Ethical Statement

1. Purpose, Scope, and Policy Framework

These Ethics Statement establish the publisher-wide standards of research integrity and publication ethics for journals published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education (CCSE). They apply to authors, editors, editorial-board members, guest editors, reviewers, journal staff, the publisher, and other participants in the publication process. They apply to all published content, including regular articles, invited content, special issues, supplements, editorials, corrections, and other notices.

CCSE and its journals are guided by the current COPE Code of Conduct, relevant COPE guidance, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME. These standards provide the principal ethical and procedural framework for this policy. Where appropriate, journals also apply discipline-specific standards such as the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Declaration of Helsinki, CONSORT, ARRIVE, PRISMA, STROBE, CARE, and other relevant reporting or ethical guidelines.

1.1 Coverage of Core Publication-Ethics Areas

This policy addresses the principal areas of publication ethics covered by current COPE standards and guidance. CCSE journals maintain publicly documented policies and workable procedures concerning:

Allegations of misconduct: receiving, assessing, investigating, referring, and responding to concerns before and after publication.
Authorship and contributorship: transparent criteria, contributor recognition, author-order changes, and dispute handling.
Complaints and appeals: fair, timely, independent, and non-retaliatory review of complaints and editorial appeals.
Conflicts of interest / competing interests: disclosure and management of relevant interests affecting authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher.
Data and reproducibility: integrity, availability, retention, transparency, and reproducibility of data, materials, methods, code, and research records.
Ethical oversight: protection of human participants, animals, vulnerable populations, privacy, confidentiality, biosafety, and other ethical concerns.
Intellectual property: originality, plagiarism, copyright, permissions, licensing, attribution, and responsible citation.
Journal management: editorial independence, governance, training, transparency, security, recordkeeping, and responsible business practices.
Peer review processes: confidentiality, competence, impartiality, transparency, integrity, and protection against manipulation.
Post-publication discussions and corrections: mechanisms for raising concerns and for correcting, retracting, or otherwise updating the scholarly record.

1.2 Application of COPE Guidance

When a publication-ethics question is not fully resolved by this policy, CCSE and the journal will consult the current COPE Code of Conduct, guidelines, flowcharts, discussion documents, and case-based recommendations relevant to the circumstances. COPE materials will be used as recognized procedural guidance and adapted, where necessary, to the journal’s discipline, the available evidence, applicable law, contractual duties, and the rights of affected persons.

Ethical concerns will be handled consistently, confidentially, impartially, and without unnecessary delay. A person who is materially conflicted must not control the assessment or decision.
Affected parties will normally receive sufficient notice of the concern and a reasonable opportunity to respond, subject to confidentiality, legal, safety, and evidence-preservation requirements.
Journals assess the reliability of submitted and published content but do not replace the formal investigative authority of research institutions, employers, funders, ethics committees, regulators, or courts. Matters requiring institutional fact-finding may be referred to the appropriate body.
The journal may take interim or final editorial action when necessary to protect readers and the scholarly record, even when an external investigation is pending, delayed, inconclusive, or unavailable.
Reference to COPE means that CCSE uses COPE standards and resources as guidance. It must not be represented as evidence of COPE membership, certification, approval, or endorsement unless such status has been independently verified and is current.

1.3 Policy Hierarchy

These statements provide a minimum publisher-wide standard. A journal may adopt more detailed requirements for its discipline or article types, but journal-specific policies must not reduce the standards of integrity, transparency, accountability, editorial independence, or protection of research participants stated here. These Ethics Statement should be read together with the applicable journal’s Publication Policies, Author Guide, Peer Review Policy, and other published requirements.

2. Core Principles and Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions must protect the reliability of the scholarly record and be based on scholarly merit, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal, and quality of reporting.

