAJ, Scopus, and the Web of Science Core Collection. Inclusion and continued coverage are decided independently by those services; adoption of this policy does not guarantee indexing.

1. Journal Identity, Website, and Publishing Schedule
Each journal must present a clear, accurate, and current public record of its identity and operation. Its title must be unique, non-misleading, and consistent across the website, articles, issues, and the ISSN Portal. Separate print and electronic ISSNs must be shown where applicable.

The journal website must use HTTPS, provide reliable access to each article at a unique full-text URL, and clearly display:

• the journal’s aims and scope, target readership, accepted article types, and language requirements;
• the publisher’s name, physical business address, website, and journal contact details;
• the Editor-in-Chief, editorial team, and board members, with current institutional affiliations and country or region;
• author instructions, authorship criteria, peer-review process, ethics policies, access model, copyright, licence, fees, waivers, and archiving arrangements; and
• the publication frequency or continuous-publication model, which the journal must follow except in clearly explained exceptional circumstances.

Research articles must include clear English-language titles and abstracts for international discovery. Author names, affiliations, funding information, references, publication dates, and other metadata must be accurate and supplied in the format required by indexing services.

2. Editorial Governance and Independence
Sciedu Press supports editorial independence. Editors decide manuscripts on scholarly merit, originality, methodological or analytical soundness, relevance to the journal, ethical compliance, and clarity of reporting. Decisions must not be influenced by payment, commercial interests, sponsorship, institutional affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, disability, political belief, or an author’s ability to pay.

Editorial roles and authority must be documented. Editors and board members must have appropriate expertise, identifiable affiliations, and a composition proportionate to the journal’s scope and output. Journals should seek disciplinary, institutional, geographic, and demographic breadth. Editorial and publishing staff must receive appropriate guidance and training.

• Editors, reviewers, and staff must disclose relevant competing interests and recuse themselves when impartiality could reasonably be questioned.
• An editor’s or board member’s own submission must be handled by an independent editor without the author-editor’s involvement.
• The share of published research papers with at least one author who is an editor, board member, or reviewer must not exceed 25% in either of the two latest issues, or in the latest calendar year for journals without issues.
• Business, fee, advertising, sponsorship, and marketing functions must remain separate from editorial decisions. Sciedu Press must disclose any material financial, ownership, institutional, or commercial interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing editorial content or decisions. Such interests must not interfere with editorial independence.

3. Peer Review and Editorial Decisions
Each journal must publish a clear description of its review model, reviewer selection, identity masking, confidentiality, decision process, treatment of supplementary material, use of author-suggested reviewers, and any article types that are not externally reviewed. Any exception must be stated on the published article.

• Primary research articles are reviewed by at least two independent subject experts who are not part of the journal’s editorial team. In arts and humanities fields where editorial review is an accepted disciplinary practice, review by at least two independent editors may be used and must be stated publicly.
• Reviewers must provide fair, evidence-based, timely, and constructive assessments; maintain confidentiality; cite relevant work for scholarly reasons only; and disclose conflicts of interest or limits to their expertise.
• Peer review is advisory. The Editor-in-Chief or authorized editor makes the final decision and remains accountable for it.
• The journal does not guarantee acceptance or a fixed decision date. Published time estimates must be realistic, and authors must be informed of material delays and allowed to withdraw before acceptance.
• Research articles should display received, accepted, and published dates. A substantive post-review revision may receive further review.

4. Submission, Originality, and Prior Dissemination
Submission confirms that all authors approve the manuscript, the corresponding author is authorized to act for them, and the work is not under consideration by another journal. It must not have been published previously as a substantially similar journal article. Related manuscripts, overlapping material, translations, and earlier dissemination must be disclosed at submission.

• A thesis, dissertation, conference abstract, poster, presentation, working paper, or public preprint does not normally prevent consideration when it is fully disclosed and properly cited.
• A prior conference paper or other substantial publication requires transparent cross-reference, permission where needed, and enough new scholarly content to avoid redundant publication.
• Authors may post preprints on recognized servers. After publication, they should update the record with the citation, DOI, and link to the version of record where the server permits.
• Authors must secure permission for third-party material and provide source files, ethics records, data, contributor confirmations, or other documentation reasonably requested during assessment.

