Publication Ethics

The Journal of Educational Research and Practice (JERP) is committed to maintaining the integrity, transparency, and fairness of scholarly publishing. This policy sets out the ethical responsibilities of editors, reviewers, and authors, and the procedures used to address concerns about submitted and published work.

JERP's publication ethics are informed primarily by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, developed by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME. For research in education, JERP also refers to the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, Fifth Edition (2024).

1. Editorial Responsibilities

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on the scholarly merit, relevance, methodological or analytical quality, and ethical integrity of the manuscript. Decisions must not be influenced by authors' nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, political views, geographical location, or other characteristics unrelated to the scholarly content of the submission. Commercial considerations, sponsorship, institutional relationships, and Article Processing Charges must not influence editorial decisions.

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff must treat submitted manuscripts and associated correspondence confidentially. Information about a manuscript should be disclosed only to those directly involved in the editorial and peer review process or where disclosure is necessary to address a legitimate ethical or legal concern. Unpublished material obtained through the editorial process must not be used for personal research, professional advantage or the benefit of another party.

Competing Interests

Editors should disclose relevant competing interests and should not handle manuscripts where personal, professional, financial, institutional, or other relationships may reasonably affect their impartiality. In case of a conflict, the manuscript should be assigned to another appropriate editor.

Editorial Decisions 

The editors retained the responsibility for editorial decisions.

2. Peer Review Ethics

JERP operates a double-anonymous peer review process. Reviewers are expected to provide independent, constructive, fair, and evidence-based assessments of the manuscript.

Confidentiality

Reviewers must treat manuscripts, supplementary materials, and review correspondence as confidential. Manuscripts must not be shared with colleagues, students, or other individuals without prior permission from the Editor. Reviewers must not use unpublished information obtained through peer reviews for personal, academic, financial, or professional advantage.

Objectivity and Professional Conduct

Reviews should focus on the scholarly content of the manuscripts. Reviewers should:

  • provide clear and constructive comments.
  • support substantive criticisms with appropriate reasoning or evidence
  • avoid personal, hostile, discriminatory, or defamatory comments; and
  • distinguishes between essential revisions and optional suggestions.

Competing Interests

Reviewers should disclose any relationships or circumstances that could reasonably affect their impartiality. Where a significant competing interest exists, the reviewer should decline the invitation or consult the editor before proceeding with the review.

Citation Requests

Reviewers should suggest additional references only when they are relevant and necessary to strengthen or contextualise the manuscript. Requests intended primarily to increase citations of the reviewer's own work, a particular author, institution, or journal are inappropriate.

Suspected Misconduct

Reviewers who identify possible plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical research practices, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, or other potential misconduct should inform the editor confidentially via the Editorial Manager. Reviewers should not contact the authors directly or conduct independent investigations.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review

Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content and integrity of their review. A manuscript or its substantial content must not be uploaded to a generative AI system or other external AI service where confidentiality, intellectual property, or data protection cannot be assured. Any permitted use of AI-assisted tools must comply with the JERP's AI policy and must not replace the reviewer's independent scholarly judgement.

3. Author Responsibilities

Originality and Proper Attribution

Authors must submit original work and appropriately acknowledge the words, ideas, data, methods, figures, and other contributions of others to avoid plagiarism. Direct quotations, paraphrased material, and reused content must be appropriately attributed to the original sources. Plagiarism, including unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, or presenting another person's work or ideas as one's own, is unacceptable and will be investigated.

Similarity Screening

Submitted manuscripts may be screened using similarity detection software. A similarity score is a screening indicator and not a determination of plagiarism. Editorial assessments consider the source, nature, extent, and context of textual overlap. Therefore, the JERP does not define plagiarism solely by a fixed similarity percentage.

Duplicate and Redundant Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal. Substantial reuse or republication of previously published material without appropriate disclosure or justification is unacceptable.

