Publication Ethics

Policy commitment

Eldran Academic Press is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record and to handling ethical concerns consistently, proportionately and without retaliation. Our procedures are informed by recognised scholarly-publishing guidance, including COPE principles and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Following these frameworks does not imply membership in any organisation unless membership is separately confirmed on our website.

COPE publication-ethics guidance: https://publicationethics.org/ ↗

Author responsibilities

• Originality: submissions must represent original scholarly work. Text, data, images, code and ideas taken from other sources must be appropriately quoted, cited, licensed or otherwise authorised.

• Exclusive consideration: authors must disclose if substantially the same manuscript is under consideration elsewhere. Duplicate or redundant publication must be disclosed and justified where legitimate secondary publication is proposed.

• Accurate reporting: fabrication, falsification, selective manipulation of results, deceptive image alteration and deliberate misrepresentation of methods or findings are prohibited.

• Authorship: listed authors must have made a meaningful contribution, approved the submitted/final version and accepted accountability for their contribution. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged where appropriate.

• Author changes: requests to add, remove or reorder authors must explain the reason and normally include written agreement from all affected authors. Post-publication authorship changes may require a formal correction and, for unresolved disputes, institutional input.

• Conflicts of interest: authors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the work, including relevant employment, consultancies, ownership interests, patents, funding, close collaborations or personal relationships.

• Funding: all material funding and sponsor involvement must be declared, including the sponsor’s role in study design, analysis, manuscript preparation and publication decisions.

• Data and materials: where ethically and legally possible, authors should preserve underlying research records and provide sufficient information for verification or reproducibility. Restrictions on sharing must be explained.

Human participants, animals and sensitive research

Research involving human participants, identifiable personal information, human biological material, animals, vulnerable groups or other regulated activities must comply with applicable laws, institutional requirements and recognised disciplinary standards. Authors must identify the relevant ethics approval or exemption where required and provide approval details when requested. Informed consent for participation and, where relevant, publication of identifiable information must be obtained and documented.

Editors may request protocols, ethics approval letters, consent documentation, trial registration information or other supporting evidence. Ethical approval does not automatically make a study publishable, and absence of a formal approval requirement does not remove the obligation to conduct research responsibly.

Plagiarism, text recycling and citation practices

Every submitted manuscript must undergo plagiarism and text-similarity screening and an AI-writing check before external peer review. Eldran uses a licensed Turnitin or iThenticate service for these mandatory checks. Similarity and AI indicators are evidence for human editorial assessment; no score alone establishes misconduct or determines an editorial decision. Editors assess the nature, extent and context of any flagged material.

Turnitin Similarity ↗

iThenticate ↗

Authors must not manipulate citations to inflate metrics, satisfy coercive citation requests or create misleading scholarly connections. Editors and reviewers must not request citations primarily to increase citations to themselves, the journal or affiliated publications.

Images, figures and digital content

Adjustments to images must not create, remove, move or obscure features in a way that misrepresents the data. Global adjustments may be acceptable when applied consistently and described where relevant. Editors may request original, uncropped or higher-resolution source files where image integrity is in question.

Use of generative AI and automated tools

• AI systems cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility, approve publication, manage conflicts of interest or be accountable for the work.

• Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including factual accuracy, citations, permissions, confidentiality and originality. Material use of generative AI in drafting, analysis, coding, image generation or other research/publishing tasks must be transparently disclosed when it affects interpretation or reproducibility. Routine spelling, grammar or formatting assistance need not be disclosed unless a journal says otherwise.

• Reviewers and editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts, confidential correspondence, reviewer identities or sensitive data into external generative-AI services unless the Publisher has explicitly approved that service for confidential editorial use and appropriate data-protection safeguards are in place.

Editor responsibilities

• Editors must protect confidentiality, declare conflicts, apply journal criteria consistently, select suitable reviewers and document material editorial decisions.

• An editor handling their own work, the work of close collaborators, or work presenting another significant conflict must be recused. An independent editor manages the file without access to the conflicted editor’s influence.

• Editors must not exploit unpublished information for personal research, financial benefit, competitive advantage or to disadvantage others.

Reviewer responsibilities

• Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have suitable expertise, can meet the deadline and can provide an impartial review.

• Review material is confidential. Reviewers must not contact authors directly or share manuscripts with others without editorial permission.

• Reviewers must declare relevant competing interests and must not use privileged information obtained through peer review.

• Reviews should be evidence-based, specific and professional. Personal attacks, discriminatory remarks, demands for irrelevant citations and coercive authorship are unacceptable.

Suspected misconduct and sanctions

When credible concerns arise, the Publisher may request explanations or source materials, seek specialist advice, contact institutions or funders when appropriate, pause peer review or publication, reject or retract work, correct the record, restrict future submissions for a defined period, or take other proportionate action. The Publisher does not determine criminal or employment liability and may refer matters to bodies with appropriate investigative authority.