5. Authorship, Disclosures, and Ethical Research
Authorship is limited to people who made a substantial scholarly contribution, approved the submitted and final versions, and accept accountability for their work. Gift, guest, honorary, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Other contributions must be acknowledged with permission, preferably using the CRediT taxonomy or another journal-approved contributor statement.

• Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors require a reason and written agreement from all affected authors. Changes after acceptance or publication are exceptional and may require formal notice.
• Authors must disclose financial and non-financial competing interests, all funding sources and grant numbers, and the funder’s role. A statement of no competing interests is required when none exist.
• Research must comply with applicable law, institutional requirements, and recognized disciplinary standards. Required ethics approval or exemption, informed consent, consent to publish identifiable information, trial registration, and animal-welfare oversight must be reported.
• Authors must use relevant reporting guidelines and give particular protection to vulnerable populations, confidential information, Indigenous data or knowledge, culturally sensitive material, and research with dual-use or safety risks.

Further requirements are set out in the Sciedu Press Ethics Statement and the applicable journal instructions.

6. Integrity Screening and Misconduct
Submissions may be screened for scope, completeness, text similarity, image or data concerns, citation anomalies, authorship issues, and undisclosed use of automated tools. Sciedu Press uses iThenticate for similarity screening before external review. A similarity score is an indicator, not a finding; editors assess the source, amount, location, attribution, and context of overlap.

Plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, inappropriate text recycling, fabricated or falsified data, deceptive image manipulation, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, paper-mill activity, undisclosed conflicts, and attempts to evade screening are not permitted. Concerns may be investigated before or after publication under the Ethics Statement and relevant COPE guidance. The journal may seek evidence and may contact authors, institutions, funders, ethics bodies, reviewers, or other journals when necessary and lawful.

Concerns about suspected research or publication misconduct may be reported confidentially to the journal or publisher. Sciedu Press will assess good-faith allegations fairly, protect confidentiality where reasonably possible, and will not tolerate retaliation against individuals who raise concerns in good faith.

7. Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools
Human participants remain responsible for every submission, review, editorial decision, and published record. An artificial intelligence (AI) system cannot be an author because it cannot consent, disclose conflicts, or accept accountability. Generative AI output is not an authoritative source and must not be cited in place of the original evidence.

• Authors may use AI-assisted tools for research support, data analysis, coding, visualization, or language improvement when the use is lawful, ethical, methodologically sound, and consistent with the journal’s instructions.
• Material use of generative AI in preparing content must be disclosed. The statement must identify the tool and version where available, its purpose, and the nature and extent of use. AI used as a research method must be described in the Methods or equivalent section. Routine spelling, grammar, reference formatting, or non-generative editing need not be disclosed unless the journal, institution, or funder requires it.
• Authors must verify all AI-assisted output for accuracy, originality, bias, copyright, confidentiality, data protection, and valid references. AI-generated or AI-altered images, audio, video, data, or synthetic participants must be clearly identified and must not misrepresent evidence.
• Authors must not upload confidential, personal, proprietary, copyrighted, embargoed, or identifiable participant material to an AI service without appropriate authority and adequate safeguards.
• Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or reviews to public or third-party generative AI systems, or use generative AI to create their assessment. Limited editing assistance may be used only when the journal authorizes it, confidentiality is protected, and the use is disclosed.
• AI may support administrative checks, reviewer suggestions, or integrity screening, but a qualified person must verify the output. Automated systems must not make the final editorial decision. Routine publisher use of such systems must be tested, disclosed where relevant, and subject to human oversight.

Undisclosed or inappropriate AI use may lead to clarification, revision, rejection, removal from the review process, correction, retraction, or another proportionate action.

8. Open Access, Copyright, and Licensing
Sciedu Press journals follow the Gold Open Access model. Published articles are available immediately and without charge to readers; registration is not required to read them. There is no access embargo.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal and Sciedu Press the right of first publication and the rights needed to publish, identify, preserve, distribute, and index the article. Unless an article states otherwise, it is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). Reuse, adaptation, distribution, text and data mining, and commercial use are permitted when appropriate credit is given, the licence is linked, and changes are indicated.

