Publication Ethics

Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovation (JSTI)

The Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovation (JSTI) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, transparency, and academic integrity. The journal follows internationally recognized ethical publishing principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and promotes responsible research practices at all levels.

1. Research Integrity

All submissions must represent original work that has not been published previously and is not under consideration elsewhere. The following practices are strictly prohibited and constitute grounds for immediate rejection or retraction:

  • Plagiarism — presenting another person's work, ideas, or data as one's own
  • Data fabrication — inventing results that were not actually obtained
  • Data falsification — manipulating or selectively reporting research data to misrepresent findings
  • Image manipulation — altering figures in ways that misrepresent experimental results
  • Duplicate or redundant publication — submitting the same or substantially similar work to multiple journals
  • Salami publishing — artificially splitting one research project into multiple publications

All manuscripts are subject to plagiarism screening prior to peer review.

2. Authorship and Contributions

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made significant intellectual contributions to the research, including:

  • Conceptualization and research design
  • Data collection, analysis, or interpretation
  • Drafting or critically revising the manuscript
  • Approval of the final version for submission

All authors must approve the final manuscript before submission and agree to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors meet authorship criteria.

Authors are encouraged to include an Author Contributions Statement specifying each author's role, using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework where appropriate (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft, Supervision).

Supervisors, teachers, or mentors should be listed as co-authors only if they meet the authorship criteria above. Those who provided only general support, facilities, or administrative assistance should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section.

Ghost authorship (listing individuals who did not contribute) and gift authorship (listing individuals to confer prestige without genuine contribution) are both violations of JSTI's publication ethics policy.

3. Conflict of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any financial, institutional, personal, or academic relationships that could influence the research, its evaluation, or the editorial process. This includes:

  • Financial interests such as employment, consultancy, stock ownership, or honoraria
  • Institutional affiliations that may have a direct interest in the research outcomes
  • Personal relationships with authors, reviewers, or editors that could bias judgement
  • Academic competing interests such as rivalry over the same research territory

Conflicts of interest must be declared in the manuscript's disclosure section and in the submission form. If no conflict of interest exists, authors must include the statement: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."

4. Ethical Conduct in Research

Research involving human participants, surveys, interviews, or the collection of personal data must comply with applicable ethical standards and, where required, obtain appropriate institutional review board (IRB) or equivalent ethics committee approval. Authors must declare the ethical approval status of their study in the manuscript.

Informed consent must be obtained from all human participants. Where minors are involved, consent must be obtained from a parent or legal guardian in addition to the participant's own assent.

Research involving animals must comply with relevant institutional and national standards for the ethical treatment of animals.

5. AI-Assisted Writing and Research Tools

Authors who use AI-assisted writing or research tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly AI, or similar) in the preparation of their manuscript must disclose this in the Methods or Acknowledgments section. AI tools may not be listed as authors under any circumstances. Responsibility for the scientific accuracy, originality, and ethical integrity of the manuscript remains entirely with the human authors.

6. Data Availability and Transparency

JSTI encourages authors to make their research data available to support transparency and reproducibility. Where possible, raw data, code, and supplementary materials should be deposited in an appropriate public repository (e.g., OSF, Zenodo, GitHub) and a Data Availability Statement should be included in the manuscript, specifying where data can be accessed.

If data cannot be made publicly available due to privacy, ethical, or legal reasons, authors must explain this in the manuscript.

7. Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers must:

  • Maintain strict confidentiality of the manuscript contents and the review process
  • Provide objective, specific, and constructive feedback
  • Declare any conflicts of interest before accepting a review assignment
  • Refrain from using unpublished information or ideas from the manuscript for personal benefit
  • Complete reviews within the agreed timeline or promptly notify the editorial office if they are unable to do so
  • Decline review invitations if they have a conflict of interest or lack sufficient expertise

8. Editorial Responsibilities

Editors are responsible for:

  • Ensuring fair, unbiased, and timely review of all submissions
  • Making decisions based solely on academic merit, regardless of the author's identity, institution, or nationality
  • Protecting the integrity and confidentiality of the peer-review process
  • Declaring and managing their own conflicts of interest
  • Maintaining accurate records of all editorial decisions

Editorial decisions are independent of the publisher. The publisher does not influence editorial judgements or peer-review outcomes.

9. Corrections and Retractions

If significant errors or ethical issues are identified after publication, JSTI will take appropriate corrective action:

  • Corrections — issued for honest errors that do not affect the conclusions of the article
  • Expressions of Concern — issued when there is uncertainty about the integrity of the work and an investigation is ongoing
  • Retractions — issued when the research is found to be fundamentally flawed, fraudulent, or in serious violation of publication ethics

All corrections and retractions are published openly and linked to the original article. Authors are invited to participate in the correction process.

10. Special Considerations for Student Authors

As an educational academic journal, JSTI recognizes that some authors may be first-time or emerging researchers. The journal encourages transparency and responsible research practice, and supports mentorship and guidance from supervising teachers and advisors. Mentors are expected to model and reinforce ethical research behaviour for student authors.