Editorial decisions must not be determined by an author’s nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, political beliefs, institutional affiliation, commercial relationships, ability to pay, or access to a waiver or discount.
The source of journal revenue, including article processing charges, sponsorship, advertising, reprints, or other services, must not influence peer review, acceptance, rejection, correction, retraction, or other editorial action.
Editors must have authority over editorial content and must be protected from commercial, political, institutional, or personal interference.
All parties must act honestly, professionally, transparently, and respectfully and must promptly disclose errors, conflicts, or concerns that could affect the integrity of the work or the publication process.
Policies declared by the journal must be applied in practice. The publisher and journal are responsible for keeping website information accurate, current, and consistent with published content.

3. Duties of the Publisher

CCSE serves as guardian of the scholarly record and supports editors and reviewers in applying these standards.

Maintain editorial independence and ensure that business considerations do not compromise editorial decisions.
Provide appropriate systems, staffing, training, and procedures for peer review, research-integrity checks, complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, preservation, and metadata maintenance.
Protect confidential manuscript, reviewer, author, and investigation information and process personal data in accordance with applicable privacy and data-protection requirements.
Support editors in responding to credible concerns and, where appropriate, communicate with authors, reviewers, institutions, funders, ethics bodies, other journals, or relevant authorities.
Publish corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, or other notices when necessary and preserve a transparent record of changes.
Ensure that special issues, supplements, sponsored content, and publisher-owned or editor-authored submissions are subject to appropriate independent oversight.
Avoid misleading claims concerning indexing, metrics, acceptance, review speed, editorial-board membership, fees, or guaranteed publication.

4. Duties of Editors

Editors are responsible for the integrity, fairness, quality, and timeliness of the editorial process and for the content they approve for publication.

Evaluate manuscripts within the journal’s stated scope and on their scholarly and ethical merits.
Arrange appropriate external peer review for primary research and for other content where external review is required by journal policy. Exceptions must be transparent.
Select reviewers with suitable expertise and reasonable independence; consider relevant conflicts, workload, timeliness, and the need for methodological or statistical review.
Make the final editorial decision independently. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and must not be converted mechanically into acceptance or rejection solely through scores or vote counting.
Protect confidentiality, avoid using unpublished information for personal advantage, and prevent unauthorized access to submissions and reviews.
Disclose and manage editorial conflicts. Editors must not handle manuscripts in which they, close collaborators, family members, institutional colleagues, or parties with whom they have a significant conflict are involved.
Be alert to plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, image or data manipulation, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, paper-mill activity, and other misconduct.
Avoid coercive citation requests. Suggestions to cite additional work must be academically justified and must not be used to increase citations to the editor, reviewer, journal, or publisher.
Respond to credible concerns before or after publication and follow fair procedures that give affected parties an opportunity to respond.
Correct the scholarly record promptly when errors or misconduct are established or when reliable conclusions cannot be maintained.

5. Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers contribute to editorial decisions and help authors improve their work. Acceptance of a review invitation confirms a commitment to confidentiality, objectivity, competence, and timely performance.

Decline the invitation or consult the editor when the manuscript is outside the reviewer’s expertise, the review cannot be completed on time, or a conflict may impair impartiality.
Treat the manuscript, supplementary files, review report, editorial correspondence, and identities learned through review as confidential.
Do not share the manuscript, contact the authors, delegate the review, or involve another person without prior permission from the editor. Approved co-reviewers must be identified so that their contribution can be recognized and conflicts can be assessed.
Provide specific, constructive, evidence-based comments. Personal criticism, hostile language, discriminatory remarks, harassment, and unsupported allegations are unacceptable.
Disclose financial, institutional, collaborative, competitive, personal, ideological, or other interests that could reasonably be perceived to affect the review.
Do not use unpublished ideas, data, methods, code, images, or other information obtained through peer review for personal, professional, or commercial advantage.
Alert the editor to suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, manipulated data or images, unethical research, undisclosed conflicts, inappropriate citations, or other integrity concerns, while avoiding direct accusations to the authors.
Recommend citations only when they are genuinely relevant. Reviewers must not pressure authors to cite the reviewer’s own work, the journal, or unrelated literature.
Comply with the journal’s artificial-intelligence policy. Confidential submissions must not be uploaded to an unauthorized AI system.

6. Duties of Authors

Authors are responsible for the integrity, originality, accuracy, transparency, and ethical compliance of the work they submit and publish.

