We believe that a strong academic community is rooted in high ethical standards. Therefore, rEFLections regards publishing ethics as one of the key principles of our practice. We publish only papers adhering to the following ethical standards.

1. Original and ethical research or academic papers without research misconduct of any kinds (i.e. no fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in any stages).
2. Papers that have successfully passed through the whole rEFLections’ review process

The three main parties involving in the rEFLections publication process are required to comply with the ethical standards below.

 

THE EDITORS

Three major ethical policies: Professionalism, Confidentiality, and Integrity are outlined for rEFLections’ editors.

1.  Professionalism

All manuscripts submitted by authors of any race, gender, and social, cultural and economic background or belief will be treated professionally, equally and fairly with high academic standards. The editors will assign qualified reviewers to evaluate the manuscripts and ensure that the manuscripts go through the required publication process in a timely manner, without any prejudice, unfairness or bias. Decision for publication will be based exclusively on quality of the papers and match with the aims and the scope of rEFLections, without any influence from outside parties.

2. Confidentiality

The editors will ensure the confidentiality of the reviewing process. Information about the submitted manuscripts and the review results will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed to any other parties. Only the authors, reviewers or potential reviewers, publisher, and editorial staff will gain access to the documents under the double-blind peer review process.

3. Integrity

The data or information from the manuscripts will not be exploited for the editors’ personal benefit. Manuscripts that fail to conform to rEFLections’ publishing criteria will be treated professionally and confidentially. Constructive feedback, and appropriate suggestions and explanations for not publishing the manuscripts will be provided to the corresponding authors. The unpublished manuscripts will not be used for any other purposes.

 

THE REVIEWERS

The same three major ethical policies: Professionalism, Confidentiality, and Integrity are outlined for rEFLections’ reviewers.

1.  Professionalism

The reviewers will adhere to rEFLections’ double-blind peer review process strictly. Manuscripts will be evaluated professionally without any conflict of interest. (If the reviewers feel that there is a potential conflict of interest, they can declare it to the editors and requests substitution reviewers for the manuscripts.) The reviewers will use their areas of expertise to critically evaluate the manuscripts and provide constructive feedback following rEFLections evaluation guidelines in a timely manner without bias, and objectively report the review results to the editors. If the reviewers feel that they are inadequately qualified to review the assigned manuscript, they will notify the editors at the beginning of the review process. Appropriate suggestions and guidelines for revision or explanations for rejecting the manuscript will be clearly provided to facilitate the editors’ decision for publication and the authors’ academic development.

2. Confidentiality

The reviewers will ensure the confidentiality of the reviewing process. Information about the submitted manuscripts and the review results will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed to any other parties.

3. Integrity

The data or information from the manuscripts will not be exploited for the reviewers’ personal benefit. The unpublished manuscripts will not be used for any other purposes.

 

THE AUTHORS

Academics interested in publishing with rEFLections are required to adhere to the authors’ professional and ethical standards below.

1. Originality and integrity issues

The authors will ensure the originality of the submitted manuscript and that there is no research misconduct of any forms (fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in any stages).  Information or ideas from other sources will be acknowledged properly. Self-plagiarism is also prohibited. Evidence of authors’ awareness of research ethics will also be provided through consent or approval when conducting research involving human participants, especially for vulnerable groups.  The authors may be requested to submit relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data will not be requested.

2. Revision and editing issues

The authors will respond to all feedback and comments addressed by each reviewer and the editors in every stage of the review process. It is also the authors’ responsibility to thoroughly check the accuracy and appropriateness of the language use in the manuscript to ensure that it conforms to academic standard registers. Manuscripts that fail to meet this language requirement will not be accepted for publication.

3. Publication issues

Authors will declare that they willingly give rEFLections permission to publish the manuscript and that the submitted manuscript has never been published or is not under consideration for publishing by other journals. Moreover, a single study must not be split up or salami sliced to increase the quantity of submissions.

4. AI use in the writing process

Any use of AI generative tools must be declared in the manuscript under Acknowledgements.
Authors are allowed to use AI generative tools for language editing/accuracy check purposes only.

 

POLICY ON PLAGIARISM

rEFLections takes pride in publishing and disseminating articles originally written in an academically honest manner. All the manuscripts that we receive will be screened for similarity via the Turnitin software. Plagiarism is a violation of trust and academic ethics and if detected, will be seriously dealt with. 

Contributors are expected to abide by the journal’s following regulations regarding plagiarism.

• Since the nature of each type of article can be different, the level of similarity can therefore be different. Plagiarism will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
• If 10% or more of a submission consists of unattributed large chunks of text which are identical to or near-identical (one or two words replaced by paraphrases) to existing texts, the submission will be investigated by the editorial team for possible plagiarism. For quantitative studies, if there is reason to question the veracity of the data, basic checks, such as whether the data follows Benford's law, will be conducted.
• If plagiarism is detected by the reviewers, the editorial team will be notified and all the review procedures will be immediately suspended. Whether the manuscript in question is to be proceeded further or immediately rejected depends on the severity of plagiarism and the author’s justifications.
• If plagiarism is detected after the article is published, rEFLections reserves the right to have the publication retracted and annulled with immediate effect. The author’s institution will also be notified of the misconduct. Such a retraction will be announced on the journal’s webpage.