Works derived from a thesis, dissertation, conference presentation, preprint, or research report may be considered, provided that the previous version is appropriately disclosed and the submission complies with JERP's policies.

Accurate Reporting and Research Integrity

Authors must accurately and transparently report research procedures, data, analyses, findings, and interpretations. The following practices are unacceptable:

  • fabrication of data or results;
  • falsification or inappropriate manipulation of the data;
  • deceptive manipulation of images or figures
  • Selective alteration or omission of findings intended to misrepresent the research.
  • fabrication or falsification of references; and
  • other deliberate misrepresentations of the research record.

Authors should retain relevant research records in accordance with the applicable institutional, ethical, legal, and disciplinary requirements.

4. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should reflect substantive and intellectual contributions to the work. All listed authors should have contributed meaningfully to the research or manuscript, approved the submitted version, and accepted responsibility for the work. Guest, gift, ghost, and fraudulent authorship are unacceptable practices.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged, where appropriate. JERP encourages transparent contributor statements. The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) was used to describe individual contributions to the research and manuscript.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the following:

  • All listed authors have approved the submission.
  • No eligible author was omitted.
  • authorship information is accurate; and
  • All authors are informed of significant editorial decisions concerning the manuscript.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be explained in this section. The JERP may require a written agreement from all affected authors. Authorship disputes that cannot be resolved by the journal may be referred to the relevant institution(s) for resolution.

5. Research Ethics and Participant Protection

Research involving human participants, identifiable personal information, vulnerable populations, or sensitive data must comply with the applicable ethical, institutional, and legal requirements. Where applicable, the authors should report the following:

  • Approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review body.
  • the name of the approving institution and relevant approval information
  • procedures for obtaining informed consent;
  • assent where appropriate, particularly when the research involves children or young people.
  • measures to protect privacy and confidentiality; and
  • procedures for managing sensitive and identifiable data.

Where formal ethical approval was not required, the authors should be able to explain the ethical basis on which the research was conducted. Consent to participate in the research does not automatically constitute consent to publish identifiable information. Appropriate consent for publication must be obtained from individuals who may be identifiable.

JERP recognises that ethical considerations in educational research are context-sensitive. Authors are encouraged to consider issues including power relations, inclusion, cultural context, vulnerability, potential harm, participants' rights, and researcher responsibilities in accordance with relevant ethical guidance.

6. Data, Transparency, and Reproducibility

Authors should provide sufficient information about their methods, data sources, and analytical procedures to allow readers to understand how the findings were obtained. Where appropriate and ethically permissible, the authors are encouraged to make supporting data, instruments, protocols, codes, or other research materials available through recognised repositories or supplementary files.

Data sharing is not required where it would conflict with the following:

  • participant consent;
  • Privacy or confidentiality.
  • ethical approval;
  • Legal or contractual restrictions
  • protection of vulnerable individuals or communities; or
  • Other legitimate restrictions were also imposed.

Where relevant, the authors should provide a data availability statement describing whether and how supporting data can be accessed.

7. Competing Interests and Funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors should disclose interests or relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgement. Competing interests may be financial, professional, institutional, personal, or intellectual, or otherwise relevant to the work. Authors must disclose relevant sources of funding and, where appropriate, the role of the funder in the design, conduct, analysis, interpretation or reporting of the research. The existence of a competing interest does not necessarily prevent publication; however, it must be disclosed and appropriately managed.

8. Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for the scholarly work. The authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including:

  • accuracy;
  • originality;
  • interpretation;
  • attribution;
  • citations;
  • ethical compliance; and
  • integrity.

Substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in preparing text, generating or modifying images, analysing data, developing code, or performing other research-related tasks should be transparently disclosed where applicable.

AI tools must not be used to fabricate or falsify data, results, references, quotations, sources or other scholarly content. Authors must verify citations and references against the original sources, rather than relying on AI-generated bibliographic information. Editors and reviewers must also protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts when using AI-assisted technology. Further requirements are provided in the JERP Generative AI Policy.