Present an accurate account of the work and an objective interpretation of its significance. Fabricated, falsified, selectively reported, or knowingly misleading statements are prohibited.
Submit original work and appropriately quote, cite, and obtain permission for the words, ideas, data, images, instruments, software, or other material of others.
Do not submit the same or substantially overlapping manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Prior dissemination, related manuscripts, preprints, theses, conference papers, translations, or secondary publications must be disclosed.
Ensure that all listed authors qualify for authorship, all qualified authors are included, all authors approve the submitted and final versions, and all authors agree to be accountable for the work.
Obtain all required ethics approvals, registrations, permits, permissions, and informed consents before conducting and publishing the research, and report them accurately in the manuscript.
Disclose all relevant competing interests, funding sources, grant numbers, sponsor roles, and other relationships that could influence or appear to influence the work.
Retain and, when appropriately requested, provide the data, code, source files, ethics documentation, permissions, or other records needed to verify the work, subject to lawful restrictions.
Promptly notify the journal of material errors discovered during review or after publication and cooperate with corrections, investigations, and other necessary actions.

7. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must reflect substantial intellectual contribution and accountability. CCSE encourages transparent contributor statements using the CRediT taxonomy or another journal-approved framework.

Each author should have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; creation of software or methods; or another substantive scholarly component; should participate in drafting or critically revising the work; should approve the final version; and should accept accountability for their contribution and the integrity of the work.
Gift, guest, honorary, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Individuals who provide language editing, administrative support, technical assistance, funding acquisition, or other non-author contributions should be acknowledged with their permission.
The corresponding author must be authorized to act for all authors, ensure that all authors receive relevant communications, and confirm the accuracy of authorship, affiliations, contributions, disclosures, and approvals.
Artificial intelligence systems, language models, software tools, and organizations who cannot meet accountability requirements must not be listed as authors.
A deceased contributor may be retained as an author when the contributor satisfied the applicable authorship criteria before death. The corresponding author must confirm the deceased author’s contribution, and the publication should identify the author as deceased. Responsibility for final approval and post-publication communication must be assumed by the surviving authors.
Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission require a clear explanation and written agreement from all affected authors. Changes after acceptance or publication are permitted only in exceptional circumstances and may require institutional review and a formal correction notice.
Authorship disputes that cannot be resolved by the authors may be referred to the relevant institution. The journal may pause review or publication while the dispute is assessed.

8. Originality, Prior Publication, and Plagiarism

CCSE journals may use similarity-detection software, including iThenticate, together with editorial assessment. A similarity percentage is a screening indicator and is not, by itself, a finding of plagiarism or misconduct.

Plagiarism includes presenting another person’s text, ideas, data, images, code, structure, translation, or other intellectual work without appropriate attribution or permission.
Duplicate or redundant publication includes publishing substantially the same findings or analysis more than once without transparent cross-reference, justification, and permission where required.
Text recycling or self-overlap is evaluated in context. Limited reuse of standard methodological wording may be acceptable when unavoidable and transparent; recycled results, interpretation, or substantial narrative may require revision, citation, rejection, correction, or retraction.
Posting a manuscript as a preprint or including work in a thesis or dissertation does not normally constitute prior journal publication, provided the prior version is disclosed and the journal’s policy is followed.
Translations, secondary publications, replications, updates, registered reports, protocols, or extended conference papers may be considered only when the relationship to prior work is fully disclosed and the new publication has legitimate scholarly value.
Submission through a paper mill, undisclosed sale or purchase of authorship, fabricated peer review, or other third-party manipulation is prohibited.

9. Research Integrity: Data, Images, and Research Records

Research findings must be supported by authentic, accurately represented, and appropriately documented evidence.

