Publication Ethics
Ethical standards for authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher to support trustworthy scholarly communication.
Publication Ethics
Still Know Little Science (SKLS) Publisher is committed to research integrity, editorial independence, confidentiality, transparency, and responsible scholarly communication. Authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher staff are expected to follow accepted standards of ethical publication practice.
SKLS policies are informed by internationally recognized principles and guidance on publication ethics, including guidance issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), where applicable. This statement does not represent a claim of organizational membership unless such membership is explicitly stated by SKLS elsewhere.
Author Responsibilities
- Submitted work must be original and must not contain plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or misleading manipulation of data or images.
- The manuscript must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal unless an applicable policy expressly permits this.
- All listed authors should meet the applicable authorship criteria and accept responsibility for the work.
- All authors should approve the submitted version and agree to submission.
- Funding, affiliations, competing interests, ethics approvals, consent statements, and other required declarations must be reported accurately.
- Authors are responsible for the accuracy of manuscript files, metadata, references, figures, tables, supplementary material, and statements supplied during submission.
Authorship and Contributions
Authorship should be limited to individuals who made a substantial scholarly contribution and who can take appropriate responsibility for the work. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria may be acknowledged with their permission where appropriate.
Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission should be explained to the editorial office and may require written agreement from all affected authors.
Human Subjects Research
Research involving human participants, identifiable human data, human biological material, or medical records must have appropriate ethical oversight where required. Authors should report ethics committee or institutional review approval, exemption, or waiver information and informed-consent details as applicable.
Human research should be conducted in accordance with applicable laws, institutional requirements, and recognized ethical principles such as the Declaration of Helsinki where relevant.
Animal Research
Research involving animals must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international animal welfare requirements. Manuscripts should report relevant approvals and should follow appropriate reporting guidance, including ARRIVE where applicable.
Informed Consent and Privacy
Case reports, images, or other publications containing potentially identifiable personal information require appropriate consent for publication where applicable. Identifiable participant information should not be published without a valid ethical and legal basis.
Competing Interests
Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, personal, academic, institutional, professional, or other relationships that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, the research, review, or editorial process.
Peer Review
Peer-review models may vary by journal or article type. Each journal should state its applicable model clearly. Reviewers are expected to provide independent, constructive, confidential, and timely assessments and to disclose any conflict that could affect impartiality.
Editorial Responsibilities and Independence
Editors are responsible for managing manuscripts fairly, confidentially, and independently. Decisions should be based on scholarly merit, relevance, methodological quality, ethical compliance, journal scope, and peer-review evidence where applicable.
- Editors should avoid inappropriate discrimination or bias.
- Editors should maintain confidentiality of submissions and review communications.
- Editors should declare conflicts and recuse themselves where impartiality may reasonably be questioned.
- Editorial decisions must remain independent of publication charges or other commercial considerations.
- Editors should take proportionate action when publication-ethics concerns arise.
Similarity Screening and Plagiarism
Submitted manuscripts may be screened with similarity-checking tools. Similarity reports support editorial judgement and do not automatically establish plagiarism.
Editors may request explanation or revision, reject a manuscript, or take additional action where substantial unattributed overlap, duplicate publication, inappropriate text recycling, misleading paraphrasing, or other integrity concerns are identified.
Research Misconduct
Concerns involving fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, manipulated images, authorship abuse, undisclosed conflicts, unethical research, or other serious misconduct may be investigated through the publisher's editorial process.
Actions may include requests for clarification or evidence, manuscript rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, restriction of future submissions, or contact with relevant institutions or other parties where justified.
Dual-Use Research and Research with Misuse Potential
Authors should disclose research that may present significant risks of harmful misuse, including relevant dual-use concerns. Editors may seek additional expert or ethical assessment and may limit publication of details where necessary to balance scientific value with responsible risk management.
Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools
Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, citations, permissions, and validity of submitted content. Material use of artificial-intelligence tools in writing, analysis, image generation, coding, or other research processes should be disclosed when relevant to evaluation or reproducibility.
Artificial-intelligence systems must not be listed as authors because they cannot accept responsibility, approve the final work, manage conflicts of interest, or be accountable for the integrity of a publication.
Data, Images, and Figures
Data, figures, and images must be presented accurately. Manipulation that changes or misrepresents the underlying evidence is not acceptable. Editors may request original data, source images, analysis files, ethics documentation, or other supporting materials when concerns arise.
Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Notices
SKLS may publish corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, or other editorial notices when necessary to protect the scholarly record. The form of notice should reflect the nature and seriousness of the issue and should preserve the transparency of the publication history.
Complaints and Appeals
Authors and other stakeholders may raise concerns about an editorial decision, review process, ethical issue, or publication procedure. Appeals should identify specific scholarly, procedural, or ethical grounds and provide relevant supporting information.
Complaints and appeals are reviewed according to the publisher's procedures. An appeal does not guarantee that an editorial decision will be changed.
Confidentiality
Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, internal editorial notes, decision materials, and related communications are confidential and should be accessible only to authorized persons involved in the editorial and publishing process.