Research submitted to JSOMER must be designed, conducted, analyzed, documented, and reported honestly, accurately, transparently, responsibly, and with respect for participants, communities, collaborators, and intellectual contributions.

• honesty in research records, methods, analyses, and findings;
• accuracy and proportional interpretation of evidence;
• transparency concerning limitations, exclusions, deviations, and relationships;
• accountability for contributions and cooperation with legitimate inquiries;
• objectivity and appropriate management of personal, financial, institutional, and ideological interests;
• reproducible documentation of methods and analytical decisions;
• responsible openness for data, code, and materials where sharing is ethically and legally possible; and
• prompt correction of material errors or unreliable findings.

This policy applies to everyone involved in preparing, evaluating, administering, or publishing JSOMER content and to manuscripts, reviews, data, code, images, multimedia, ethics and authorship records, supplementary material, and other publication-related documentation. Research integrity is not limited to deliberate fraud. Recklessness, serious negligence, misleading reporting, and repeated questionable practices may also require action.

Fabrication means inventing data, participants, observations, procedures, records, results, approvals, or other evidence and presenting them as genuine. Falsification means manipulating research materials, processes, data, code, analyses, or records in a way that misrepresents the work.

• inventing participants, responses, interviews, quotations, social media content, measurements, records, statistical output, ethics approval, consent, registration, or repository information;
• presenting synthetic or AI-generated material as observed empirical evidence;
• changing, adding, duplicating, removing, or recoding observations without scientific justification;
• concealing errors, contradictory findings, protocol violations, or material analytical decisions; and
• retrospectively altering records or outputs to support a preferred conclusion.

Synthetic or simulated data may be used when identified clearly and explained fully. Legitimate data cleaning, transformation, recoding, exclusion, correction, or quality control is not falsification when scientifically justified, documented, consistently applied, and reported transparently.

Images, screenshots, audio, video, graphs, maps, and other multimedia must represent the underlying evidence accurately.

• do not add, remove, move, duplicate, conceal, or selectively alter features deceptively;
• identify composites and do not reuse the same image as different observations;
• do not crop, edit, redact, or change color, contrast, scale, axes, labels, or proportions in a way that alters meaning;
• do not present AI-generated or manipulated media as authentic evidence; and
• retain original files, processing records, metadata, source screenshots, and visualization code where relevant.

Acceptable technical adjustments must be consistent, scientifically appropriate, transparent where necessary, and must preserve the meaning of the evidence. JSOMER may request original or unedited materials for verification.

Authors must report material findings regardless of statistical significance, direction, novelty, institutional sensitivity, or perceived likelihood of publication. The manuscript must not create a misleading impression of the design, analyses, or total evidence.

• identify prespecified, modified, exploratory, sensitivity, and post hoc analyses accurately;
• disclose and explain material deviations from protocols, registrations, data-collection plans, and analytical plans;
• justify exclusions, outlier rules, model choices, stopping decisions, subgroup analyses, missing-data procedures, and multiple-testing decisions;
• report null, negative, adverse, and contradictory findings when material to interpretation;
• do not present associations as causal without an appropriate design; and
• report sufficient information for informed review of assumptions, uncertainty, effect estimates, and analytical decisions.

Exploratory research is legitimate. The integrity concern arises when exploratory findings are represented falsely as predicted or prespecified. Deviations are not automatically misconduct, but undisclosed deviations may mislead readers about the evidentiary status of the results.

Authors must report accurately whether a protocol, preregistration, trial or review registration, analysis plan, registered report, data-management plan, or other prespecified record governed the research. A retrospective record must not be described as prospective.

Authors should maintain organized records sufficient to support the work, including raw and processed data, analytical datasets, code, software output, notes, survey or interview documentation, original media, cleaning logs, exclusion decisions, registrations, ethics and consent documentation, permissions, version histories, contribution records, and materials supporting tables and figures.