Fabrication is the creation of data or results that did not occur. Falsification includes manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, images, code, or data, or omitting information so that the research is misrepresented. Both are prohibited.
Images must not be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced in a way that misrepresents the original evidence. Adjustments applied to an entire image may be acceptable when they improve clarity without altering interpretation and are described when relevant.
Splicing, rearrangement, selective presentation, or reuse of image elements must be scientifically justified, visually indicated where appropriate, and explained in the figure legend or methods.
Authors should retain original data, unprocessed images, laboratory or field records, code, instruments, questionnaires, consent documentation, and other relevant materials for the period required by law, institutions, funders, and disciplinary standards.
Editors may request source data, original images, code, ethics documentation, or other evidence for confidential examination. Failure to provide a reasonable explanation or supporting records may affect the editorial decision or lead to post-publication action.
Honest error should be distinguished from misconduct, but errors that affect the reliability or interpretation of the work must still be corrected transparently.

10. Citation and Reference Integrity

Citations should accurately acknowledge relevant prior work and allow readers to locate and evaluate the sources used.

Authors should cite primary and directly relevant sources, accurately represent the cited work, and avoid citing sources they have not verified.
References must not be fabricated, generated without verification, or included solely to satisfy an editor, reviewer, author group, institution, journal, or citation cartel.
Excessive self-citation, coordinated citation exchange, citation stacking, coercive citation, and irrelevant citation intended to manipulate metrics are prohibited.
Editors and reviewers may recommend additional citations only for a legitimate scholarly reason and should explain the relevance where it may not be obvious.
Authors must cite datasets, software, protocols, preprints, standards, and other research outputs when they materially support the work and a citable record is available.

11. Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Human participants in the publication process remain fully responsible for all decisions, statements, analyses, citations, and content produced with or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI). AI tools must support, not replace, human scholarly judgment and accountability.

11.1 Authors

AI tools must not be listed or cited as authors or co-authors because authorship requires human accountability, approval, consent, and responsibility.
Authors may use AI tools for permitted tasks such as language improvement, literature organization, coding assistance, data analysis, or development of explanatory diagrams, provided the use is lawful, ethically appropriate, methodologically valid, and consistent with journal instructions.
Substantive use of generative AI in manuscript preparation must be disclosed in a separate statement that identifies the tool, purpose, and nature and extent of use. Routine non-generative spelling, grammar, and formatting checks generally do not require disclosure unless otherwise required.
Use of AI as part of the research method, data analysis, coding, modeling, or generation of synthetic data must be described in the Methods or equivalent section with sufficient detail to permit evaluation and, where possible, reproducibility.
Authors must independently verify AI-assisted output for factual accuracy, completeness, bias, originality, permissions, and citation validity. Invented or unverifiable references and unsupported claims are prohibited.
Authors must not upload confidential, identifiable, proprietary, copyrighted, embargoed, or otherwise restricted information to an AI service unless they have legal and ethical authority and the service provides adequate privacy and intellectual-property protection.
AI tools must not be used to create or alter images that represent primary research evidence, including microscopy images, gels, blots, diagnostic images, or participant images. AI-assisted explanatory figures may be permitted when clearly disclosed and when they do not misrepresent evidence.

11.2 Reviewers and editors

Submitted manuscripts and peer-review materials are confidential. Reviewers and editors must not upload them to a public, consumer, or otherwise non-private AI system.
Use of an AI tool in review or editorial assessment is permitted only when expressly authorized by the journal, the tool meets applicable confidentiality and data-protection requirements, and the user discloses the use as required.
AI may support administrative screening or quality-control tasks but must not make the final editorial decision. Human editors remain responsible for fairness, accuracy, confidentiality, and the decision record.
Undisclosed or inappropriate AI use may result in reassignment, rejection of a review, removal from the editorial process, manuscript rejection, correction, retraction, or another proportionate action.

12. Human Participants, Informed Consent, and Privacy

Research involving human participants, their data, or biological materials must comply with applicable laws, institutional requirements, and recognized ethical principles, including the Declaration of Helsinki where applicable.