• The copyright holder and licence must appear on the article’s HTML and PDF versions and must not conflict with the open-access statement.
• Third-party material is included under the article licence only when its credit line does not state otherwise. Users must obtain permission for reuse beyond the law or the right holder’s terms.
• Authors may deposit the preprint, accepted manuscript, and version of record in any appropriate institutional, subject, funder, or personal repository without an embargo. The repository record should identify the version and link to the DOI and version of record.

9. Article Processing Charges, Waivers, and Refunds
Sciedu Press finances open-access publication mainly through article processing charges (APCs). Each journal must state, before submission, every author charge from submission through publication, the amount and currency, applicable taxes, payment timing, and any withdrawal or optional-service fee. A journal with no charge must say so. Payment or waiver status must not influence review or editorial decisions.

Waiver and discount arrangements vary by journal. The journal must state who is eligible, which author must qualify, how and when to apply, and the amount or scope of relief. Authors should request a waiver through the journal’s stated process; editors assess manuscripts without access to unnecessary financial information.

Refunds are normally based on publication status:

• full refund when the online version has not been published;
• half refund when the online version has been published but the print version has not; and
• no refund when both online and print versions have been published.

A request must identify the manuscript, invoice, payment, and reason. Sciedu Press may apply applicable law and correct publisher error, duplicate payment, fraud, chargeback, or exceptional circumstances. Withdrawal of a published article is governed by the post-publication policy, not by the refund policy.

10. Research Data, Materials, Code, and Reproducibility
Authors should retain the data, materials, code, protocols, instruments, and documentation needed to support the work for the period required by law, discipline, institution, or funder. Research articles should include a Data Availability Statement, including when data are openly available, included with the article, available on reasonable request, restricted, or not applicable.

• Where sharing is appropriate, use a trusted repository that provides a persistent identifier, access conditions, versioning, and preservation.
• Restrictions based on privacy, consent, confidentiality, Indigenous data governance, security, contract, or intellectual property must be explained without disclosing protected information.
• Editors may request supporting records for confidential examination. Authors must respect licences, consent, and data-use agreements when sharing or reusing material.
• Datasets, software, protocols, and other research objects must be cited when they are used and must not be fabricated, altered deceptively, or presented without provenance.

11. Special Issues, Supplements, and Guest Editors
Special issues, supplements, and other guest-edited collections must remain within the journal’s scope and meet the same standards as regular content. The Editor-in-Chief remains accountable for the entire journal and must approve the topic, guest editors, schedule, and workflow.

• Guest editors’ identity, expertise, affiliation, and competing interests must be verified and published. A member of the standing editorial team must oversee their work.
• All research articles require the journal’s normal independent review and integrity checks. Sponsors and guest editors may not control acceptance, suppress findings, or set acceptance quotas.
• A guest editor’s own manuscript must be handled independently and, collectively, guest-editor-authored papers must not exceed 25% of the collection.
• The collection and each article must be clearly labelled. Fees, sponsorship, funding, and any departure from the journal’s regular process must be disclosed.

12. Corrections, Retractions, and the Scholarly Record
Sciedu Press preserves an accurate and durable scholarly record. Concerns raised after publication are assessed promptly, fairly, and confidentially where appropriate. Authors must cooperate and supply relevant records.

• A formal correction is issued when an error affects part of an article but does not invalidate its central conclusions. Minor typographical changes may be documented in the article history when they do not affect meaning.
• An expression of concern may be issued when serious doubt exists and an investigation is incomplete, inconclusive, or delayed.
• Retraction is considered when findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct, the work is plagiarized or redundant, research or peer review was manipulated, the research was unethical, or another recognized ground applies.
• Removal of the full text is exceptional and limited to serious legal, privacy, safety, or public-health risk. Bibliographic information and an explanatory notice remain whenever legally possible.
• Notices are freely accessible, identify and link to the affected article, explain the reason, and distinguish author error from misconduct when established. Material changes to a published article must not be made silently. Corrections, updates, retractions, or other significant changes must be clearly identified, dated, linked to the Version of Record, and reflected in DOI metadata where technically supported.