9. Publication Misconduct

JERP takes allegations of research and publication misconduct seriously, whether concerns arise before or after publication. Potential misconduct includes, but is not limited to the following:

  • plagiarism;
  • fabrication or falsification.
  • inappropriate data or image manipulation
  • duplicate or redundant publications;
  • inappropriate authorship.
  • undisclosed, significant competing interests.
  • peer review manipulation;
  • citation manipulation;
  • fraudulent identities or documents.
  • systematic manipulation of the publication process; and
  • Unethical conduct of research.

A concern will not be treated as proven misconduct solely because an allegation has been made. The editors will assess the available evidence and may request explanations, original data, ethics documentation, authorship information, or other relevant materials.

Where the matter requires investigation beyond the journal's authority, JERP may refer the concern to the authors' or reviewers' institution(s), research integrity office, funder, ethics body, or another appropriate authority. The JERP will follow the relevant COPE guidelines when handling suspected misconduct.

10. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

JERP is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Corrections

A correction may be issued when an error affects the accuracy or interpretation of part of an article but does not invalidate the entire work. The original article and correction notice should be appropriately linked to each other.

Retractions

Retraction may be considered when there is clear evidence that an article or its principal findings are unreliable because of serious error or misconduct, or when other circumstances substantially undermine the integrity of the published record.

Retraction may also be appropriate in cases involving plagiarism, redundant publication, unethical research, unauthorised material, seriously compromised peer review, or other circumstances identified in the applicable COPE guidance. Retraction notices should include:

  • clearly identifies the affected article.
  • state the reason for the retraction;
  • indicates who is retracting the article.
  • linked to the article.
  • be publicly accessible; and
  • Use objective and factual language.

A retracted article will normally remain a part of the scholarly record and will be clearly identified as retracted.

Expressions of Concern

JERP may publish an expression of concern where substantial questions have been raised about the integrity or reliability of an article, but the available evidence is inconclusive, the investigation is incomplete, or an institutional investigation is pending.

Removal of Published Content

Removal of published content is considered only in exceptional circumstances, such as when continued availability creates serious legal, privacy, safety, or other compelling risks. Retraction rather than removal is normally used when correcting a scholarly record.

11. Post-Publication Discussion

The JERP welcomes responsible scholarly discussions of its published content. Readers may contact the journal regarding errors, methodological concerns, ethical issues, or other matters that may affect the interpretation or integrity of published articles. Credible concerns will be considered, regardless of whether they support or challenge the conclusions of an article.

Where appropriate, the authors may be invited to respond. Post-publication discussions may result in clarification, correspondence, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or no editorial action, depending on the evidence.

12. Complaints and Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they believe that a significant error occurred in the editorial or peer-review process. An appeal should provide a clear scholarly explanation of the reasons for the original decision. Disagreement with a decision alone is not sufficient grounds for an appeal.

Complaints concerning editorial conduct, peer review, conflicts of interest, publication ethics, or journal procedures will be considered fairly and, where possible, by an individual who is not directly involved in the matter. Submitting an appeal or complaint does not guarantee that the editorial decision will be changed.

13. Special Issues and Editorial Collections

Special issues, guest-edited collections, and other editorially commissioned content are subject to the same standards of peer review, research integrity, competing interest management, and editorial oversight as regular submissions. The Editor-in-Chief retains the responsibility for the integrity of all content published in the JERP.

14. Intellectual Property and Publication Charges

JERP's copyright, licencing, and open-access arrangements are clearly stated in the journal's Copyright Notice. All applicable publication charges are stated in the Author Guidelines. Article Processing Charges do not influence peer review outcomes or editorial decisions.

15. Policy Review

The JERP may revise this Publication Ethics policy in response to developments in research integrity, scholarly communication, publication technology, and relevant ethical guidance. The journal will apply policies and guidance that are appropriate to the circumstances of each case while seeking to preserve procedural fairness and the integrity of the scholarly record.