Journal of Space Technology (JST) follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers. It is expected of authors, reviewers and editors that they follow the best-practice guidelines on ethical behavior contained therein.
A selection of key points is included below, but you should always refer to the documents listed above for full details.
Duties of Editors
Editors (Editor and Associate editors) evaluate the submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope. The Editor has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers and other editorial board members as appropriate.
Editors will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes. Information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage.
Editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such other requirements as are currently in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Editors will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.
Duties of Reviewers
Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such.
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.
Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.
Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research.
Duties of Authors
Authors have to ensure that all contributions are original and contain unpublished work. Material that has been previously published or accepted for publication is not considered for publication. It is also expected that all authors have significantly contributed to the research.
Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for clarifications, In the case of a first decision of "major revisions", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper. For guidelines on retracting or correcting articles, please click here: https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/policies/article-withdrawal.
Duties of the Publisher
The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by maintaining our own digital archive. For details on Elsevier’s archiving policy, please click here: https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/policies/digital-archive.
Journal has a strict plagiarism screening policy and all papers that have more than 18% similarity index are rejected. For checking the similarity, a paper is passed through turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com). References are excluded from the paper while checking the similarity. All papers go through a double-blind peer review process.
JST is an open-access journal but there is no publication fee or article processing charges for the authors. Please see the license agreement section for further details.