Records must be retained for periods required by law, ethics approval, institutions, funders, professional standards, contracts, and data-governance conditions. Where no longer period applies, essential records should normally be retained for at least five years after publication. Records must not be destroyed or altered to prevent verification or obstruct an inquiry.

A manuscript must not be under simultaneous consideration by more than one journal. Substantially the same manuscript, dataset, analysis, results, argument, or contribution must not be republished without transparent disclosure and legitimate justification.

Reuse of the same dataset is not automatically improper when each article addresses a distinct question, provides meaningful new value, identifies the common dataset, cites related outputs, explains analytical overlap, distinguishes prior findings from new findings, and complies with ethics, consent, data-use, and authorship requirements.

Dividing one study into minimally distinct and overlapping publications primarily to increase publication count is unacceptable. Large, longitudinal, interdisciplinary, or multipurpose projects may support multiple articles when each has a sufficiently distinct purpose and independent scholarly contribution. Related submissions and publications must be disclosed at submission.

References must be accurate, verifiable, and relevant to the claims for which they are cited. Authors must verify sources and remain responsible for references suggested by artificial intelligence, reference managers, writers, consultants, or other third parties.

• do not fabricate references or DOI numbers;
• do not cite a source that does not support the stated claim;
• do not copy citations without checking the original source;
• identify secondary sourcing accurately;
• do not present retracted or unreliable work as valid evidence without disclosure; and
• do not omit directly relevant literature or add irrelevant citations for manipulative purposes.

Citation choices must be based on scholarly relevance. JSOMER prohibits coercive citation, citation stacking, coordinated citation exchange, honorary citation, excessive self-citation intended to increase metrics, and requests to cite editors, reviewers, the journal, institutions, or professional networks without academic justification.

Any attempt to control, falsify, or misrepresent peer review is prohibited. JSOMER independently selects and verifies reviewers; author suggestions are advisory only.

• fabricated reviewer identities or contact information;
• impersonation, authors reviewing their own work, or authors controlling reviewer accounts;
• undisclosed author-reviewer relationships, purchased or reciprocal reviews, coercion, bribery, or secret coordination;
• unauthorized access to editorial records or attempts to contact reviewers outside the journal system;
• reports prepared by unapproved third parties or generated by AI without independent scholarly evaluation; and
• fabricated contributor identities, false affiliations, purchased authorship, undisclosed ghost authorship, or manipulated contribution records.

Confidential manuscripts, reports, correspondence, data, and unpublished ideas must not be disclosed, retained without justification, uploaded to unauthorized AI or third-party systems, or used for competitive, financial, academic, institutional, or personal advantage. Confidentiality obligations continue after rejection, withdrawal, or publication.

JSOMER does not accept manuscripts, data, reviews, authorship positions, ethics records, or editorial influence produced or brokered through paper mills or comparable organized services.

• purchasing or selling manuscripts, data, images, authorship, reviewer reports, or acceptance;
• using false identities, affiliations, ethics documents, or coordinated reviewer networks;
• template-based submissions with invented findings or systematic reuse of manipulated material; and
• using AI to fabricate, falsify, conceal, or misrepresent participants, data, interviews, social media content, records, images, references, analyses, peer reviews, ethics documents, methods, or findings.

Legitimate language editing, methodological advice, statistical consultation, and technical support are not prohibited but must not conceal authorship, sponsorship, fabrication, or manipulation and should be disclosed where appropriate. Human authors remain fully responsible for verifying AI-assisted content, citations, provenance, confidentiality, methods, and findings.

Authors must consider whether publication of data, code, models, methods, system details, or locations could create serious foreseeable harm, including cybersecurity exploitation, surveillance, reidentification, automated harassment, fraud, misinformation, unsafe model release, illegal data collection, or disproportionate risks to individuals or communities.

JSOMER may seek specialist advice, request a risk assessment, require controlled or limited disclosure, restrict sensitive supplementary information, remove operationally harmful details, or decline publication when risks cannot be managed adequately. Restrictions must be proportionate and must not be used to hide weak evidence, legitimate criticism, inconvenient findings, or matters of public interest.

JSOMER may request data, code, original media, analytical output, protocols, registrations, ethics and consent records, data-use agreements, related publications, contribution records, or other relevant documentation to evaluate a manuscript, clarify inconsistencies, verify findings, or assess an integrity concern.

Sensitive material may be reviewed confidentially or under controlled access. The journal will not require public disclosure when this would violate participant rights, law, ethics approval, or valid confidentiality obligations.

Authors must notify the Editorial Office promptly when they identify a material error, omission, analytical problem, data problem, image problem, documentation problem, or integrity concern in submitted, accepted, forthcoming, or published work. Authors must cooperate with corrective action and must not alter records or deposited materials silently.

Evidence-based concerns may be reported by authors, reviewers, readers, participants, institutions, ethics bodies, funders, repositories, data controllers, journals, publishers, or members of the public. Reports should identify the relevant manuscript or article, describe the concern clearly, and provide documentary evidence, source information, URLs, or DOIs where available.

Anonymous reports may be considered when they contain specific and verifiable evidence. Unsupported accusations, generalized suspicion, abusive communications, or matters outside the journal’s remit may not justify formal inquiry.

JSOMER does not tolerate retaliation against individuals who raise concerns in good faith. Complainant identity will be protected as far as reasonably possible, subject to fairness, verification, institutional investigation, participant protection, and legal obligations. Knowingly false, malicious, threatening, discriminatory, or harassing allegations may be addressed under the Complaints and Appeals Policy.

On receiving a concern, JSOMER may acknowledge it, assess whether sufficient information exists, identify the applicable policy, preserve records, determine whether immediate protective action is needed, identify editorial conflicts, appoint an independent editor, and decide whether further inquiry is warranted. An initial assessment is not a finding of misconduct.

Where further inquiry is required, the journal may suspend review or publication, request author explanations and supporting records, seek statistical, methodological, ethical, technical, legal, or security advice, contact relevant journals or organizations, examine related submissions, and determine appropriate editorial action.

Authors will normally have an opportunity to respond and provide evidence. The journal may act without waiting when immediate action is necessary to protect participants, preserve evidence, prevent serious harm, comply with law, or when reasonable contact attempts fail. Research-integrity matters must be handled by individuals without relevant conflicts of interest.

JSOMER determines the editorial and publication status of material submitted to or published by the journal. Institutions and other authorized bodies are generally better positioned to investigate employment relationships, project and laboratory records, participant recruitment, ethics approval, funding compliance, identity fraud, institutional resources, and intentional researcher misconduct.

The journal may contact institutions, ethics bodies, funders, repositories, regulators, data controllers, or other publishers when the facts require records or authority beyond the journal’s remit. Communications should describe concerns neutrally, provide relevant evidence, avoid unsupported conclusions, and protect confidential information as far as possible.

JSOMER does not impose employment or academic disciplinary sanctions. The journal may nevertheless act before an institutional investigation concludes when available evidence shows that immediate editorial action is necessary to protect readers, participants, or the scholarly record.

Editorial decisions are based on the reliability of the evidence, seriousness and effect of the concern, participant welfare, peer-review integrity, author explanations, expert advice, institutional findings where available, whether the issue is correctable, and whether readers need warning or an updated record. The journal does not need to establish misconduct under a criminal or employment-disciplinary standard before correcting unreliable content.

Possible pre-publication actions

Clarification, correction, additional documentation, reanalysis, specialist or repeated peer review, replacement of a reviewer, suspension, rejection, administrative withdrawal, reversal of provisional acceptance, or referral to relevant organizations.

Possible post-publication actions

Correction, clarification, editorial notice, Expression of Concern, retraction, exceptional removal, metadata updates, notifications to scholarly services or relevant organizations, or another proportionate action necessary to protect the record.

Authors may appeal when a material factual error, overlooked evidence, incorrect policy application, materially unfair procedure, or significant new evidence exists. Appeals must identify the challenged decision, provide specific reasons and evidence, and follow the Complaints and Appeals Policy. Protective action is not automatically suspended by an appeal.

A correction is appropriate when the article remains substantially reliable and a limited error, disclosure, figure, table, analysis, authorship statement, reference, Data Availability Statement, or supplementary file can be corrected transparently.

An Expression of Concern may warn readers when credible evidence raises serious unresolved questions, an investigation is incomplete, the evidence is substantial but inconclusive, authors or institutions are unresponsive, or participant safety, privacy, or legal issues delay resolution.

Retraction may be appropriate when findings are unreliable because of fabrication, falsification, serious error, manipulated review, identity or authorship fraud, deceptive data or image manipulation, paper-mill involvement, serious ethics violations, duplicate publication, inability to produce essential evidence without credible explanation, or another problem that cannot be corrected adequately.

Complete removal is reserved for exceptional legal, privacy, safety, or unlawful-content circumstances. Removal must not be used to conceal error, criticism, misconduct, or retraction. Where possible, a public notice should remain.

JSOMER distinguishes where possible among honest error, inadequate reporting, questionable research practice, negligence, recklessness, deliberate misconduct, and systematic manipulation. Appropriate action depends on reliability, seriousness, harm, and the possibility of correction. Proof of intent is not always necessary to correct or retract unreliable content.

A software alert, failed replication, unusual statistic, surprising result, methodological disagreement, legitimate inability to share protected data, or allegation alone does not establish misconduct. At the same time, uncertainty about intent does not prevent protective action when the scholarly record is unreliable or creates serious risk.

Integrity decisions must remain independent of author status, institutional prestige, nationality, funding, relationships, expected citations, commercial interests, publisher preferences, controversy, political pressure, or reputational concerns. The same standards apply to editors, reviewers, Board members, Guest Editors, the publisher, and individuals connected to the journal.

Authors must report honestly, preserve records, disclose related works and analytical decisions, verify references, protect participants, respond to requests, report material errors, and cooperate with inquiries and corrective action. Reviewers should report credible concerns confidentially and must avoid unauthorized investigation, public allegation, direct author contact, or personal use of confidential information.

Editors must preserve records, assess evidence fairly, protect confidentiality, manage conflicts, obtain specialist advice where needed, provide a reasonable opportunity to respond, act proportionately, protect participants and good-faith complainants, and correct the scholarly record. The publisher provides technical and administrative support but does not determine scholarly findings, misconduct, reviewer recommendations, or individual manuscript decisions.

In serious or repeated cases, JSOMER may review related records, require further verification, suspend future submissions or assignments, remove reviewer or editor access, contact institutions, or restrict future participation for a defined period. Restrictions must be documented, proportionate, and must not be presented publicly as disciplinary sanctions without sufficient justification.

At submission, the corresponding author confirms on behalf of all authors that the research and manuscript were prepared honestly, accurately, transparently, and responsibly; no evidence or documentation was fabricated, falsified, or deceptively manipulated; material outcomes, exclusions, deviations, analyses, and limitations were reported; and the authors will provide reasonable supporting documentation and cooperate with legitimate inquiries.

Authors also confirm that prespecified, modified, exploratory, sensitivity, and post hoc analyses are identified accurately; related submitted, published, or publicly disseminated works based on overlapping data or findings are disclosed; peer review has not been manipulated; and any substantive use of artificial intelligence has been disclosed and independently verified under the Artificial Intelligence Policy.

This policy is reviewed periodically for consistency with JSOMER’s editorial practices, research and publication-integrity standards, related journal policies, applicable legal and institutional requirements, and the requirements of relevant scholarly services. Material revisions will be disclosed on the journal website.