The Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts follows the best practices set out by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) regarding the ethical behaviour of all parties involved in the publication of an article (author, journal editor, reviewer, and publisher).

The following guidelines are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors available at http://www.publicationethics.org.

Editors

Publication decisions
The journal editor is responsible for the final approval concerning the publication of the articles submitted to the journal. This decision may be based on the journal policies and guidelines, or justified by legal motives related to plagiarism, copyright or ethics infringement. The editor may consult the editorial board, as well as other editors or reviewers to decide publication approval. Editors should act responsibly when submitted manuscripts or published papers present ethical complaints.

Review of Manuscripts
The editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated for originality, being subsequently forwarded to peer review by at least two reviewers, who will make a recommendation to accept, reject or modify the manuscript.

Fair review
The editor must ensure that manuscripts are evaluated based on their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The editor and editorial team must ensure that all information presented in a submitted manuscript is kept confidential to anyone other than the corresponding reviewers and potential reviewers, and editorial b
oard.

Disclosure and conflicts of interestThe editor is not allowed to use for his own research, unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript, unless express written consent is provided by the author.
The editor is not allowed to submit his own research to the journal that he is responsible for.

Citation manipulation
The editor is not allowed to manipulate the citations by pressuring authors to cite previous papers from the journal.

Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Reviewers should support the editor in making editorial decisions, as well as, assist the author in improving the manuscript, throughout the editorial process.

Promptness
The reviewer must notify the editor whenever he feels unqualified to review properly the research reported in a manuscript or is not available to make the review within the stipulated time, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer for evaluation.

Confidentiality

Information contained in submitted manuscripts received for review must be kept confidential, and not shown or discussed with others, except if authorized or recommended by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews of submitted manuscripts should be conducted objectively. Referees should express their opinions and address points of improvement with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers must ensure that authors have cited all relevant sources of data used in the research and identify statements that had been previously reported in other sources and are not accompanied by the respective citation. Any similarity or overlap between the manuscripts under consideration or with any other published paper of which reviewer has personal knowledge must be instantly communicated to the editor.

Disclosure and conflict of interest
Reviewers must not use for personal advantage any privileged information or ideas contained in the submitted manuscript sent for peer review. Reviewers should not accept to review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submitted work.

Authors

Reporting standards
Authors of manuscripts containing original research should present an accurate description of the performed work accompanied by an objective discussion of its significance. The submission guidelines of the journal should be followed (See author guidelines). All data, details and references necessary to replicate the work should be provided. Falsified or perceptively inaccurate declarations are considered to be unethical behavior and unacceptable.

Data access and retention
Authors should provide all necessary data relevant to support the ideas and conclusions of the research. Authors should be prepared to retain these data during the review process.

Originality, plagiarism, and self-citation
The authors must ensure that the manuscript is original and any work, ideas, data or contents obtained from other sources has been appropriately cited or quoted. Authors should be aware of self-plagiarism (http://publicationethics.org/case/self-plagiarism, http://publicationethics.org/text-recycling-guidelines). Self-plagiarism is a grey area, so authors should contact the editor when in doubt.

Authors should be careful about self-citation, i.e., citing their own work.  While it is acceptable, and indeed necessary in many situations, to cite one’s own work, excessive self-citation with the single purpose of boosting the author’s h-indexes is not.

Disclosure and acknowledgement of financial sources
Authors should acknowledge properly to all that contributed to the work and disclose in the manuscript all sources of financial support provided to the project that made possible the elaboration of the work.

Errors in published works
When authors detect noteworthy errors in their own published work, they must address it to the journal editor and assist the editorial team to correct the inaccuracy in the published paper.