JARS strives to the highest level of integrity in the published content. This commitment is inclusive of the Editors, Reviewers, and Author(s).

1. FOR EDITORS

Confidentiality: As JARS applies double-blinded peer review process, editors will not disclose any information of author(s) and reviewers to other parties. All materials such as texts, figures, and tables that are submitted to the journal including all communications with reviewers are strictly protected by editors; unless it is agreed to by the relevant author(s) and reviewers that the materials can be revealed. 

Peer review: The editors will be responsible for selection of at least 3 external and independent reviewers with appropriate areas of expertise. The editors shall avoid the selection of peer reviewers, who have been a co-author(s) with any of the submitting party for any published work within the past 5 years. Editors should be alert to a chance of peer review manipulation, especially if reviewer comments are submitted extremely rapidly or extremely positive and superficial. In such cases, it may be helpful to invite an additional reviewer.

The editors shall perform their best practice in reviewing all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and reviewers’ recommendations for self-citation to determine any potential for bias. The editors may request additional opinions from the reviewers where necessary. The editor shall assure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and on time. If receiving only simple comments without specific content of the submission, the editor will invite additional reviewers.

Fair Evaluation: Editors will assure that evaluating policies of the journal are clearness and complete, honest reporting. The editor will evaluate the manuscripts for integrity of their content disregarding gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, or ethnic origin of the author(s). The editors will ensure that peer reviewers and author(s) have a clear understanding of what are expected from them. The editor will carry out transparent actions for appeal of editorial decisions.

Protecting the Published Record Integrity: In order to protect the integrity of the published record, the editors will investigate any reported or suspected misconduct related to the research and/or publication. If there are any convincing evidence of misconduct, the editors shall perform an appropriate course of action that may include a correction, retraction, or expression of concern.

2. FOR PEER REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: The peer reviewers are expected to provide constructive and encouraging, however, rigorous comments on the manuscript without any bias. The manuscript must be examined by the reviewers based on their merits, without distinction as to sex, gender, race, religion, nationality, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s). With double-blinded peer review policy, comments by peer reviewers are strictly confidential to the editors.

Competing Interests: If the peer reviewers suspect or detect any potential conflict of interest in any circumstance, such as reviewers having similar interests in research, collaboration, or being colleagues within the same department or similar organisational unit with the author(s), the reviewers are expected to consult with the editor before making agreement to review the submitted manuscript.

Objectivity: Reviews will be conducted objectively, with the peer reviewers being aware of any personal bias that may be taken into account. The peer reviewers need to provide constructive critical, nurturing, constructive, but rigorous comments that assist the author(s) in improving their manuscripts. Personal criticism of the author(s) or negative or mysterious comments without a clear clarification will not be considered appropriate by the editors. Reviewers are discouraged from suggestion of their work to be cited; unless, there is a clear void in the manuscript that can only be filled or clarified by the citation. However, before making suggestion on the citation, reviewers should consult with the editor on this regard.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts received for review, comments or information or correspondence about the manuscript will be treated as confidential documents and will not be shared with anyone. Even though materials in the submitted manuscript are unpublished, they will not be used in research by the reviewer(s) without a consent from the author(s).

3. FOR AUTHOR(S)

Authorship: The first author of the submitted manuscript should be limited to the one, who made a major contribution to the manuscript; whilst, all those who made substantial contributions should be recorded as co-author(s). The author(s) should carefully provide list of all authors and their order before making submission. Contributions of all authors will be noted under the declarations statement at the end of the main text for the manuscript and before the references section.

Confidentiality: Information such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications that are provided as confidential service, must not be used without permission of the author of the work.

Reporting Standards: The author(s) should present an accurate account of the work along with an intended discussion of its significance. A manuscript should contain sufficient details, features, and references to allow others to replicate the work. False or inaccurate statements are unethical and unacceptable.

Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources: The author(s) must confirm that the manuscript is the original work and the manuscript has not received prior publication and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Proper acknowledgment of the work by others must always be given. If there is reproduction of any copyrighted figures, graphics, or photographic images, the author(s) must present approval or evidence that the material can be provided in the manuscript. Information or correspondence, or discussion with third parties that are obtained privately must not be used without explicit, written permission from the source.

Submission to Multiple Journals: Upon submission, the author(s) must acknowledge that the manuscript is their original work. The manuscript must not have been submitted to any other publications and/or is not currently under consideration or review by any other publications.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own (Oxford Dictionary, 2019).” JARS recognizes that plagiarism and/or self-plagiarism are not acceptable in scholarly publications. Direct quoting verbatims or materials from the original source can be an effective writing technique. However, these direct quotations need to be clearly different from the original texts by (1) using of indentation, (2) applying quotation marks, and (3) identifying the source. When plagiarism is detected in a submitted manuscript, JARS has implemented the following actions.

If plagiarism is detected during the initial stages of submission, editors will address the issue with the author(s) directly. If percentage of similarities is between 25% and 40%, the manuscript will be returned to the author(s) for clarification and appropriate revision before moving forward with peer review. If percentage of similarities is higher than 40%, the manuscript shall be rejected immediately.

If the plagiarism is identified after publication, the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor-in-Chief will form a plagiarism committee selected from the editorial board in order to conduct a preliminary investigation. If the committee confirms that plagiarism has occurred, following actions will be pursued. Firstly, if percentage of plagiarism is between 25% and 40%, the author(s) will be requested to revise the texts and properly cite the original manuscript. An updated online publication of the manuscript will be released accordingly. On the other hand, if the portion of plagiarism is larger than 40%, the author(s) will be informed that the article will be retracted from the journal and public record officially. And the journal that published the original or primary article will be notified afterward. It is understood that all author(s) are responsible for the content of their submitted manuscript as they all sign the JARS copyright form. If a penalty is imposed for plagiarism, all authors will be subject to the same penalty.

Self-plagiarism: JARS acknowledges that some cases of self-plagiarism may arise. When the self-plagiarism is identified, our editorial board will take actions, which are in line with ones for the plagiarism. An expansion of the conference proceedings can submit to JARS; however, title, texts and materials of the submitted manuscript must be different from the published proceedings. If materials of the manuscript are the same with the published materials, they need to be properly cited.

Reference

: Elsevier (2019). Elsevier: Publishing Ethics. Retrieved July 11, 2019, from

https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics

: Oxford Dictionaries (2019). Dictionary. Retrieved June 25, 2019, from

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition.