PUBLISHERS OBLIGATIONS

Publication decisions
The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play
An editor will at any time evaluate manuscripts for 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 any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Editor AI Policies

Any editorial use of AI will be declared on the journal website. AI use by editors is not permitted. AI use by editors violates the confidentiality of authors and proprietary rights and may breach data privacy rights.

 

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider 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 papers.

Reviewer AI Policies

AI use by reviewers is not permitted, including putting any part of the article(s) they are reviewing into AI tools such as Large Language Models. AI use by reviewers violates the confidentiality of authors and proprietary rights and may breach data privacy rights. If reviewers suspect undeclared AI use in a paper, they should consult the editors. If the editors find that the reviewer’s use of an AI checker has breached the confidentiality of the review process, then they will inform the author.

AUTHORS’ DUTIES

Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

AI Policies

Authors are required to follow COPE’s guidance on the use of AI, which states that AI tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper.

Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, including those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics. 

• AI must be understood and used only as a tool and not a generative author or contributor to a paper.
• Human authors are solely responsible for the content published under their name. Claims made in papers must be verifiable via academically credible, non-AI sources, and these should be cited in accordance with the Interstices style guide.
• Partial written content generated by AI must be declared, the software stipulated, and a summary of the prompts used to produce it stated. 

Images figures or visualisations generated by AI are not permitted, except as outlined below.

• Non-generative use of AI (or use of other software) to modify existing images requires approval by executive editors. Modifications, where approved, need to be described in the figure notes, including what software was used and a summary of any prompts involved in the modification.
• Papers about AI-generated images and using AI in a critical investigation will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.