Publication Ethics Statement
Schole upholds high standards of research integrity, and expects any research published in our journals to be honest in all aspects, excellent in practice, transparent in communication, respectful for all subjects, and accountable for substandard behaviors. Moreover, our editorial teams are expected to clearly inform contributors of the importance of obeying the guidelines and policies for research integrity and ethics. We work hard to prevent any misconducts. Those activities that damage academic integrity include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submitting same manuscript to different publishers at the same time, and violations of intellectual property rights.
We will be a member (in process) of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and strictly follow Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. We also refer to its Core Practice to handle complaints and appeals, post-publication discussions and corrections, as well as its policies on data sharing and reproducibility, ethical oversight, intellectual property, etc.
Academic misconducts and violations
To protect academic integrity, duplication checker iThenticate will be used to verify the originality of submissions. A submission will be desk-declined (during submissions stage) or rejected for consideration (during peer review stage) if the research paper contains 10% or more of plagiarized content or 2% or more of plagarism from the same reference.
In cases of suspected misconduct and violation, the editor team will be responsible for investigation. If the suspected submission is supported by evidence, it will be declined in the journal and all authors will be informed on this matter. In case of already published paper, un-publication will be initiated immediately. Authors of the paper will receive Editor’s Decision via email and all complaints and appeals need to be made within 1 month of the decision date. Schole is committed to upholding the academic integrity and publishes Errata, Expressions of Concerns or Retraction Notices dependent on the situation and in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
Appeals and complaints
Authors who would like to appeal a revision or rejection of a manuscript may submit a formal appeal. Appeals must be submitted in written form to the journal (sending e-mail to the contact e-mail of the Editorial Office), with the word “Appeal” and the manuscript number in the subject. Only peer-reviewed manuscripts may be appealed; manuscripts rejected by the journal's editors may not be appealed. Appeals must be submitted by the corresponding author(s) of the manuscript. All authors must agree to submit the appeal.
Responsibilities of the corresponding author in appeals
1. Submit an appeal within 1 month of the decision date.
2. Not to submit a manuscript to any other journal or to start transferring a manuscript to any other journal while the appeal is being considered.
3. Provide a detailed statement of the ground for the appeal in the letter of appeal and respond point-by-point to the editor's and/or reviewer's comments that may have led to the decision to withdraw the manuscript, along with supporting evidence. Please note that complaints may not be filed if the manuscript has been withdrawn because it does not comply with the journal's publication policy, or if there is disagreement about the manuscript's novelty, or journal matter.
4. Supporting evidence may be provided if authors believe that the editors or reviewers made a technical error in evaluating the manuscript.
5. Provide supporting evidence if authors believe that the editors or reviewers may have had conflicts of interests or personal bias.
Appeals and complaints that do not meet the above requirements will be rejected and will not be considered by the journal.
The time to consider an appeal may vary from journal to journal, and may also vary depending on the scientific field, complexity of the manuscript, and conclusions.
Corresponding authors may withdraw an appeal by sending an e-mail to the same e-mail address used to submit the appeal with the words “Withdrawal of appeal” and the manuscript number in the subject.
Appeals will be handled by the journal's editor-in-chief or the designated representative, or by Schole staff. If a conflict of interest is alleged against an editor, the appeal will be handled by another member of the editorial board.
Appeals will be evaluated based on the journal's policies, purposes, and scope. The journal will notify the corresponding author of appeal.
If the journal agrees to reconsider a manuscript, this does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted; the process by which a manuscript is reconsidered includes re-review by previous or new reviewers and/or editors, as well as substantive revisions. Only one appeal will be considered per manuscript, and the appeal decision is final. The journal cannot consider appeals where the subject is in legal dispute and reserves the right to suspend or discontinue ongoing appeals in such cases.
Article Removal
In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.
Article Replacement
In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.
Erratum & Corrigendum
In the instance where errors are introduced to the article by the publisher an erratum will be published to the original article. All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication.
Should the author wish to publish to a change to their article that at any time after acceptance a corrigendum will be published. Authors should contact the Editors-in-Chief of the journal, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action.
Authors of the paper are obliged to declare conflicts of interest or state “All the authors claim that the manuscript is completely original. The authors also declare no conflict of interest”. Authors are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts or competing interests with any institutions, organizations or agencies that may damage the integrity of research results at submission. Personal, financial, and professional affiliations or relationships can be regarded as conflicts of interest.
Conflicts of interest
All authors, reviewers and editors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work.
Financial competing interests include but are not limited to:
Ownership of stocks or shares
Paid employment or consultancy
Board membership
Patent applications (pending or actual)
Research grants (from any source, restricted or unrestricted)
Travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings
Gifts
Non-financial competing interests include but are not limited to:
Serving as an expert witness
Membership in a government or other board
Relationship (paid or unpaid) with organizations and funding bodies including nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, or charities
Membership in lobbying or advocacy organizations
Writing or consulting for an educational company
Personal relationships (e.g. friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of a journal published by Schole.
Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that might interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication).
Informed consent
All participants in studies have the right to know and decide what happens to the personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview. In many instances authors will need to get written informed consent before publication. A statement confirming that informed consent to publish identifying information/images was obtained must be included in the methods section.
Individuals may consent to participate in a study, but object to having their data published in a journal article. Authors should make sure to also get consent from individuals to publish their data before submission. This is in particular true to case studies.
Use of inclusive language in Research
Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Authors should ensure their work uses inclusive language throughout and contains nothing which might imply one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual preference, disability or health condition.
We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors about personal attributes unless they are relevant and valid. Write for gender neutrality with the use of plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default. Wherever possible, avoid using "he, she," or "he/she."
No assumptions should be made about the beliefs of readers and writing should be free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions.
These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help you identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.
Borders and territories
Schole remains neutral regarding jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. If your manuscript involves any potential dispute over borders and territories, our editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved.
Anonymity
Identifying images/video/details which authors do not have specific permission to use must be removed from the manuscript. Please note that the use of coloured bars/shapes to obscure the eyes/facial region of study participants is NOT an acceptable means of anonymisation.
Citation Policies
If any material in your manuscript is taken from another source, including your own published article, please cite the source clearly, and obtain the appropriate permission.
a) Do not cite your own work excessively.
b) Do not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
c) Do not copy references from other articles without reading the cited work.
d) Put the original wording taken directly from others' publications in quotation marks, with proper citations.Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations”. This condition also applies to an author’s own work.