The manuscript must identify the approving ethics committee or institutional review board and provide the approval number or identifier where available. If approval was exempted or not required, the manuscript must explain the basis for the exemption.
Informed consent must be obtained without coercion from participants or their legally authorized representatives when required. The manuscript must state how consent was obtained.
Consent to participate is distinct from consent to publish identifiable information. Written consent for publication must be obtained for case details, images, audio, video, quotations, or other information from which an individual could reasonably be identified.
Authors must protect privacy and confidentiality, minimize the collection and disclosure of identifiable information, and comply with applicable data-protection laws and consent terms.
Research involving children, persons lacking decision-making capacity, Indigenous peoples, refugees, displaced persons, prisoners, economically or educationally disadvantaged groups, or other vulnerable populations requires additional safeguards and culturally appropriate engagement where relevant.
Survey, interview, observational, educational, social-media, and online-community research may require ethics review and consent even when no medical intervention is involved. Authors are responsible for determining and documenting the applicable requirements.
The journal may request evidence of approval or consent but authors should not submit identifiable consent forms unless specifically requested through a secure process.

13. Animal Research and Welfare

Research involving animals must be ethically justified, conducted humanely, approved by the appropriate body when required, and reported in accordance with applicable laws and recognized standards such as ARRIVE or a national equivalent.

The manuscript must identify the approving animal ethics or welfare body and provide the approval number where available. Exemptions or absence of a formal approval requirement must be explained.
Authors should apply the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement, minimize pain and distress, use appropriate anesthesia, analgesia, humane endpoints, and methods of euthanasia, and justify the species and number of animals used.
The sex of animals and, where relevant, its influence on the design or results should be reported.
Studies involving client-owned animals should obtain owner consent where appropriate and follow accepted standards of veterinary care.
Research involving wildlife, endangered species, field collection, transport, or genetic resources must comply with relevant permits, conservation requirements, and access-and-benefit-sharing obligations.

14. Clinical Trials and Reporting Guidelines

Clinical trials and other prospectively assigned health-related intervention studies should be registered in a publicly accessible registry within the timeframe required by the journal, discipline, law, funder, or applicable standard.

The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported. Late registration must be explained and may affect editorial consideration.
Protocols, primary outcomes, sample size, statistical analysis plans, and material deviations from registration or protocol must be reported transparently.
Authors must follow relevant reporting guidelines and submit completed checklists when requested, including CONSORT for randomized trials, SPIRIT for protocols, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STROBE for observational studies, CARE for case reports, ARRIVE for animal research, and other discipline-specific standards.
Negative, inconclusive, or confirmatory findings should be reported honestly. Selective outcome reporting and suppression of results are unacceptable.
Where applicable, authors should describe participant sex and gender correctly and explain whether demographic variables were considered in study design and analysis.

15. Biosafety, Dual-Use, and Other Sensitive Research

Authors and editors must consider whether publication could create a serious and unjustified risk to people, animals, communities, cultural heritage, the environment, or public security.

Research involving hazardous chemicals, pathogens, toxins, radiation, genetically modified organisms, controlled technologies, or dangerous procedures must comply with relevant approvals, containment standards, permits, and safety requirements.
Dual-use research of concern, security-sensitive methods, or information that could materially enable harm may require additional review, limited methodological detail, controlled access, or non-publication. Any restriction should be proportionate and documented.
Research involving Indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge, sacred or restricted information, cultural heritage, archaeological sites, or community-owned data should respect community permissions, governance principles, attribution, benefit sharing, and restrictions on disclosure.
Authors must disclose permits and legal compliance for fieldwork, collection, export, import, sampling, biodiversity research, and access to protected locations or resources.
The journal may seek independent advice when the risks or ethical implications exceed the expertise of the handling editor.

16. Competing Interests and Funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived to influence their work or judgment. Competing interests may be financial or non-financial.

Relevant interests may include employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, litigation, grants, sponsorship, advisory roles, personal or professional relationships, academic competition, advocacy, or strongly held intellectual commitments.
Authors must include a competing-interests statement in every manuscript, including a statement that no competing interests exist when applicable.
All financial and material support must be identified, including funder names and grant numbers where applicable. The role of the funder or sponsor in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to publish must be stated.
Reviewers must disclose potential conflicts before accepting the invitation and should recuse themselves when impartiality may reasonably be questioned.
Editors must not participate in decisions on manuscripts affected by their conflicts and must arrange independent handling.
Failure to disclose a relevant interest may lead to reassignment, revision, rejection, correction, retraction, removal from an editorial role, or another appropriate action.

