Studies in Science of
Science：Publication Academic Ethics and Malpractice Statement
In order to strengthen S&T ethics implementation, promote research integrity, and maintain the seriousness and reputation of academic activities, Studies in Science of Science (Print ISSN 1003-2053, CN 11-1805/G3, published bi-monthly) is now making the following statement on the subject of ethical behavior standards, which all editors, editorial staff, authors, reviewers and publishers who are involved in the publishing process must follow.
1. Editorial
Responsibility
Confidentiality agreement: For a submission involving confidential
matters, the authors take on all the liability. They may request the exclusion
of particular reviewers, which will be considered by the editors. Editors and
editorial staff are required to keep confidential all information of the peer
reviewers and submitted manuscripts.
Preliminary review of the manuscript: For a new user, please create an account
and submit a manuscript following the guidance. The editorial office will send the
authors an acknowledgement letter within two weeks. If the
authors have not received any notification 6 months after submission, they can handle the manuscript by
themselves and inform the editorial office of the situation. Duplicate
submission is forbidden.
Manuscript peer-review: A manuscript will be peer reviewed by at least two
parallel experts. Given no conflicts of interest, a decision will be made in
the light of at least two review reports with objectivity and impartiality.
Article copyright: The authors will need to complete and return the
Copyright Transfer Statement before manuscript publication. Editors and
editorial staff reserve the right to amend the submitted manuscripts and own the
copyright of published manuscripts.
Proofreading before printing: Page proofs will be sent to the
corresponding author. To avoid publication delay, corrections must be returned
within one week. The author is liable for all changes rather than typesetting
errors.
For an accurate understanding of the scientific content, you may want to ask a
native speaker to help you with paper preparation prior to submission.
Academic ethics regulation: All editorial board members and editorial
staff are required to supervise the implementation of academic ethics to ensure
non-commercial and non-profit submissions, logical and reliable arguments, sufficient
scientific evidence, etc., by upholding academic ethics regulations.
Archiving: The editorial office is responsible for the long-term online
access via the journal website. Archiving of all published articles would always
be available.
2. Reviewer Responsibility
Objective standard of review: We ask reviewers to avoid statements that
may cause needless offence. Reviewers are required to offer sufficient evidence
and clear arguments to make review reports objective and impartial.
Manuscript confidentiality: To keep confidential all details of review
results, manuscript information must not be disclosed or discussed without the
Editor-in-Chief’s knowledge.
The efficiency of review: To guarantee rapid peer review, reviewers are
required to return review reports within an agreed time limit. If they anticipate
a longer delay or cannot make full and fair review, we ask them to let us know
as soon as possible.
Reference confirmation: To verify the correctness and originality of a
manuscript, peer reviewers are required to check reference citations throughout
a manuscript, as well as its similarity with published articles. Any suspected manuscripts
should be reported.
Avoid conflict or relationship with a manuscript: To avoid conflicts of
interest, Studies in Science of Science requires reviewers to disclose any competing interests before starting to assess
a paper. The review process will be immediately terminated once a competing/cooperative
relationship, or any kind of relation between the authors and reviewers is
disclosed. If such conflict and relationship are deliberately hidden or disclosed
by a third party, the reviewers will be given a warning or a lifetime ban on reviewing
or public disclosure, as well as other sanctions according to the case
seriousness.
3. Author Responsibility
Submission agreement: The authors submitting
to Studies in Science of Science will
be considered of voluntary compliance of all journal regulations. They may
appeal against the review results, but should not make any attempt to determine
the identities of reviewers.
Academic standardization: A manuscript should be well organized and written
concisely and clearly, with innovative and informative content supported by
reliable data and logical arguments. The use of measurement units, numbers, punctuation,
etc. should comply with the relevant rules.
Originality: Only articles that have not been published previously will be
accepted. The following acts of misconduct are strictly forbidden: duplicate
submission; repeat submission (including submission in different categories);
plagiarism. A manuscript with any such act will be rejected, and its author
will be blacklisted. The editorial office will also inform the institutions of
the authors as well as other relevant professional journals. The authors are
liable for the confidential matters involved in manuscripts.
Reviewer recommendation: The corresponding author is invited to recommend
no more than five qualified reviewers with a title of associate professor or
above. The recommended reviewers and authors should neither come from the same institution,
nor have a close personal relationship or a cooperative relationship.
Revising or withdrawing manuscript: Before publishing, the authors are
allowed to revise their drafts but required to inform the editors of those corrections
promptly. Let editors have all your corrections within two months after the
review process. Note that the editors may consider a manuscript withdrawn if they
cannot have manuscripts returned in six months without any explanation.
Copyright transfer agreement: The copyright of a manuscript belongs to the
authors who take full responsibility for their own writings. In order to
guarantee the authorship and intellectual property, all authors should complete
and return the "Copyright Transfer Statement" prior to paper publishing.
Editors and editorial staff have the right to amend submitted manuscript sand own
the copyright of published manuscripts. Once published, a manuscript will automatically have its copyright transferred
to the journal, including but not limited to electronic publishing, multimedia
publishing, and web publishing.
Fees: The authors will be notified of
publishing charge prior to paper publishing.
References: The authors should cite and list all the references and clarify
financial supports of the manuscript to avoid conflicts of interest.
4.Plagiarism check
Publisher and editors use AMLC（https://check7.cnki.net/amlc2/） to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred; in no event shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place; in the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations appropriately; the journal should have available guidelines for retracting or correcting articles when needed; and finally publishers and editors should always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.