Evidence-based post-publication discussion is welcome through letters, commentaries, corrections, or other journal-approved channels. The journal may refer alleged misconduct to the appropriate institution or authority.

13. Complaints and Appeals
Authors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders may complain about editorial process, staff conduct, fees, policy application, publication ethics, or a published article. An appeal of an editorial decision must identify a material procedural error or scholarly basis; disagreement with reviewer opinion alone is insufficient.

• Submit the concern first to the journal office with the journal and manuscript or article identified, relevant dates, evidence, and requested remedy.
• A concern about the handling editor, editorial office, or unresolved journal response may be escalated to Sciedu Press. Whenever practicable, it is reviewed by someone not materially involved in the disputed decision.
• Good-faith complainants must not face retaliation. Confidentiality is respected, but information may be shared for a fair review, legal compliance, safeguarding, or an integrity investigation.
• Sciedu Press follows its Ethics Statement and relevant COPE guidance when a complaint involves suspected research or publication misconduct.

14. Digital Preservation, Persistent Identifiers, and Metadata
Each journal must identify its long-term digital-preservation arrangement on its website and keep that statement accurate. Preservation should include published articles, metadata, supplementary files where supported, and post-publication notices. The plan must support continued access if the journal or publisher ceases operation.

• Eligible articles receive a DOI or another recognized persistent identifier. Links must resolve correctly, and the journal-hosted final article is the version of record unless stated otherwise.
• Sciedu Press supplies accurate metadata to DOI registration, indexing, abstracting, library, discovery, and preservation services as applicable, and updates correction or retraction relationships where technically supported.
• Authors must provide accurate names, affiliations and country or region, ORCID iDs where requested, funding details, abstracts, keywords, references, and other metadata needed for publication and discovery.
• Indexing and database coverage are controlled by independent services. Sciedu Press does not guarantee acceptance, continued coverage, ranking, metrics, or citation outcomes.

15. Privacy, Confidentiality, Advertising, and Marketing
Personal information is collected and used only for legitimate editorial, publishing, integrity, legal, and service purposes, subject to the published privacy policy and applicable law. Manuscripts, reviews, reviewer identities under anonymous models, and editorial correspondence are confidential except where disclosure is authorized or required for investigation, safeguarding, or law.

• Any advertising must be clearly labelled, separate from editorial content, selected independently of manuscript decisions, and governed by a public policy. It must not use confidential submission or review data.
• Sponsorships, subsidies, reprints, special issues, and other revenue sources must be disclosed and must not influence editorial decisions.
• Calls for papers, reviewer invitations, and manuscript solicitations must be truthful, appropriately targeted, and unobtrusive. They must not misrepresent indexing, metrics, fees, review time, acceptance, or editorial-board membership.
• Recipients must have a reasonable way to stop non-essential marketing. Unlawfully obtained or indiscriminately harvested contact lists must not be used.

16. Ownership Changes, Transfers, and Cessation
Ownership, publisher, society affiliation, and editorial oversight must be transparent. A material change to title, ISSN, ownership, publisher, access model, scope, or editorial control must be announced, recorded accurately, and reported promptly to the ISSN authority, DOI agency, archiving partners, and relevant indexing services. A journal transfer must preserve author agreements, peer-review confidentiality, article access, identifiers, metadata, and the scholarly record.

If a journal stops publishing, its website must state the cessation date and arrangements for archive access, preservation, corrections, retractions, and contact. A discontinued title must not be represented as active.

17. Policy Updates and Contact
These policies should be read with the journal’s aims and scope, Author Guide, peer-review policy, Ethics Statement, privacy policy, and fee page. A journal-specific rule controls only where it is more detailed and does not reduce this publisher-wide baseline.

Sciedu Press may revise these policies to reflect changes in law, technology, scholarly standards, or publishing practice. The current webpage must show the date of the latest material update. Changes to fees, licences, or author obligations must be communicated clearly and must not be applied retroactively in an unfair or misleading manner.

Questions should be sent to the relevant journal office or to: info@sciedupress.com