17. Research Data, Materials, Code, and Reproducibility

CCSE supports transparency, verification, responsible reuse, and appropriate credit for research data and other outputs, while recognizing legitimate ethical, legal, contractual, cultural, security, and privacy restrictions.

Manuscripts should include a Data Availability Statement using the journal’s approved wording, including when data are openly available, included in the article or supplementary files, available on reasonable request, restricted, or not applicable.
Where sharing is appropriate, authors should use a trusted repository that provides persistent identifiers, access conditions, versioning, and preservation.
Data, code, protocols, materials, instruments, and software should be described with enough detail to permit evaluation and, where feasible, replication or reuse.
Restrictions on access must be explained without disclosing protected information. “Available on request” should not be used when the authors know that access cannot reasonably be provided.
Datasets and software should be cited as research outputs when they materially support the work. Authors must respect licences, consent terms, data-use agreements, Indigenous data governance, and intellectual-property rights.
Editors may request supporting records for confidential verification. Unreasonable refusal, missing records, or discrepancies may affect the decision or trigger post-publication review.

18. Peer Review Integrity and Manipulation

Peer review must be genuine, independent, confidential, and free from manipulation. Each journal must publicly describe its peer-review model and any content that is not externally peer reviewed.

Primary research articles must normally receive external peer review by suitably qualified reviewers. Editorials, letters, book reviews, or other article types may follow a different process when transparently described.
Authors may suggest reviewers when permitted, but suggestions are advisory. Authors must provide accurate identities and institutional contact information and must disclose relationships that could affect independence.
Fabricated reviewer identities, false email accounts, impersonation, review rings, reciprocal reviewing arrangements, coercion, bribery, unauthorized access, or interference with reviewer selection are prohibited.
Reviewers must not accept assignments obtained through deception and must not transfer an invitation or submit a review written by another person without approval.
Editors must assess unusual review patterns, implausibly rapid reports, repeated wording, undisclosed relationships, inappropriate citation demands, or other indicators of compromised review.
Compromised peer review may lead to rejection, withdrawal of acceptance, re-review, correction, retraction, removal of reviewers or editors, and notification of relevant institutions or services.

19. Editorial Conflicts and Submissions by Editors

Editors, editorial-board members, journal staff, and publisher employees may submit work to a journal only when the journal can provide independent and transparent handling.

The conflicted person must have no access to reviewer identities, reviews, editorial deliberations, or the decision beyond what is normally available to an author.
An independent editor with no relevant conflict must oversee reviewer selection and make the decision. The arrangement should be disclosed in the published article when appropriate.
Manuscripts from the editor’s institution, close collaborators, family members, or others with whom the editor has a significant relationship must be reassigned.
Editors must not use their position to pressure authors to cite their work, accept editorial preferences unrelated to quality, purchase services, or submit to special issues.
Publisher employees and owners must not override a legitimate editorial decision for commercial or personal reasons.

20. Special Issues, Supplements, and Guest Editors

Special issues, supplements, conference collections, and invited series are subject to the same standards of peer review, research integrity, transparency, and editorial independence as regular content.

The journal must identify guest editors, their affiliations, and their responsibilities. Relevant conflicts and relationships with organizers, sponsors, or authors must be managed.
The journal’s Editor-in-Chief or designated senior editor retains oversight and accountability for the process and final content.
Guest editors must not handle their own manuscripts or those of close collaborators or institutional colleagues when independence could reasonably be questioned.
Special issues must not have acceptance quotas, guaranteed publication, reduced ethical scrutiny, or reviewer standards lower than those of regular issues.
Sponsors may not control reviewer selection, editorial decisions, interpretation, or the wording of conclusions. Funding and sponsorship must be disclosed.
The journal may cancel, restructure, or independently re-review a collection when guest-editor conduct, peer review, scope, or integrity is compromised.

