Confidentiality and Protection of Authors Policy
Manuscripts submitted to the our journal are privileged communications and are authors’ private and confidential property. We understand that the authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details.
1. Disclosure of Manuscript
We adhere to confidentiality and ensure such information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, are NOT shared to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings will be refused unless required by court's order or law.
2. Discussion of Manuscript
Public discussion of the manuscript will be strictly refrained between our editorial team and reviewers. Reviewers must NOT appropriate author’s ideas before the manuscript is published.
3. Deletion of Manuscript
It is best practice when a manuscript is rejected totally, the Journal will delete copies of it from their editorial systems unless retention is required by local regulations. Reviewers will also be advised not to retain the manuscript and should destroy all copies of manuscripts (paper or electronic) after submitting their reviews.
4. Retention of Manuscript
When a manuscript is published, our journal will keep copies of the original submission, reviews, revisions, and correspondence for at least three years and possibly in perpetuity, depending on local regulations, to help answer future questions about the work should they arise.
5. Reviewers’ Comments
It is our policy to blind the authors to reviewers. Our journal will not publish or publicise reviewers’ comments without expressed written permission of the reviewers and author. This is to prevent breaching of confidentiality if dishonesty or fraud is alleged.
