Research and Publication Ethics

JOFEB follows the Core Practices and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors, editors and reviewers are expected to comply with the responsibilities described below.

Responsibilities of Authors

• Originality. Submitted manuscripts must be original, must not have been published elsewhere and must not be under consideration by another journal. A manuscript rejected by another journal may be submitted to JOFEB. Studies derived from theses or dissertations, or previously presented at conferences, must be declared on the title page.
• Authorship. All persons listed as authors must have made a substantial contribution to the study and must approve the submitted version. Gift, guest and ghost authorship are not acceptable. Changes to the author list after submission require the written consent of all authors.
• Redundant publication. Publishing the same study, data set and findings in more than one outlet (duplicate or salami publication) is not acceptable.
• Plagiarism and citation. Authors must properly cite the work of others and their own previous work. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and citation manipulation are not acceptable. All submissions are screened for similarity.
• Data integrity. Data must not be fabricated or falsified. Authors should state the sources of their data and may be asked to provide the data and code used in the analysis.
• Ethics committee approval. Studies that collect data from human participants through surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiments or observation require ethics committee approval. The name of the committee, the date and the number of the approval must be stated on the title page and, in anonymized form, in the methodology section. Studies based solely on publicly available secondary data do not require approval; this should be stated in the manuscript.
• Conflict of interest. Authors must disclose any financial, commercial, institutional or personal relationship that could influence the study or its interpretation. If there is none, this must also be stated.
• Funding. All sources of funding must be declared with the name of the funder and the grant number.
• Errors in published work. Authors who discover a significant error in their submitted or published work must promptly notify the editors and cooperate in correcting or retracting the article.

Responsibilities of Editors

• Evaluate manuscripts solely on their scholarly merit, regardless of the authors' gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, institution or political views.
• Keep all information about submitted manuscripts confidential.
• Ensure that the peer review process is fair, timely and double-blind.
• Declare any conflict of interest and step aside from handling manuscripts in which they have such a conflict.
• Investigate allegations of misconduct in line with COPE flowcharts and publish corrections, expressions of concern or retractions when necessary.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

• Review manuscripts objectively and support their comments with arguments and, where appropriate, references.
• Keep the manuscript and the review confidential, and not use any information from it for their own benefit.
• Preserve their anonymity and not contact the authors directly.
• Decline the invitation if they have a conflict of interest or lack the necessary expertise.
• Complete the review within the agreed time or inform the editors if they cannot.
• Inform the editors of any suspected plagiarism, redundant publication or other misconduct.
• Not upload manuscripts under review to generative artificial intelligence tools.

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Authors must disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence tools (such as large language models) in the preparation of the manuscript. The disclosure should name the tool and explain how and for which part of the work it was used. Use for writing assistance is declared on the title page; use in data collection or analysis is described in the methodology section. AI tools cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the work. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy and originality of all content. Basic tools for checking grammar, spelling and references do not require disclosure.

Corrections and Retractions

Errors that do not affect the conclusions of an article are corrected through a published correction notice. Articles found to involve plagiarism, fabricated or falsified data, duplicate publication, authorship misconduct or serious errors that invalidate the conclusions are retracted following the COPE Retraction Guidelines. Retracted articles remain on the website, clearly marked as retracted, together with the retraction notice.

Reporting Misconduct

Suspected research or publication misconduct can be reported to [email protected]. All reports are handled confidentially in line with the COPE guidelines.