21. Allegations of Misconduct and Investigations

CCSE journals assess credible allegations of research or publication misconduct before and after publication. Concerns may be raised by authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, funders, editors, staff, or other parties. The journal will use the current COPE guidance and flowcharts appropriate to the concern, including guidance for concerns raised before publication, concerns about published work, suspected fabricated data, plagiarism, authorship problems, peer-review manipulation, and systematic or paper-mill activity.

Concerns should identify the journal, manuscript or article, the issue, supporting evidence, and any relevant prior communications. Anonymous concerns may be considered when sufficiently specific and supported.
The journal will conduct an initial assessment to determine whether the matter falls within its responsibility and whether further information is needed.
Affected parties will normally be informed of the concern and given a reasonable opportunity to respond. The journal will avoid public accusations while the matter is unresolved.
Information will be handled confidentially as far as practicable, but may be shared when necessary for a fair assessment, safeguarding, legal compliance, or communication with institutions, funders, ethics bodies, other journals, or authorities.
The journal evaluates the reliability and publication status of the scholarly record; institutions generally determine whether their researchers committed misconduct. The journal may act on the publication record before an institutional process is completed when evidence or risk justifies action.
Good-faith complainants, reviewers, authors, editors, and staff must not be subjected to retaliation. Knowingly false, malicious, or harassing allegations may themselves be addressed.
Investigations will follow relevant COPE guidance and will be documented sufficiently to support consistent and reviewable decisions.
A concern may be raised anonymously. The journal will assess the specificity, credibility, evidence, and potential seriousness of the information rather than dismissing it solely because the source is unidentified.
The initial assessment will distinguish, where possible, between an honest error, a difference in scholarly interpretation, a questionable research or publication practice, and possible misconduct. This classification may change as evidence develops.
Relevant evidence and communications will be preserved. Authors, reviewers, editors, and other involved persons must not destroy, alter, conceal, or fabricate records relevant to an inquiry.
When institutional investigation is appropriate, the journal may provide documented concerns to the author’s institution, employer, funder, ethics body, or another competent authority and request a sufficiently informative outcome. The journal remains responsible for deciding what editorial action is needed for the manuscript or article.
A conclusion or editorial action will be based on the evidence reasonably available to the journal. Lack of cooperation, unexplained inconsistencies, inability to produce underlying records, or an external body’s failure to respond may be considered but will not automatically establish misconduct.

22. Corrections, Retractions, and Other Post-Publication Actions

CCSE is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scholarly record. Post-publication action depends on the nature, extent, and effect of the problem. Decisions will be guided by the current COPE Retraction Guidelines and other applicable COPE post-publication guidance. The purpose of a retraction or correction is to protect and correct the literature, not to punish authors.

Minor typographical or production errors that do not affect interpretation may be corrected in place or through a documented update, depending on journal practice.
A formal correction is appropriate when an error affects part of the article, its metadata, authorship, analysis, or interpretation but the work remains substantially reliable.
An addendum may provide important information that supplements rather than corrects the article. It must be linked to the article and clearly identified.
An expression of concern may be issued when there is substantial uncertainty about an article and an investigation is incomplete, inconclusive, or unreasonably delayed.
Retraction may be required when findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct; when the article is plagiarized or redundantly published; when peer review or authorship was manipulated; when the research was unethical; or when other serious grounds make the publication unreliable or improper.
Removal of the full text is exceptional and is considered only when continued display presents a serious legal, privacy, safety, or public-health risk. Bibliographic information and an explanatory notice should remain whenever legally possible.
Post-publication notices must be freely accessible, identify the affected article, state who initiated the action, explain the reason without defamatory or unsupported statements, and be linked to and from the article. The original record must not be silently replaced.
Withdrawal before publication does not prevent investigation or other action. After publication, an author request to withdraw is handled through the applicable correction, retraction, or removal policy rather than deletion of the record.
The wording and form of a notice will be proportionate to the evidence and will distinguish, where supportable, between honest error and misconduct. The journal will avoid speculative, defamatory, or unnecessarily punitive language.
Retraction may proceed without the agreement of every author. Any author disagreement may be stated accurately in the notice, but disagreement alone does not prevent the journal from correcting the record.

23. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, editors, and other stakeholders may submit a complaint about process, conduct, policy application, research integrity, fees, or a published article, or may appeal an editorial decision on a specific procedural or scholarly basis. Complaints and appeals will be handled in accordance with the COPE Core Practice on complaints and appeals and relevant COPE guidance.

A complaint or appeal should identify the journal and manuscript or article, relevant dates, the decision or conduct challenged, supporting evidence, and the requested remedy.
Disagreement with reviewer opinion alone is not normally sufficient for an appeal. The appellant should identify a material factual error, procedural irregularity, unmanaged conflict, or significant scholarly issue that was not adequately considered.
The matter should first be submitted to the journal office. When it concerns the handling editor, editorial office, or an unresolved journal-level response, it may be escalated to the publisher.
Where practicable, the matter will be reviewed by a person who was not materially involved in the disputed decision. Additional peer review may be arranged when necessary.
An appeal does not guarantee reversal and does not suspend an ethics investigation or post-publication action. The journal may limit repetitive appeals that do not present new, material information.
Retaliation against a person who raises a good-faith complaint or appeal is not acceptable.
The journal will acknowledge, document, and communicate the outcome of a complaint or appeal within a reasonable period. Where a final response is delayed, the complainant should be informed of the status when appropriate.
A complaint about the Editor-in-Chief will be referred to the publisher or another suitably independent person. A complaint about the publisher will, where practicable, be reviewed by a person or panel without operational involvement in the matter.

24. Confidentiality, Data Protection, and Respectful Conduct

CCSE expects professional conduct and protects information obtained through submission, review, editorial work, and ethics investigations.

Manuscripts under review, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, personal data, and investigation records must be accessed and shared only for legitimate journal purposes.
Personal information is collected and processed for submission, peer review, publication, indexing, archiving, communication, and integrity purposes in accordance with applicable law and the publisher’s privacy policy.
All participants must treat others with dignity. Discrimination, harassment, bullying, threats, retaliation, abusive correspondence, and personal attacks are prohibited.
Academic disagreement should be expressed through evidence-based and professional argument. Editors may moderate, redact, or decline communications that are defamatory, discriminatory, threatening, irrelevant, or abusive.
The journal seeks to promote accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion while maintaining decisions based on scholarly merit and ethical compliance.

25. Enforcement, Sanctions, and Cooperation

Responses to breaches are proportionate to the seriousness, evidence, intent, recurrence, and effect on the scholarly record. Actions may be taken at manuscript, article, participant, journal, or publisher level.

Possible actions include requesting clarification or documentation; requiring revision; rejecting a manuscript; withdrawing acceptance; arranging new peer review; publishing a correction, expression of concern, or retraction; and restricting future submissions for a defined period.
Reviewers, editors, guest editors, or board members may be removed from an assignment or role when conduct or conflicts compromise the process.
The journal may notify co-authors, institutions, funders, ethics committees, other journals, indexing services, or relevant authorities when necessary and lawful.
Payment of an article processing charge or other fee does not prevent rejection, correction, retraction, or investigation and does not exempt any party from these standards.
Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to preserve relevant records and cooperate honestly and promptly with legitimate inquiries. Failure to cooperate may be considered in editorial decisions and post-publication action.

26. Policy Interpretation, Updates, and Contact

These Ethics Statement are interpreted in a manner that best protects research integrity, editorial independence, participant rights, due process, transparency, and the reliability of the scholarly record.

CCSE may update these statements to reflect changes in law, technology, publication standards, research practice, or operational experience. The webpage should display the date of the latest material update.
Where policies appear inconsistent, the journal and publisher will apply the requirement that provides the stronger protection for research integrity and affected persons, subject to applicable law.
Questions and journal-specific concerns should be directed to the relevant journal office. Publisher-level questions, complaints, or escalations may be submitted through the CCSE Contact page or to info@ccsenet.org.

ISSN(Print): 1918-7173
ISSN(Online): 1918-7181
Started: 2009
Frequency: semiannual

Contact

Paige DouEditorial Assistant
res@ccsenet.org